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Welcome
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0-1: Welcome Note from Victoria 30 minLecture1.1
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0-2: Good Things to Know 30 minLecture1.2
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0-3: Why Math Outdoors? 30 minLecture1.3
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0-4: Ideas to Kick Start Your Math Garden 30 minLecture1.4
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0-5: Supply List for Your Mini Math Outdoors Kit 30 minLecture1.5
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Module 1: Math Gardens that Feed
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1-0: Welcome to Gardens that Feed 30 minLecture2.1
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1-1: Time 30 minLecture2.2
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1-2: Patterns, Shapes, & Symmetry 30 minLecture2.3
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1-3: Numbers 30 minLecture2.4
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1-4 : Measurement 30 minLecture2.5
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1-5: Data Collection 30 minLecture2.6
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1-6: A Growing Math Garden that FeedsLecture2.7
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Module 2: Math Gardens as Outdoor Learning Stations
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2-0: Welcome to Gardens as Outdoor Learning Stations 30 minLecture3.1
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2-1: Time: Sun Dial 30 minLecture3.2
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2-2: Patterns, Shapes, & Symmetry: Music Gardens 30 minLecture3.3
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2-3: Numbers: Miniature Gardens 30 minLecture3.4
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2-4: Measurement: Mud Kitchens 30 minLecture3.5
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2-5: Data Collection: Water Wall 30 minLecture3.6
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2-6: A Growing Garden of Outdoor Learning StationsLecture3.7
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LIVE WORKSHOP #1Lecture3.8
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Module 3: Math Gardens that Attract Wildlife
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3:0: Welcome to Gardens that Attract Wildlife 30 minLecture4.1
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3-1: Time and Food for Wildlife 30 minLecture4.2
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3-2: Patterns, Shapes and Symmetry & Cover for Wildlife 30 minLecture4.3
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3-3: Numbers and Water for Wildlife 30 minLecture4.4
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3-4: Measurement and Places to Raise Young Wildlife 30 minLecture4.5
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3-5: Data Collection and Sustainable Practices for Wildlife 30 minLecture4.6
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Module 4: Math Gardens for Art and Beauty
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4-0: Welcome to Gardens for Art and Beauty 30 minLecture5.1
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4-1: Time & Labyrinths 30 minLecture5.2
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4-2: Patterns, Shapes, and Symmetry & The Flower Garden 30 minLecture5.3
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4-3: Numbers & Art in the Garden 30 minLecture5.4
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4-4: Measurement & Sculpture 30 minLecture5.5
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4-5: Data Collection & Performance Stages 30 minLecture5.6
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LIVE WORKSHOP #2Lecture5.7
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44 Comments
I’m taking this class to deepen my engagement with the activities I already facilitate, and get creative with new ideas to help students pursue their natural wonder!
It would delight me to engage my OWN math curiosity! (I’m one of those “not a math person” people…)
LOVE THIS!!! Thanks for sharing and welcome!
I would like to have a garden that promote math learning. I saw in the movie that garden can be in symmetry or like a maze with different shapes of shrubs, tall and short colored patterns on flowers, and layers of flowerbeds.
My intent is to get back to the joy I felt outdoors when I was a kid and share that with the kids in my care. I remember being outside all day everyday when I was young and I’d like to bring some of those same type of experiences to my class. The only barriers I think are weather and the fact that more and more I’ve been getting parents who don’t want their child to get dirty. I’ll never understand how anyone could think a child could play and enjoy themselves and really dig into (no pun intended) child’s play without getting dirty.
Love it!
My intention for taking this class is to make learning math enjoyable. For me I hated math I always felt that I was horrible at math and to this day I still think I am. My dad is a CPA and he cannot understand why I hate number so much, since he loves them so much. But I never had an experience that was enjoyable when it came to math. If children decide at this young age that they enjoy it they’re going to be our future math teachers and scientists, because they had a great experience.
What was surprising for me to learn was how much more I could’ve done to support my staff to make outdoor math more enjoyable for them to want to teach. Can’t always be flashcards for learning, most children don’t even learn that way.
Terrific!! I’m glad you are here.
My intent is to ensure that teachers are providing a more hands on and engaging approach to math and learning in the outdoors. We have already started a raised garden bead, a mud kitchen and water ramps and wheels. However, I do have some staff that do not bring out some of the supplies due to mess, or no extra clothes etc… This is something I am working very hard to change.
Awesome!
Intention: to create a comforting no stress area for the children to tend to with limited assistance from adults. Although, with being closed I’ve started planting the garden of veggies it will be here for the children when they return. Being from an urban area many children do not understand where their food actually comes from. My breakthrough would be how to grow the most food in a limited area. I envy those that have green thumbs growing vertical.
Math gardens are most wonderful when children become excited about the plant growth and fruits of their labor are harvested as well as shared in the group.
