Finding new ways to keep children engaged in their learning activities can be a difficult task for educators and parents. Learning can be challenging and sometimes boring for kids who have trouble taking an interest in the topic they are learning. So what better way is there to encourage children to learn, than incorporating their favorite sweet treats into the lessons? Candy of all different types, shapes, and sizes are used to teach children concepts of sensory play, help develop their math skills, and are even used to help them create cool science experiments.
Using Candy For Sensory Play
Sensory play is very important in developing young children. Learning about their five senses of sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing can be an exciting time for kids. Some of the ways children learn their senses is through the use of a sensory bin or creating sensory play activities. Now imagine adding fun, colorful, and tasty candy into the mix. Their senses are bound to explode!
Candy Sensory Bin: Worried about the children eating all the candy dumped into a sensory bin? Try this Willy Wonka sensory bin idea filled with unique items to represent the candy.
Cotton Candy Sensory Play: Try out this recipe to make play dough that looks just like cotton candy, but make sure it is only for playing and not for eating.
21 Candy Corn Sensory Play Ideas: Get in the spooky spirit with these fun candy corn themed sensory play ideas!
Candy Cane Sensory Play Activity: Children can experience Christmas cheer while taking part in this fun candy cane sensory play activity.
Chocolate Sensory Play Ideas: Who doesn’t love chocolate? Kids will have a blast playing with these chocolate themed sensory play ideas.
Tasty Science Projects
Science can be a fun topic for kids to learn about and experiment with. They love to mix formulas, make things explode, and watch the magic of science happening before the eyes. Learning about science with candy can only make experimenting more fun!
10 Totally Awesome Candy Science Experiments for Kids: Children can learn about science topics like the rock cycle, density, and mixing chemical potions with help from some of their favorite brands of candy.
Candy Science: Explore science by building candy towers, try candy dissolving activities, and find out what makes certain types of candy “pop”.
The Chemistry Behind Candy Making: Learn all about the sugar molecules, recipes, and steps that goes into the science of candy making with this site.
Candy Chemistry: Have fun playing with your food and learning all about chemistry with these fun candy experiments and activities.
Colorful Candy Kitchen Science: Try this fun Skittles Chromatography experiment out while learning necessary science skills.
Count Candy and Explore Math Skills
Learning and developing math skills can sometimes be difficult for children. Concepts such as counting money, adding, division and multiplication can be made easier if lessons are fun for the kids learning them. Using candy to teach math skills can be a fun and exciting way to keep children’s attention and help them understand these difficult concepts better.
Fun Candy Math Books: Take a look at some of these fun and educational math books that incorporate candy to help them learn.
Candy Stacker: Answer math questions correctly and build a candy tower as high as you can go with this fun interactive game.
Candy Cashier: Help monsters buy candy from your store by helping them count their money!
Candy Math All About Decimals: Using M&M’s kids can learn about adding and subtracting decimals to the hundreths place.
Turn Leftover Candy Into Fun Math Practice: Use your leftover candy to learn about pie fractions, sorting and graphing, and other basic math skills.
More Candy Games and Activities
Candy Learning Ideas: Incorporate leftover candy into these learning lessons to make it fun and exciting for kids!
Learning With Candy for Preschoolers: Learn school lessons from social studies, art, math, and science by using candy in fun ways.
Rock Candy Science Experiment: Here you can find a wide variety of different rock candy to experiment with.
Peppermint Candy Cane Science Experiment: Watch what happens when you dip candy canes into different temperatures of water with this experiment.
Chocolate Coins: Using chocolate and candy coins to learn money concepts can be fun and tasty.
Candy Fractions: Understanding fractions can be made easier with this fun candy method.
Jelly Beans: Use your sense of taste and try blindfolded taste testing games to decide on what flavors you are trying.
Candy Science Fair Projects: Try out some of these fun kitchen science experiments with candy as the main ingredient.
Candy Science for Kids- M&M Experiment: In this experiment try different science methods to get the M logo off of M&Ms.
Candy Heart Experiments for Valentine’s Day: Celebrate Valentine’s Day by playing and experimenting with the traditional heart candies.
