This activity is near and dear to my heart. My grandfather
was a nut grower. I remember playing in the basement of his home with a variety
of small metal nut-cracking devices of various sizes; I was in awe of their
mechanical inner-workings.
There were always
nuts at my grandma and grandpa’s house. Now that I’m grown up, nuts are a
pantry staple at my house too. Both my sons (and husband) love them. To make
snack time into math time, I created an activity with a can of Planter’s mixed
nuts.
1. Alphabetize names of nuts.
First, I gave my son six identification cards with photos
and pictures of each variety of nut from the mix. I asked him to put the cards
in order, alphabetizing them by the names of the nuts. (Download the nut ID
cards I made here.)
2. Sort nuts.
Then I put a ½ cup of mixed nuts on a plate and told my son
to sort the nuts, putting each nut in the little bowls I’d placed on top of the ID cards.
3. Tally each kind of nut. Skip count the tally marks.
Next, I poured each type of nut out and then dropped it back
into its bowl, while my son made tally marks on his worksheet. To help him I counted,
“I, 2, 3, 4, cross through on 5.” When done making tally marks, he skip counted
by 5s to determine how many nuts of that kind there were and recorded the
number on his worksheet, answering “how many?” for each type of nut.
4. Write the names of nuts in order from greatest to least number of nuts.
5. Taste each. Write the names of nuts in order from yummiest to yuckiest.
My son took his time
tasting each and judged their flavor critically; I was shocked at how insistent
he was in getting the order right (NOTE: at this point I was thinking, "oh goody, all the brazil nuts are mine, mine, mine!").
When he had completed the activity, he looked at me matter-of-factly and told
me that when his little brother got old enough, I should do this activity with
him; it was THAT cool!
Download the answer sheet I made here and watch your kid(s) GO
NUTS!
What a cool attention to detail promoting activity!
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking up to Learning Laboratory at Mama Smiles =)
I like that there are a lot of elements to this activity. Although, I fear my son would just eat all of the nuts!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great activity that's healthful too. Very creative. (Visiting from over at Pinterest Tuesday).
ReplyDeleteLOVE this!!! Such a unique and fun activity!! Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteNo allergies? Great experiment- love it! Thank you so much for linking up to The Sunday Showcase.
ReplyDelete