What gets in the way would be my ability to actually grow the plants to maturity.
Teaching math outdoors would increase the hands on particle application of daily living skills. It would combine science and math.
My children tend to falter when it comes to bugs. So insects and bugs would be included in the gardening
Fear most is the weather
learning math was difficult but it was made easier with particle application.
Children are explorers and curious by nature. As a teacher I would harness that natural part of their personalities and get them started on the path.
Awesome intentions.
I think I am taking this class to polish my ideas of outdoor math.Also I feel that outdoor hands on math activities can provide exercise and chance to get up and move. I also feel there will be much more engagement and participation of children when doing outdoor math. My manifesto will be teaching math outdoor will be much easier because children will feel fresh and less stressed outdoor and can get a lot of sun and light. It will be math with science both experiences.
Math gardens are most successful when created with intent. Being unsure or having self doubt could get in the way of being able to create a math garden yourself. Teaching math outdoors would probably be easier if there were more access for everyone to outdoor areas. Educators probably fear the unknown or fear leaving their comfort zone of teaching math “traditionally” and this could hold them back. Me personally i hated learning math. It always felt so difficult and i had difficulty picking up on it. I want to bring a different approach for me, my students and my son.
You hit the nail on the head!! Brilliant.
Welcome! The official start date for this new session is Monday.
#1: my INTENTION is expand my curriculum to more and more outdoor activities and thinking out of box – to teach math in a new way.
#2: The biggest breakthrough for me this week is to squeeze a block of time to sit down and study. I don’t have green thumb and basically all plants I ever have at home were all dead. But i want to challenge myself by going out the comfort zone and learning something new.
#3:
Math gardens are most successful when kids are able to do hands on activities to grow a math garden and learn math while not knowing they are learning math.
What gets in the way is my lack of confidence with gardening.
I, myself is good at math, so at the beginning I don’t understand why my daughter and other kids are scare of math. For the last 10 years, I have been trying to teach and inspire kids’ curiosity toward math with different fun activities. But have never thought of a math garden. So I am very excited to take this master class.
Great reflections!! Looking forward.
#1 . I love the outdoors! As a child I was always outside exploring and playing. I want to be able to bring back to my center, ways to explore the outdoors while incorporating math. How to use the outdoors as a learning platform.
#2. As I am not a huge green thumb , I would like to learn ways to get children involved outdoors and how to create a math garden on our playground with no place to dig. I also want to see how to engage and teach my staff to enjoy the outdoors as well.
#3
1. Math gardens are most successful when children can explore and engage while learning at the same time.
2.What gets in the way is not knowing how to implement it.
3. Teaching math outdoors would be much easier if everyone would engage, teacher and children.
4. My children tend to falter when…
5. What educators fear most about teaching outdoors is children wanting to free play and run around instead of engaging.
6. What do I witness often? What do I believe about it? I children losing interest if not fully engaged
7. What is my own personal experience with learning math? My personal experience with learning math was a lot of worksheets and very little engagement.
Wonderful! Great reflections.
I was surprised to see how big a barrier I am to myself. I will be surprised and delighted if I leave the course with a positive attitude towards myself. I will be delighted if I can create the possibility of creating a garden!
Love this!!!
#1: Write an INTENTION:
I am on a journey to incorporate more nature and outdoor learning into my preschool classroom. Math and science are a huge part of what we teach and I am looking forward to learning more about Math outdoors!
#2: Ask the question, “What would be a breakthrough for me this week?” Then ask yourself, “What would surprise and delight me in my work in this Master Class?”
Figuring out a way to add an outdoor classroom to my program in a way that will be most enriching to children, while acceptable and even exciting to my supervisors. I would be delighted to find a way to convince my coworkers and school administrators that this would be a worthy change to make.
#3: Write a Math Outdoors Manifesto. Use the following questions to direct your ideas.
Math gardens are most successful when they capture children’s attention and get them excited to learn.
What gets in the way is adults that don’t believe in/enjoy outdoor learning
Teaching math outdoors would be much easier if I had more support from coworkers.
My children tend to falter when bored
What educators fear most about teaching outdoors is getting messy, distracted children…
What is my own personal experience with learning math? To this day I remember my father trying to explain equations to me. Lots of memorizing and worksheets. As I now act as a teacher to my own children (3rd and 5th grade), I see that they are changing ways of teaching math. In our school district, there are fewer worksheets and more strategies to teach. In my preschool classroom, I strive to incorporate math in ways that are fun and exciting to children. I do not use worksheets ever.
Fantastic reflections. Keep up the great work
Hi there! I love being in nature and it always amazes me how calming and nurturing the outdoor world can be on my own body and mind. I know that children feel this too – I see how being outside and exploring can create such joy and lessen behavior issues. My intention is to provide more focused learning opportunities while in nature. This sounds like the perfect combination!
