Smarties Years 1 - 6

Summary Taken from page 16, Calculators, Children and Mathematics, the report of the Calculator Aware Number project, this activity involves many aspects of number, chance and data collection. It refers to a sugar-coated chocolate called Smarties, similar to M & Ms in the USA, but is easily modified to coloured counters in a box or bag (with no risk of the maths materials being eaten before the activity is completed!). In part Smarties is an investigation and in part an activity suitable for threading as described in Variations & Extensions below. Materials One packet of Smarties per pair Recording paper One calculator per person

Figure 3.6, page 17, Calculators, Children and Mathematics

Procedure One teacher invented a game in which negative numbers were likely to turn up naturally, The game was called 'Smarties', and the rules were as follows: Before starting this game, children count and sort a tube of Smarties, and make a block graph of the colours of the Smarties. Suppose there are 31 Smarties in the tube. Each child receives 31 points to start the game. The Smarties are returned to the tube at the beginning of the game. They are taken out one by one, and each child records a guess as to which colour will come out next. Correct guesses score 2 points. Incorrect guesses lose 2 points. The teacher wrote about what happened: Number-lines and calculators are available for this game. Children are encouraged to consult the graph and to work out a probable colour to appear next. They often record when all the Smarties of one colour are out. A tube containing 31 Smarties is useful; it gives experience of moving up and down the number-line on odd numbers. Negative numbers appear naturally, so the number-line should stretch below zero. Much of the calculation of scores will be mental, but calculators and number-lines are available for checking.

Content addition facts beyond 10 addition facts to 10 data: collecting, recording, displaying data: interpretation estimating number likely, less likely and unlikely events negative numbers number line - ordering, operations operations - whole number problem solving properties of number properties of zero recording - calculator subtraction tallying

Variations & Extensions

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