Have some yummy fun graphing candy

Need a fun and delicious toddler math activity? You’ve got to try graphing candy. It’s a simple, silly way for toddlers to play with food and learn a little something new.

Graphing is a fantastic toddler activity and a surprisingly easy concept to introduce. My toddlers and I play with graphs all the time, and I decided to make a candy graph with our Halloween treats.

Graphing candy is so easy to set up!

Materials
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• Candy
• Tape
• Excited toddlers

I decided to make this a large scale activities and taped out a graph on our family room floor. I used blue painter’s tape – which worked great.

Starting your candy graph

With my two toddlers, I picked out four candy types to graph and made sure to have a varying number of each type.

Task 1: Sort the candy.

My tots (3 years old and 21 months old) sorted the candy into the four columns. Once they finished, I lined the candy bars evenly just as they would be in a traditional graph.

Task 2: Answering questions about the graph

Asking and answering questions about the graph is the meat and potatoes of this activity. Here’s a sample of some of the questions I asked my kids:

• How many candy bars are in each column?
• How many candy bars are there altogether?
• Which candy bar do we have the most of?
• Which candy bar do we have the least of?
• How many more Snickers bars are there than Butterfingers?

Activities like this have so much longevity – I used to do this very activity with first graders!

If you don’t have a variety of candy bars lying around, consider graphing the contents of an M&M or Skittles packet.

This may be a simple activity but it’s a toddler activity that packs a punch: sorting, organizing a set of data, answering questions about a graph, using 1:1 correspondence, etc.

Graphing is a great easy toddler math activity and one of my favorites!

Try graphing candy at your house – it’s a yummy, fun way to play with math.