I would like to not only have concrete ways to build a math garden with my children but also ways to connect with these concepts during our remote learning experiences since our Center is currently closed for at least another month and a half. I would like to use this time to connect math and nature for the children and to prepare myself, the classroom etc for creating math garden(s).
My own math experience was full of worksheets and problems that were not meaningful. My children’s experience (and mine through them) had more games involved and attempted to make math more fun and engaging. As my children got older their experience was more inclusive of multiple subjects explored in different ways, including through nature and gardening. In my own manifesto I would state that I want math learning to come from nature exploration and be embedded in their play. I want to be intentional and purposeful with providing materials and provocations for the children but also really allow them to choose the direction. I want to be prepared to support their next step. I would love to come out of this class with specific activities that I can plan and support.
Great reflections…something to look back at the end of the class.
#1 My intention with this course is to learn different and engaging ideas for math lessons
#2 A breakthrough for me would be to know that these ideas are capable of working in my classroom. I’d be delighted to see how fun and easy it is
#3 1. The class is engaged
2. Environmental barriers
3. The environment is accessible
4. One or more children loses interest
5. Keeping the children’s interest
6. Not enough content to keep interest
7. I’m one of those that’s “bad at math”
Great job!
I work in a center that is strongly nature based. I personally love being in nature and highly value the notion of children being encouraged to explore and play and fall in love with nature. I can sometimes struggle with ways to build the bridge from free nature exploration to math concepts. I know that children learn math skills while playing in and exploring nature but my intention is to be a more effective facilitator while still allowing them to guide by interest.
A breakthrough for me with be coming back with concrete visions of ways I could create a math garden. It would surprise and delight me in this class if I were able to get over my fear of failing as a gardener and allowing myself to use this time as a learning experience for myself.
My personal experience with math is probably similar many, filled with worksheets and plastic unifix cubes. I am still not super hyped about math. In my younger years, I don’t remember having a teacher that was excited about math. It wasn’t until sixth grade when I had a teacher that truly exuded math! He made it fun, still no nature involved but at least there was more that records of multiplication facts. I’ll never forget him saying “you will use math in everything you will ever do.” We would try to argue with him but I have yet to prove him wrong. Children need teachers that are at least a little excited about math. Teaching math through nature and gardening brings new life into the topic and once again proves what my sixth grade teacher said “you will use math in everything you will ever do.”
Beautiful! I am looking forward to seeing how all the ideas blossom in our outdoor space.
1. My intention is to bring more curriculum outdoors with my toddlers and Math I feel is a great one to be able to do that with since there are so many things outdoors in nature that have math in them naturally.
2. What would be a breakthrough for me this week would be if I can come up with a plan of attack for how to implement this in my toddler classroom for whenever we go back and do it successfully since there are some barriers that I know I will have to figure out and not just because of covid-19 though that is definitely going to be a barrier in itself.
The thing that will surprise and delight me in my work in this master class is if I can bring my plans of action and be able to follow through with them within a year from now. I am giving myself that big of a timeline because things will be changed in how we do things with covid-19 barriers along with the New England weather and my black thumb so I want to be realistic in my expectation for myself given all these unknowns.
3. I never went to preschool, so my math experience started in Kindergarten. I will say that math for me was difficult in the early years but became easier in the later years (even though there were peers who would say that proofs and geometry was horrible)which leads me to believe that even if you have been started out with a bad taste in your mouth about math that it is still possible to erase that experience and be more open to the learning of math if you have other teachers, either formal or informal, who are able to make math connect with you by providing real life connections to the math concepts and different modes of learning about the concepts.
Teachers have things that get in the way of providing those real life experiences for children such as regulations, access to materials to create the garden, space to create a garden outside, the weather where they are for the plants to be able to grow as well as for the children to be able to get outdoors to explore these outdoor gardens, and of course the teachers green thumb or black thumb.
Children falter when they don’t have someone willing to figure out where they are and then how to scaffold the math learning from that point to the next without skipping over steps that are needed. Also, if real life connections aren’t made between math and their everyday life then it makes it harder for the child to learn about it because it is more of an abstract concept that doesn’t bring it alive for them. The other barrier that cause children to falter are not enough time to explore and revisit the concepts as needed.
What I witness with teachers often is trying to teach math concepts in isolation in a rote way which often leads to children “misbehaving” or acting out and not learning it and then carries over into the fear of trying to teach math outdoors which is trying to get the attention of the children to teach. If the teachers would instead observe the children and figure out where their curiosity and interests lie then they could scaffold the children’s learning in math by introducing concepts in something the child is already engaged in and follow the child’s lead in how they need to learn those.
