How to Do Outdoor Math Through Play
Learning the Mathematics of Nature
It was fall 2010 at Heathcote Community in Freeland, MD. I had opened an in-person nature-based homeschool program for the residential and local multi-age kids. We spent HOURS per program day outdoors.
CLICK HERE and check out the video today entitled, How To Do Math Outdoors With Play.
It was super easy, convenient and enticing to step outside of the door of the learning center into nature on 112 acres of beautiful wooded valley complete with a lazy bubbling stream meandering through the community.
Fall 2010 Heathcote Art & Science Homeschool children taking off for a hike into the wilds of the Heathcote forest.
We were out there in all manner of weather including the rain. We simply dressed well for whatever outdoor occasion we were bent on.
We could just open the door of the old grain mill where our learning center was, and there we were surrounded by this gorgeous farmland dotted with cute little houses, gardens, the Heathcote stream, tall trees, flowers, and oh, we had a pond!
Heathcote was truly an outdoor learning paradise. I never facilitated children in a more beautiful rural setting.
On one particular day in early spring of 2011, it was rainy and all five us happened to all have blue raincoats. We put them on before emerging outdoors and walked in the rain along the stream path to a special fort area. I jokingly called us “the Blue Crew.” The kids got a kick out of that.
Together that early spring, the children and I created a lean-to fort beside the stream. It was in a beautiful private, quiet, forested area. We spent hours creating natural paints from the soil and plant matter. The weather was quite agreeable. Ursa, one of my students, created letters and numbers using rocks and trees. She created the letter C out of leaves and rocks.
You might be wondering with the letter C has to do with math in nature. Consider the numbers of leaves that were used in creating this natural C.
Ursa’s Andy Goldsworthy letter C.
Fast forward a decade. I'm alone in the Mojave desert Eastern Sierra with my dog Rochelle Claire. We were living out of a campervan. I had an epiphany. I was going to jump outside of my van (okay, no, I actually stepped lightly outside of it) and write numbers in the desert’s sandy soil.
Here’s my creation in the Mohave desert’s sandy soil.
So, I did!
I noticed what an interesting calming effect it had on me to put my bare pointer finger into the moist sand and create numbers. Kids typically are uninhibited about touching and putting their hands in dirt. It's a great practice to get outside at the very least in your backyard and get dirty.
Not only is it fun to make mud pies, but, actually drawing in the dirt with fingers and sticks is a great way to connect numbers with the earth.
Want to see the video of it?
CLICK HERE and check out the video today entitled, How To Do Math Outdoors With Play.
I wrote with my right pointer finger, 1, 2, 3. Then, on the fly, without planning exactly what I was going to do, I picked up some granite rocks nearby and created the numbers, 4, 5, and 6.
Next, I looked around the area and found a long stick, about 2 feet in length that had clear line segments in it.
It was perfect for practicing counting, but, I had to be careful less the loose bark segments fall off the stick before I had the chance to count them.
This is a living example of how you can inspire your kids to “play with math” in nature.
Watch my simple demonstration and they’ll be off finding a thousand other connections that have to do with their natural environment and math.
The exciting thing is that math is really everywhere around us. Children learn math best through playing with it. Nature Affords bountiful opportunities for children to play with math. Given ample time freedom, children will make all kinds of connections with math. Below are some examples of what kids can be found inventing during free outdoor play.
Try some of these nature math connecting activities starting right in your own backyard.
10 Outdoor Math in Nature Ideas:
- Making Mud pies - sizes and fractions
- Counting nuts
- Counting leaves and sticks
- Constructing fairy homes with natural materials: sticks, stones, leaves, mud, moss - length, width, height of homes
- Counting birds
- Measuring tree girths
- Looking for backyard patterns in nature
- Finding symmetry in nature: leaves, trees, animals
- Looking for Fibonacci numbers in nature
- Measuring the length of a puddle splash
After exploring nature's math in your own backyard, go explore math activities that you can discover in your local neighborhood parks.
Conclusion
Here we explored some simple math in nature activities that homeschoolers can try starting right in a backyard.
These ideas can help you create a superb math in nature learning environment that will naturally inspire kids to practice math. Outdoor nature math make it so much more fun and easier for kids to learn and apply in everyday life. It allows children to more freely problem solve using math because it's seen as useful in the world around them.
Try out some outdoor math together with your kiddos!
Don't be afraid to get some dirt under your fingernails.
Talk Soon,
NatureGlo
