GEOMETRY

Storms make trees take deeper roots.

-Dolly Parton

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Geometry outside! Yes!

This concept is especially useful for any outdoor education because it can be taught on concrete or in nature! There are too many outcomes to list, but here are some ideas based on the Nova Scotia P-6 outcomes. Geometry is also a good starting point for anyone wanting to try outdoor education. You could do a geometry walk or find and then go back inside! You and your students will still gain the mental, physical, social, and academic benefits of being outside!

Back to Mathematics

WALK AND FIND

Take your students on a walk throughout your school grounds or in the neighborhood if that is allowed. Base the questions on your grade level.

PART 1 2D and 3D

What shape is the school? If it is brick, are they rectangles or rectangle based prisms? Windows can be rectangles or rectangle based prisms. You can add the vocabulary of faces, edges, and vertices here or in Part 2. How many faces do the windows or doors have? Why are most objects designed for people not circular? Let's look at the playground. What shapes do we see? If there is a tunnel it could be a cylinder. What about the climbing bars, are those cylinders? If you are walking in the neighborhood what shape is a STOP sign? With a bit of imagination this can be a fun lesson for any grade level

Nature - what shapes do you see? Is a tree a cylinder? Look at the variety of leaves on the trees, what shapes could they be?

At your sit spot or once inside have students draw or create a 3D a part of or all of the school ground and label the shapes they found! This a a great activity to do with an upper and lower grade together.

PART 2 MORE VACBULARY

During or as a second outing, you can add the vocabulary of parallel, perpendicular, or intersecting to the conversation and the labelling of their drawing or creation. extension: Nova Scotian artist Alex Collville is known for adding geometry to his art, inparticaurla parellel, lines.

PART 3 ANGLES

Pre-teaching on how to use a protractor will be necessary. Image though teaching how to use a protracotr outside! Use tree branches, arrange sticks, or the lines on the basketball court. Then challenge your students to find the various types of triangles. Use the protractor to measure the found object. Or can they create the various types of triangles using sticks or rocks. If on concreate they could draw various triangles with chalk.

SPOT THE SYMMETRY

Part I

Outside can you spot an imaginary line of vertical or horizontal symmetry? I usually take a collection of country and provincial flags outside or if available look at your school's flag on the flag pole. I hold the flag up so students can spot any horizontal or vertical lines of symmetry. Yes this lesson could be done indoors, but doing it outdoors adds in mental, physical, social, and academic benefits! Then go on a Spot the Symmetry find. Have students look at the school windows, could they draw the window and add in the line of symmetry, what about with the school, a neighbor's house, lines on the court, objects in the playground.

Part II

Now look at various objects in nature, what symmetry do you spot?