My unexpected clarity that came from my math manifesto is that I have been brining math alive outdoors with my children already by following their curiosity in the natural world and expanding upon that in different ways. Also, I do think I can definitely continue this work even when we go back as long as I am thoughtful and observe the children to figure out where they are in terms of their social emotional needs so that I can scaffold all learning to meet them where they are at that point instead of where they were before we closed due to the covid-19 epidemic.
It’s terrific to write all this down, so in a year you can look back and see if you met your goals and see how much you have grown. Well done.
Thank you
Last year, we constructed a beautiful raise bed garden at school completely fenced in. The idea of taking the math curriculum to the garden seems to me to give greater value to the investment, making an active center rather than an ornamental addition.
What would a breakthrough be for me this week? I am not expecting a breakthrough but rather different ways to look at math.
What would surprise and delight me? I would welcome strategies for keeping kids engaged when they want to run free outdoors.
Math gardens are most successful when…children actively participate and each day builds upon the next.
What gets in the way is…mother nature, weather pests.
Teaching math outdoors would be much easier if…every child was equally engaged.
My children tend to falter when…they don’t get to participate at all times.
What educators fear most about teaching outdoors is…children want to go off and do their own thing.
What do I witness often? What do I believe about it? Children love to be free outdoors. They want to control what they are interested in doing. I think that is OK. I think that often the outdoors signals freedom and self direction. That is just fine with me.
What is my own personal experience with learning math? I learned math the old-fashioned traditional ways. Although I was competent, it was never my favorite subject.
I think I have positive feelings about the outdoors, not so excited about math.
Wonderful reflections! A great foundation to start from…:) Welcome!
1. I’ve been wanting to finish the outdoor classroom e-course that I started a couple years ago and decided that this course is right up my alley. I try to instill nature, gardening and outdoor learning in my curriculum as much as I can.
2. Both questions can be answered as one–This year our school is temporarily housed in a different building and outdoor space as our “new and better” school is being built. This comes with it some challenges for teachers to garden with the children. If I could come away with a plan for some kind of growing & learning math for our temporary location, I would be satisfied.
3. The children in my class are at different learning levels for math. It will be challenging to find a way to engage them all, keep their attention and provide challenge for some who are developmentally ready for it. My plan it to find a happy medium for fun & learning in a challenging location.
Fantastic goals! I will be thinking of ideas for your challenges. 🙂
The idea of providing mathematical experiences for a multi-age outdoor classroom is a bit overwhelming. My math lesson plans are often missing the mark because each of my student’s differing abilities. It is my intention to use the information presented to increase the offerings while decreasing prep time.
I would be delighted if I could set up one activity that could be set up and then left. I would feel successful if I could just watch, scaffold when needed, and take anecdotal notes.
Teaching math outdoors would be so much easier if I didn’t have to worry about choking hazards 😐
Math gardens are most successful when the garden moves from the drawing board to the earth. My hope is that we can create a fall themed math garden in a small flower bed…and do it this week.
This is fabulous! I am looking forward to these transformations.
1. I love the idea of teaching math outside of the classroom, we are a play based pre-school so we get outdoors as much as possible, incorporating math just seems like a natural step in our curriculum.
2. Just realizing how easy it is to incorporate math into every outdoor activity we do everyday. I hope to inspire my coworkers and see how far we can take the concepts I will/have learned in the e-course.
3. My manifesto is to be excited about math outdoors, to inspire my students and coworkers with very simple yet effective concepts. So often I get caught up in the day to day aspects of my teaching, it would be good to step back and really focus on this concept and incorporate year round. I wish this would have been in place for me as a young student, I definitely struggled with math, I am hoping to instill a love for the subject at a young age.
Fantastic reflections!
#2 I am excited to dig into this course to think about new ideas to add to the outdoor classroom, ways to organize the additions, and ways to guide the children to take care of the supplies. I am excited to add purposeful materials to their work space so that the children can enjoy creating their own work/projects, as if they were indoors and using our materials there.
#3 I would be delighted if more of my coworkers embraced the idea of having supplies for the children outdoors. I would like to encourage all of us to help the children learn to be responsible for our supplies so that they last a long time.
Thank you for your thoughtful reflections. I love how you describe “purposeful materials” outdoors. I invite you to write these intentions in your journal so you can look back at the end of the e-course. Looking forward!
#2 I realize my garden and outdoor experiences are rich in are and literacy has really grown this year. Now I want to add more math. We are also building a new center and designing new outdoor spaces and this is the perfect time to think and capture ideas.
#3 I think a break through would be adding math in a way I never even considered before and I would be delighted to see my children run away with the idea.
Love, love, love these! Time for more Math Outdoors! I love the image for your children running away with many of the Math ideas in this e-Course. If you have a journal, please write these two intentions in the opening pages. It will be fun to look back and see if they were met and what else you will come away with.