How yummy is this activity! Oh yeah…and it’s a fun way to practice beginning number facts.

I use the double six dominoes, but it’s easy to diferentiate by providing only dominoes that represent the facts you want students to work on. In other words, if you have a student who is still struggling with adding one to a given number, then use only the dominoes that have one dot (pip) on one side. For example, five dots on one side and one dot on the other would represent the fact 5 + 1 = 6.

As your child is working with the dominoes, ask them if 5 + 1 would be the same as 1 + 5. This is a great way to sneak in what math teachers call the commutative property of addition – the orders the addends are added does not matter. This begins building the foundation for algebra.

Students choose the domino they want to make with the graham crackers, icing, and M&Ms. They spread the icing and then and use the domino to help them place their M&Ms. This is not an easy task (hand/eye coordination, recreating a design) so don’t worry if their graham cracker domino doesn’t quite look like their real domino.

Ask them to state, or even write, the matching equation that goes with their domino. A number line can be used to help add the total number of M&Ms.

Then, mmmmmm, they get to eat their hard work!