Outdoor Maths

Objectives

To learn to use the outdoors to develop mathematical thinking.

Resources

Abacus Workbook 2 | Hit the Button (TopMarks) | Outdoor space | Large plastic hoop

Vocabulary

estimate | amount

Today's Lesson

Introduction

Access the Topmarks website.

EXPLORE - Hit the Button (TopMarks)

Ask your student to select ‘Number Bonds’. They should then select ‘Make 20’ again.

Spend two lots of 60 seconds on this activity, again trying to beat their score each time!

Then ask your student to click ‘Menu’, then ‘Addition within 20’. Repeat the idea of playing for 60 seconds, then trying to beat their score.

Main Activity

Recap on the estimating we did in Lesson 2.

Ask: ‘What does ‘estimating’ mean? What do we do if we estimate?’ (Make a sensible guess.)

Explain that today’s lesson is also about estimating and using this skill.

Outdoors, look at the space around you. Explain to your student that it would be so difficult to estimate and then count, for example, the flowers or leaves. But we can start to improve our estimation skills if we look at just a small section of natural objects in a small space.

Place the large plastic hoop on the ground on the grass or other surface. Ask your student to observe if there are any flowers or leaves inside the hoop.

If there are, can they estimate how many? Then can they count them exactly?

Show your student tally marks like this and tell them what they are called:

Ask them whether they know how tally marks like this might be useful to us today.

Lead them to acknowledging that they can be used to record data, such as the amount of objects that we see in the hoop.

Model how to record them in groups of 5s, so for example, if there were 11 leaves inside the hoop, draw two groups of 5 plus 1 extra tally mark.

Encourage your student to have a go at recording like this.

Find other spaces, and continue to estimate, count and tally the amount of natural objects they can find, for example, leaves, stones or flowers.

Encourage them to keep a tally, so that they can see where the most populated area of the outdoor space was.

Workbook

To help your student build upon their learning from today, please ask them to complete the activities on page 34 of Abacus Workbook 2.

Citations

[1] www.topmarks.co.uk