M&M sorting

I was trying to think of a fun way to do some sorting exercises with the girls.  Seeing as we are on the letter Mm I figured M&Ms would be fun to sort.  The other night I came up with the idea for the following sorting tray and spent some time making one each for the girls (instead of sleeping). 

I gathered together:

a cereal box for each girl

construction paper in the colors of M&Ms

scissors

hot glue gun

glue stick

a can to trace to make circles

M&Ms

I cut the back off the cereal box

I then traced and cut out the circles

and glued them in the box with the glue stick

I outlined the circles with the hot glue gun to give them  each a ridge.

Today the girls got to sort 1/4 cup (a serving) of M&Ms.  I measured them out and placed them in half of the top of an egg carton. (Did you know those egg cartons are very versatile?)

It was really interesting watching the girls sort.  Amelia took one randomly and found where it needed to go.  Tabitha would start a color, find all the M&Ms of that color before moving on to the next color.

Then I made some graphs so we could see which color had the most M&Ms. I just drew some lines to make 6 colomns and traced circles up the columns.  The girls just had to place the candy on the circles.  Tabitha caught on really quickly.  Amelia needed some extra help, but that was expected. 



Update:
I am also linking up to

Carnival of Math Play