Sunday, April 25, 2010

Using Nature in Our School Room

We like to hunt for treasures any time we're outside.  We found lots of these under our crepe myrtle tree - so many that they turned into a manipulative.

I wrote numbers 0 to 10 on popsicle sticks and we took turns drawing a stick and counting out the number of  seed pods.  I got this idea from Montessori Beginnings, but I turned it into a game.

Later, when Bear is more inclined, we will use this game to teach addition - choose two popsicle sticks, count out each and then figure out the total.  I guess we were kind of indirectly already doing this, but Bear wasn't very interested in "adding" her total number of seed pods.

How do you incorporate nature in teaching your child?



4 comments:

  1. We haven't really incorporated it beyond science and general observation. But, we could easily do the same thing with acorns in the fall and winter. My kids pick them up by the dozens.

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  2. I saw those at Montessori Beginnings and thought of doing it also because they were so cute. It might be fun to incorporate patterns and even/odd with them.

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  3. Great game. We sometimes do math hunts when daughter has to pick certain number of objects. We arrange them in rows (very early addition/multiplication) and discuss how 2 rows of 3 are the same 6 as 3 rows of 2. We pick an object and count how many of those we count.

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  4. Me encanto este juego!!! motor fino, math, orden numerico.... naturaleza!!!! wow de todo un poco!!!

    Gracias!!

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