Our focus for Day 3 of Maths Week Scotland is Measurement.  Estimating and accurately measuring distance is a key numeracy skill.

It’s amazing how much learning can be achieved outdoors with sticks!  At it’s simplest level, gathering sticks measuring them against each other, and arranging them in size,  is a great early level activity.  Lots of opportunity for using mathematical language (longest, shortest, bigger than etc.)

Children also love being challenged to find a stick of a particular length  For example:

“bring me back a stick that is shorter than my arm but longer than my hand”

“find a stick that measures between 10 – 20cm long”

Children can work at their own pace and return to the adults to have their estimation of measurement checked before being set off on the next challenge – you’ll need a ruler or tape measure to help them self check their lengths.

Groups love measuring and using their own home made ‘meter sticks’.  Depending on what you have available you can snap, cut (with loppers, secateurs or bush craft saw) straight sticks in to meter lengths and pupils can then use them as a guide to estimate heights, lengths or distances; how many of your sticks high do you think that tree is?  if that flower only comes half way up your stick how many cm tall is the flower?   Sticks are tactile and young people become attached to ‘their stick’.  Having ownership of a natural meter stick and using it outdoors can really make a difference to understanding measurement.

Sticks can also be used to create 2D and 3D shapes that can be used for calculating area and volume.  Challenging pupils in small groups to create shapes or structures with a specific area or volume is a great problem solving activity involving lots of different mathematical skills.

 

 

 

Learning Through Landscapes have some great resources on their website including a lesson on Measuring the speed at which that vehicles are travelling:  https://www.ltl.org.uk/free-resources/

 

Other ideas for Measurement outdoors can be found on the links below:

https://www.owlscotland.org/images/uploads/resources/files/measuringtrees2.pdf

https://learningoutsidetheclassroomblog.org/2019/04/17/9-ways-to-take-your-maths-lessons-outside/