The M&M's Brand Counting Book

This is an amazing book to help young children with their counting, colors, and their addition and subtraction skills. By using creative rhymes and the ever-popular chocolate candies, kids can get a better grasp on their numerical skills by using m&ms as a hands-on activity. The book leads children through counting up to twelve, grouping their m&ms into colors, and having them add and subtract the candies they have in front of them.

I definitely enjoyed this book! I remember using it in first grade, and I can remember being so excited to use m&ms for math, especially since we got to eat them afterward! Even now, here in college, I enjoy seeing how simple math can be taught and reviewed in such a fun way.

I would use this in the classroom show more the same way that my first grade teacher did. Give every student a copy of the book, along with a fun-size pack of m&ms, and have them follow along with the book as we work together to solve the problems. When we're finished, we can all eat them! Definitely a fun and rewarding way to learn math! show less

This book is an M&M brand counting book. Using M&Ms, the book teaches counting, colors, shapes, grouping, addition, and subtraction while giving children a sugar buzz. Really the book is no good unless you have M&Ms to use with it. The information inside is all accurate and can help a child learn because the tool is using something their interested in, candy. I feel that it is really no different then any other counting book except that it does use candy. I see it as a blantant commerical for M&M in diguise. Watching my sister use it as she learned to count, I realized that she was more intrested in eating the M&Ms than what was in the book. The book is well written and chunked in ways that children can understand. It is a good math show more skill tool, but I took one star away because of the commercialized nature of the book. There are other books that do exactly the same thing, but don't use M&Ms. This book would be for a young child learning to count and their parent/teacher who needs some chocolate. show less

This book is an M&M brand counting book. Using M&Ms, the book teaches counting, colors, shapes, grouping, addition, and subtraction while giving children a sugar buzz. Really the book is no good unless you have M&Ms to use with it. The information inside is all accurate and can help a child learn because the tool is using something their interested in, candy. I feel that it is really no different then any other counting book except that it does use candy. I see it as a blantant commerical for M&M in diguise. Watching my sister use it as she learned to count, I realized that she was more intrested in eating the M&Ms than what was in the book. The book is well written and chunked in ways that children can understand. It is a good math show more skill tool, but I took one star away because of the commercialized nature of the book. There are other books that do exactly the same thing, but don't use M&Ms. This book would be for a young child learning to count and their parent/teacher who needs some chocolate. show less

McGrath, Barbara Bardieri. The M&M’s Brand Chocolate Candies Counting Book. Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge Publishing, 1994

Characters: Yellow Peanut M&M and Red Milk Chocolate M&M candies

Setting: Not applicable

Theme: Concept book, counting, shapes, colors; numbers; addition; subtraction; counting in sets, early math

Genre: Children’s nonfiction; picturebooks; concept

Golden Quote: “Pour out your candies. Get ready, get set. The counting book is the tastiest yet!”

Summary: “M&M's" chocolate candies are used to introduce children to the numbers 1 through 12, colors, and primary shapes

Audience: Grades K-2

Curriculum ties: math-counting, early addition and subtraction, number sense

Awards: Teachers' Choice Award, 1994

Personal response: show more Great book with so many lessons that teachers use with it such as demonstrating counting to 12, adding, subtracting, and teaching patterns. It also can be used for teaching colors and shapes too alongside with manipulatives that are familiar to most children. While I am not a fan of giving students candy for teaching or for motivational purposes, I would make an exception for this one because it wouldn't have quite the same effect if you used Goldfish crackers or toy blocks. show less

Summary: This book uses the M&Ms candy to teach children simple math like counting to 12 giving them visual aids (the candy) of each number.

Personal Reaction: I feel this is a great way to introduce children to math because lets face it what kid doesn't love candy

Classroom Extension Ideas:
1. You could use different kinds of candy to help the children count their own keeping them interested with the promise of being able to eat it
2. You could give them and M&M inspired math worksheet

I truly enjoyed this book. It was a great way to get the students involved and to interact while reading. I able to bring m&m's in the classroom and followed the instructions in the read aloud from the book. This book not only went over counting but it also helped review colors, shapes, subtracting and adding. Overall, a great book for the classroom!

Summary:
This counting book teaches the numbers 1 through 12. The book displays all six colors of the chocolate candies. Children are also taught the sets of twelve. This book introduces children to simple math!
Personal Reaction:
I loved this book, it was too cute! This is a very informational book for children and fun to read!
Classroom Extension Ideas:
1. I would use this book for a math lesson in my 1st grade class. The students and I would follow the book precisely throughout the lesson.

2. After reading this book to my class I would continue on to a math lesson. I would provide a worksheet and M&M's for my students to complete. After using the candy to complete the worksheet, I would allow my students to eat their M&M's.