The M&M backpack

The M&M backpack is one of the children's favorites! I found this extremely cool M&M backpack at a garage sale but a standard backpack or tote bag works just as well. I included 2 M&M counting books, a baggie of paper M&M's in different colors, a book of graph paper, a box of 8 crayons and the instruction sheet. You can also include a snack size bag of M&M's.

The objective of this backpack is for the children to use M&M's (either the paper cut outs or the actual candies) to create a graph of colors and a pattern. Each child uses one page graph paper in the activity book to graph the colors of M&Ms determining which colors are most and least common. Then the child uses the M&Ms to create a pattern and draws the pattern on the back of the graph. If actual candies are being used the child can eat them when the activity is complete.
For the direction sheet go to:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0ATlkCqJBnpDrZGY1dG43NmJfM2Z4MnduaDdz&hl=en

For the Spanish translation use:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0ATlkCqJBnpDrZGY1dG43NmJfMmNqcmM1emR4&hl=en