Few children dislike candy, making it an ideal snack to use for a math lesson. Use small candy-coated chocolates in assorted colors to reinforce a variety of math skills. Give children a handful of the candy in a plastic bag and have them estimate the amount in the bag. Then you can have them count the candy and sort it by color, noting how many of each there are. Then have the students solve basic math problems by asking questions such as: What is the total amount of green and red candy combined? Have older students figure out the percentages of the different colors of candy. For an activity using mini chocolate bars, have the students take a class or grade-wide poll of their favorite candy bar. Have the students work together in groups to create a graph, taping the small chocolates to poster board to represent the bars on the graphs.
Because of the round shape of pizza pies, they can help teach children about fractions and geometry. Towards the end of a unit, treat your kids to a pizza party, but use the pizzas to teach first. Have the children take turns slicing the pizzas in halves, fourths, thirds, or eighths. Take away slices of pizza and quiz the students on how much of the pizza is left. For reinforcing geometry with older students, have them measure the circumference of the pizza and cut the pizzas in a variety of angles such as at a 90-degree or 45-degree angle. Reward the children with the pizza, making sure that everyone gets an equal share -- which you can also have the students create an equation to figure out.
Peel and divide oranges into small sections of fruit and use them to teach basic addition and subtraction to young children. For example, you can ask them to count the fruit, then take some away, or let them eat those sections and have them count what's left. You can also cut an orange or grapefruit in half and have the children count the sections before dividing them. Another activity you can do with small fruit such as blueberries is to have the children close their eyes and listen to figure out how many you are dropping in a bucket. The children can guess by holding up the amount they believe it is. Then pour out the blueberries and count them to see if they guess right. Fruits such as grapes, sliced bananas, and apple slices are also ideal for counting and simple math.
Animal crackers, cheese crackers, pretzels and dry cereal can serve as visual aids when you teach counting, sorting and basic math. For animal crackers you can have the children sort by animals and count how many of each animal are there. Teach patterns by mixing a variety of dried snacks together and giving each child a bowl. Draw a pattern on the board such as two cheese crackers, one pretzel, two cheese crackers and another pretzel and have them recreate it. Ask them if they know what should come next in the pattern. Add additional snacks and patterns to make it more challenging as they catch on. You can also teach basic money math using a dry snack such as pretzels as currency. For instance you can play "store" with the children with a variety of stickers worth a different amount of pretzels. You can also have the children trade stickers and pretzels.