Counting in the garden

This lesson is all about maths. It teaches children how to keep a tally, and how to draw graphs to show results.

Age range: Suitable for 6-9 year olds.

Thank you to the fantastic Eden project for this lesson. Check out their website for many great lesson plans.Thanks also to the Southbank Centre Garden. http://www.edenproject.com/learn-with-us

Preparation

• Tie up one long piece of string to a fence. Use a length suitable to your available space
• Divide up this string into a tally line. Attach a piece of masking tape to mark every 10, 20, 30 and so on, to as long as your piece of string.

The lesson

• Discuss different ways of counting and explain how to keep a tally.
• Ask the children to choose something they would like to count in the garden for example how many apples growing on the tree or how many birds they can see.
• Give out the labels and pens. Ask the children to draw their object onto their label making sure they leave space for their tally.
• Then the children can go around the garden looking for their object keeping a tally as they go.
• Pupils then hang their labels on the long tally line according to their results.

Graphs can then be drawn to show they final results of the whole class.

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