Taking a Moment

This activity is from our March activity box and inspired by Peter Carnavas’ book The Last Tree in the City. This is an outdoor maths activity to encourage our children to look at the world around them and the nature within it. When we stop and really look we are able to see so much wildlife around us.

This activity not only teaches us all to appreciate the natural world around us but teaches counting and data handling skills in a fun and hands on way.

This is a great activity to do at different points in the year to see what differences we can spot.

Set Up

This activity is super simple to set up. I made this chart from my 4 year old niece to use to record what she saw. I drew the pictures alongside the words to encourage her to record her data as independently as possible. If your child is older the pictures may not be necessary,

We put on our wellies and coats, used a book as a clipboard and we were ready to explore.

It didn’t take long before we had spotted our first insect and my niece recorded what she had spotted on her data sheet. She felt very grown up using her ‘clipboard’ to record her finds.

If your child is older they can record what they find using a tally chart.

When we got home we added up what we had seen and my niece wrote down each number.

A really simple and practical way to introduce a child to data handling whilst appreciating also nature.