What a beautiful Autumn day we've had today!!  Sunny and temps in the low 70's made for a great day to take a Nature walk and bring a little Math into Nature and Autumn.   Using a form I found from a fabulous resource, The Busy Life of a Leaf, I had the kids go on a Nature walk and collect information on the colors of the leaves on the trees.

For each color they placed a tally mark on their sheet and then bar graphed them when they were finished.

Hannah had her friend Grace join in with her on the hunt!  They found that yellow and green were the most popular colors of leaves.

Tomorrow I plan to have them try to convert the bar graph into a colorful pie chart.  And by my friend Jennifer's suggestion, I'll first have them try to guess what the pie chart would look like and draw it on their own.  And then teach them how to input the data into Microsoft Excel to make a pie chart, and compare to see just how close they got it!

I would have never thought there would be so many opportunities to teach Math from Nature Study.  With just about every nature subject that we pursued, there was some opportunity to tie it into Math.  It hasn't always come naturally, sometimes it does though.  Math is one of the harder subjects for us in general, so it sometimes takes some planned out thought to see opportunities, but they are there.

The ideas on my list below are all geared toward basic Math skills.  I see them as being quite useful enough to teach the younger grades, or at least be a great supplement to a regular curriculum.  For higher up Math, of course it is necessary to use a curriculum.  For really young ages, for those just beginning to count through Kindergarten, I have found there is definitely plenty in nature to learn the basics from!  I also have to keep in mind that during the winter months, Nature Math will be much harder to do, but I'm sure some things can still be done.

So I'm still choosing to use a curriculum for this subject (for my 4th and 6th graders).  In the recent past we have used Saxon Math, but unfortunately I felt overwhelmed with teaching it. So this next year we are switching to Teaching Textbooks, which I am very excited about since it is more on the computer and less workbooks, and you have a computer instructor.

As I am preparing for the next school year, my plans are to have the kids do Teaching Textbooks for three days a week, and save the other two days for nature related math, logic puzzles, literature math, games,  etc.  My friend Cindy has some excellent ideas for logic puzzles and literature math at her blog under the Math category.

So, today I spent time looking over the things that we had done to tie Math into nature and then further brainstormed other ways that I'll try to incorporate more next schoolyear.  Please feel free to let me know of any ideas that you have and I'll be glad to keep adding to the list!  I'm sure there are many more ideas.

Measuring:

• Planting Seeds (measuring distance between)
• Monitoring Growth of Seeds
• Keeping Track of Growth in other objects (tadpoles, etc.)
• Measuring Objects in Nature (earthworms, leaves, rocks, caterpillars, insects of any kind)
• Measuring Rainfall (not just in inches, also cups, pints, quarts, etc.)
• Measure the circumference of a tree

Tally Marks:

• Use to count anything in nature (tadpoles, trees, mushrooms, flowers, birds, etc.)

Venn Diagram:

• Use for comparison of two objects in nature (toads/frogs; two different leaves, trees, flowers, birds, etc.)

Graphing:

• Leaf Collection (by type - toothed lobed, etc.)
• Trees in Yard (by type)
• Flowers (by types)
• Birds (by type) 
• Rain or Snow (days over the last month)
• Temperatures (over the last month)
• Types of Clouds (over a week or more)

Probability:

• After graphing how many days of rain in one particular month, figure out the probability for rain happening this time next year.  The same could be done for temperatures, sunny vs. cloudy days, and snowfall.

Counting and Addition/Subtraction:

• Counting anything in nature works (I taught my toddler to count to ten using things like acorns, caterpillars, clouds, birds, and worms!)
• Things like nuts, rocks, and small sticks work great for doing addition and subtraction.

Multiplication/Division:

• Again using small objects to sort into groups.

Patterning:

• Plant flowers or vegetables in patterns.
• Observe certain things in nature such as box turtle shells, seashells, and insects and you will quickly find fantastic patterns.

Money:

• Yes, you can even play store in nature!  Acorns, special pretty rocks, bugs, dandelions all come at a price (well, ok, the dandelions should be free!).
• Give the kids a challenge:  give them a list of flowers and/or vegetables, each with a price, and give them a set amount of money they have to spend.  And have them design a garden on a piece of paper without going over budget, and without having too much money left over.

Well, that's the end of my brainstorming list!  I'm sure I'll be adding to it as the year goes on.  I'll keep this post linked on my side bar under the "How Else Are We Learning" header.

I'm adding this section for a place for your great ideas!

Laura from The World is Our Classroom reminded me of this:

The observation of a ladybettle is a great lesson in Symmetry!  Awesome Laura!  Thanks!

Julie from Forty Acres, A Husband, and Three Kids gave a great idea:  "When planting our vegetable garden, I had my oldest daughter graph the garden by size and amount of rows with graph paper."  Thanks Julie!

Kris from Musing Mom gave some awesome ideas and websites.  Thanks Kris!

Math and science are siblings, born from Nature as created by God, so I find this the easiest subject to tie into nature studies. Here are some more ideas:

Perimeter and area, which introduces multiplication.

Ratio, proportion, and algebra using Thales tree shadow:
http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/thales.htm

Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio are everywhere in nature (you could even calculate golden ratios with algebra): http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/EMAT6680/Parveen/Fib_nature.htm

Here's a lesson plan from Discovery.com on Numbers in Nature:
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/programs/numbersnature/

 

Since we changed up our homeschooling methods a bit, we've been doing less Saxon textbook math (about 3 days a week), and more real life math, literary math and computer games the other days.  In my internet search for good online math games, I've come across some really great sites:

http://funschool.kaboose.com/arcade/math/index.html

http://www.funbrain.com/

http://www.gamequarium.com/math.htm

www.brainormous.com

 www.mathplayground.com (thanks Tammy!)

www.coolmath-games.com

These are my favorites so far that I have found.  I keep these sites bookmarked on my favorites bar at the top of our internet page so the kids can have very easy access to them.