I Want Candy!

CANDY COATED FESTIVAL: As regular/longtime readers may recall, last month MPA held a Corn Festival, where the day's theme was corn facts, fun and food. The kids still talk about it frequently, and a couple of weeks ago, CJ started lobbying for an M&M's Festival. Well, after much ado, today was the day.

LOOK THE PART: The first thing we had to do was get the gear ready for CJ and Annabelle to get into the spirit. So, before the sun and kids were up, I had to reconstruct a green M&M costume we found months ago at a garage sale, and I had to (dramatically) size down some red M&M's lounge pants I found at the Goodwill outlet last week (for around a quarter!). I also "staged" our work table with a host of M&M props (toys, decorations, candy). When they awoke the kids slipped into their 'uniforms' and were raring to go! I surprised them with M&M's pancakes for breakfast. CJ loved them and suggested I post the recipe to the M&M's Web site. :)

GAME ON: We started our brain work with a fun and challenging game on the M&M's Web site, "Flip the Mix." It was a grid of dozens of M&M's and the challenge was to create at least 3 of the same color in a row or column by swapping horizontally or vertically adjacent M&M's. It was harder than you might imagine. The three of us worked together, and Annabelle had a real knack for it.
TAKING STOCK: The first tablework I had the kids do was count (6) and list (almond, milk chocolate, peanut, peanut butter, dark chocolate, holiday mix) the different types of M&M's we would be working with today.I created a worksheet with four columns: Type of M&M, Guess Rank of Weight; Actual Weight; Actual Rank in Weight. CJ guessed the Peanut butter M&M bag was heaviest, Bee guessed Holiday Mix. They then listed their descending order guesses. Next, we carefully weighed each bag (on a postal scale). Based on those numbers, the kids recorded the actual rank by size (Holiday Mix was biggest).

ART IN THE ROUND: For our creativity fix, I had the kids turn a paper plate into an oversized M&M in a favorite color (pink for Miss B and red for CJ).

M&MOVIES: We turned to the Internet for some M&M enlightenment. On YouTube, we found video from M&M World in Las Vegas. There, they have M&Ms in every color of the rainbow and then some, as well as a stunning array of M&M branded merchandise.

We also watched a cool M&M's ad: River of Chocolate and "went" (with Martha Stewart, no less) on a tour of a factory where they make customized M&Ms.

My favorite video was of an M&M's sorter some geeks made which was able to sort the candy by color with 98 percent accuracy at a speed of 2 M&M's per second.

TALLY HO!: It was time to do some M&M sorting of our own. We opened the ginormous bag of peanut butter M&Ms. I poured them out onto the table and the kids separated them by color, with a goal of seeing how they ranked based on frequency of color. We counted them by fives, and the kids used tally marks with proficiency. As it turned out, there were 46 brown, 37 yellow, 29 orange, 28 blue, and 27 of each green and red. Based on these tallies, the kids ranked them using ordinals (first through sixth).

After breaking for lunch (M&M yogurt, of course) Next, we visited the M&M's Web site where CJ and Annabelle made M&M's to look like themselves. It was pretty sophisticated software. For instance, you don't just pick your arms and legs, you pick the limbs and then can modify their length and color.

ALLEY CATS: For P.E. (we had to burn some of those M&Ms off!) it was out in the alley. The kids rode scooters and ran around with Kirby while I raked wet leaves.

TALE OF THE TONGUE: This afternoon, it was time for the long awaited blind taste test. We devised a sophisticated :) rating system: Two thumbs up for "reeeeally good," one thumb up for "like it," hands flat on the table for "OK," one thumb down for "not so great" and two thumbs down for "ewwwwwwwww."

I had the kids wearing knit caps pulled down over their eyes as a blindfold. Peanut butter, milk chocolate and dark chocolate both got two thumbs up from both (in fact, Annabelle voted two thumbs up on 'em all). CJ gave peanut and almond M&M's two thumbs down. They guessed the correct flavors 80 percent of the time.

MAIN MEAL: No, M&M's were NOT on the menu for dinner (I have my limits). As an alternative, I let the kids make M&M-shaped pizzas. They 'branded' them with an M out of olives. Dessert was an M&M ice cream treat. Our festival was complete.

& A BONUS: The kids learned what an ampersand is today!