This blog post is a transcript from my interview on the "Teacher Approved Tips" Podcast

Hi everyone, I’m Lauren MacLean. I’m a grade 2/3 teacher, part-time outdoor learning consultant, host of the Teach Outdoors podcast, and author of the bestselling children’s picture book Me and My Sit Spot.

My “Teacher Tip” is how to get outdoors and find mathematical connections in nature.

First, to address the elephant in the room – or elephant in the forest…It doesn’t matter if you have a green belt or are surrounded by a concrete jungle. You don’t need to know the names of all the trees and local birds. I believe it’s about being committed to spending time outside, observing, noticing, and listening to what your learners are interested in.

At the beginning of the year, I teach outdoor routines the same way I teach indoor routines. Step by step. One at a time. With visuals. And lots of repetition. We also co-create a classroom charter, and we do the same for our outdoor classroom. We ask ourselves: how do we want to feel and act in these spaces? Once we have routines in place for being outdoors safely and calmly, then we can begin to find ways of connecting our experiences to the curriculum.

For my teacher tip, I think it would be all too easy to list some of my favourite outdoor math activities; however, I’m not sure if that has the same impact as talking about what outdoor routines help support numeracy. Think of the indoor routines that you explicitly teach at the beginning of school, like how to line up at the door, and washing hands for snack.

The three outdoor routines I am going to discuss are Nature walks, circle reflections, and journaling.

And of course, I’ll end with some “nature management” ideas, similar to classroom management tips.

Three Outdoor Routines for Teachers Teaching Math Outdoors

#1 Nature Walks

When we start going on daily nature walks, we usually follow the same route for about a week. This allows us to get into a routine, and practice different things each day without the distractions of a new space. We walk calmly, we stop a lot to discuss observations and ask wonder questions. Some days we go for a walk with no specific intention, other days we have a prompt we want to focus on –like, I wonder how rain changes the way we see our land? Then we can begin having a more mathematical focus on our nature walks. We can count and compare the number of birds flying overhead versus the number of birds we see in the trees. As we walk, we can stop to estimate how many steps it will take to get to the Hemlock tree. We can look for and identify different shapes in nature like circles in a tree trunk or triangles in mountains. Most recently, on our nature walks we have been doing a lot of data collection. For instance, we had the focus to look for and count the number of purple flowers and then created graphs and charts to display the data collected during the nature walk.

#2 Circle reflections

At the end of our nature walks, we always end up at the grass soccer field to gather in a circle. This is when we pass around a nature item, like a pinecone, as a talking piece. Whoever is holding the talking piece may share their observations and questions or they may pass along to the next friend – no one is forced to share but we are all expected to listen respectfully when we are not holding the talking piece. Our circle reflections allow us to dig a bit deeper into any
mathematical topic we may be focusing on. Last week, we were chatting about measurement in relation to the new growth we were observing in our garden beds. During circle, our conversation naturally shifted to a new math focus – patterning. The students had observed the tomato plants have an alternate growth pattern. They wondered how many other plants had a similar pattern.

#3 Journaling

After our circle discussions we usually move onto some sort of activity. And then I try to end each outdoor learning session with a way for the students to document their learning – which helps keep them accountable. This might be making something with natural loose parts (which is anything that has already fallen to the ground, we never pick things that are still growing out of respect) or students could use a blank nature journal to draw and write their reflections. I find this a wonderful, open-ended way for students to document their mathematical thinking. I find having these 3 simple nature routines in place helps us dive into any mathematical concept with ease. They allow us to uncover and discover numeracy and students begin to understand how math and the natural world are connected.

Ok, I quickly wanted to end with two of my favourite Nature Management strategies.

#1 – Have a common gathering place.

We meet at a Western Red Cedar tree when we first head outside, it’s where we gather in-between activities, and where I leave my teacher bag of field guides and Band-Aids.

#2 – Coyote Howl

I use a coyote howl to get the students to return to me. And we practice this repeatedly at the beginning of the year. The students are off doing their scavenger hunts, but I want them to come back to the gathering cedar tree, I do my coyote howl, and the students walk back slowly and calmly.

If you want to learn more about weaving mathematics into your outdoor explorations, listen to this podcast episode with the amazing Janice Novakowski!