M&M ex-change

Today every child received $.60 in change. They each had 10 pennies, 1 nickle, 2 dimes, and 1 quarter. I played the merchant selling M&M's. Each child counted out pennies and M&M's. Occasionally, I made them count by 2s. They also had to figure how much the different groups of coins equaled. It was funny just how fast they figured out what those coins were worth when they knew they were receiving M&Ms. Oh they had me buy back and sell the M&M' over and over. As I began to stop the game they naturally began to divide the M&Ms by color groups. I think they would still be at it if I would have let them. This activity was inspired by the books The M&Ms Brand Chocolate Candies Counting Book by Barbara Barbieri McGrath and a great Jelly belly book about making change. Later when they eat the M&Ms we will add and subtract the groups and we will graph the colors to see which color there was more of. They sure had fun and so did I. They learned a lot too. Maybe next time we go to the store they will not struggle to figure out the change.