Math in Your Backyard

Do you know any children who have been spending a lot of time online lately, with distance learning? Here are a few ideas to help kids of all ages get outside—in their backyard or local green space—to play with math concepts while they enjoy the natural world and take a break from computer screens.

The creative, hands-on learning ideas below were written by our colleagues at organizations across the USA and around the world. The complete directions for each activity—and hundreds of others—are available in our free, online set of outdoor Activity Guides. These books were originally written for use in schoolyards around the world, but many of the ideas they include are equally well-suited for use close to home, in our backyards and neighborhoods. We hope you will have fun with them and will share these ideas widely!

Click here to download the books!

Green Schoolyards America and our partners at the International school grounds alliance publish a set of free, downloadable books filled with ideas for outdoor learning, play, and health. This set of 250 hands-on activities and curriculum ideas were contributed by 188 organizations across the USA and around the world. CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE BOOKS.

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This article is the second installment in our series entitled, Bringing Outdoor Learning Home.
Click here to read Part 1: Explore Art in Your Backyard or Neighborhood.

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Part 2: EXPLORE MATH outdoors, close to home

IMAGE © Chippewa nature center - Preschool

Springtime Math with Worms

Author: Rachel A. Larimore Consulting,
Midland, Michigan, USA
Ages: 3-5 years old

Spring evokes images of tulips, bursting tree buds, frogs calling, puddles… and worms! Children’s interest in worms is a great opportunity to extend play to include math exploration and learning.
— See Living Schoolyard Activity Guide, page 147

IMAGE © SukHprit kaur

Counting is Fun!

Author: Centre for Environment Education,
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
Ages: 4-7 years old

Explore colors, textures, and materials found in nature, while helping young children learn to count and understand the meaning of numbers.
— See International School Grounds Month Activity Guide, page 98

IMAGE © Juliet robertson

Tens Frame Symmetry

Author: Creative STAR Learning,
Inverurie, Scotland, United Kingdom
Ages: 5-7 years old

In this activity, children use natural materials to create symmetrical patterns that build upon what they have observed in the world around them.
— See International School Grounds Month Activity Guide, page 150

IMAGE © Maria taylor

The Nature of Arrays

Author: Nature Play SA,
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Ages: 5-12 years old

Explore multiplication and division concepts, and practice problem solving and reasoning skills, by arranging natural materials into sets called arrays.
— See International School Grounds Month Activity Guide, page 149

IMAGE © sharon danks

Robert’s Little Finger

Author: Naturskolan i Lund, Lund, Sweden
Ages: 6-11 years old

This activity teaches ratios and collaboration, as children work together to construct a scale model of a member of their group. At home, this idea can include siblings and/or parents.
— See International School Grounds Month Activity Guide, page 70

IMAGE © naturskolan i lund

The Secret Picture

Author: Naturskolan i Lund, Lund, Sweden
Ages: 5-18 years old

Use this enjoyable game to help children improve their vocabulary for mathematical and spatial terms, and concepts such as “over,” “under,” and “below.” At home, play this game with family members.
— See International School Grounds Month Activity Guide, page 69

IMAGE © California coastal commission

Blue Whale: An Animal of Unusual Size

Author: California Coastal Commission,
San Francisco, California, USA
Ages: 10-18 years old

Blue whales are the largest animals known to have lived on Earth. Could a blue whale fit in your schoolyard—or backyard? Learn to measure the height of a tree in your yard, and compare it to the length of a blue whale.
— See Living Schoolyard Activity Guide, page 154

IMAGE © Education outside

Calculate Rainwater Runoff

Author: Education Outside and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, San Francisco, California, USA
Ages: 10-18 years old

In this activity, students in dry climates determine how many gallons of rainwater can be captured from their rooftop and stored in a cistern. These calculations work equally well for thinking about a school or home rooftop.
— See Living Schoolyard Activity Guide, page 166

Successful Conference: Experiential Learning in the Schoolyard

Conference attendees released homing pigeons at the end of the first day of the conference in a session led by Susan Humphries and pigeon expert Bill Milestone. Releasing pigeons presents a wide range of potential curriculum ties including: geography, the history of communication technology, flight aerodynamics, and biological homing mechanisms. It also presents opportunities to teach empathy and spark wonder, while having an enjoyable experience in a very memorable way.

Green Schoolyards America was honored to feature the work of our esteemed colleague, Susan Humphries, MBE, MA, at a two-day conference in the San Francisco Bay Area on September 27-28, 2019. Ms. Humphries traveled from England to share her expertise in how to use school grounds to foster children’s learning, play, and happiness. She brought a wealth of knowledge in teaching methods that are based on hands-on outdoor experiences and a deep understanding of both child development and the natural world.

The conference was held on the beautiful grounds of Golestan School in El Cerrito, California, which was an ideal venue for the 12 hands-on workshops over the course of the event. We extend a heartfelt thank you to Golestan School for warmly welcoming us and opening their grounds for this special event!

Susan Humphries shared her perspective and ideas with vibrant slideshows on each day of the event, and conference participants engaged in a lively discussion with her.

Learning from Coombes

Each morning, the conference began with a different keynote presentation by Ms. Humphries. She shared her experiences transforming the curriculum and grounds of The Coombes School in Berkshire, England, where she was the founding principal and led the school for almost 40 years. She explained that when she started her work at Coombes, the setting was very basic—just a wide open grassy field and a small patch of asphalt. Over the years, she and her students and their school community planted hundreds of trees on the 6 acre site, transforming it into a biologically rich woodland environment that offered endless opportunities for teachers to teach outside and for children to explore the natural world around them. The photographs below show this remarkable transformation.

views of the coombes school in 1971 and 1985 (above) show the change that occurred on school grounds over time, as Ms. Humphries, her students, and their school community planted hundreds of trees on the 6 acre site. Photos by Susan humphries.

Hands-on Workshops

After Ms. Humphries’s morning presentations, participants engaged in 6 hands-on outdoor workshops each day, related to the examples she gave during her slideshows. The workshops blended poetry, visual art, art display, and performance, with science, math, experiential history, and writing. Many of the activities emphasized hands-on investigation, observation skills, analysis, teamwork, and symbolism. Others highlighted the magic and wonder of the natural world, a sense of place, reflection, empathy, and peace.

The photographs below offer glimpses of the workshops in action. We will post additional blogs in the coming weeks that highlight the workshops in more detail.

New free publication

After the conference, Green Schoolyards America worked with Ms. Humphries to capture the essence of our hands-on workshops in written form. We are very pleased to be able to share a short new book of outdoor learning ideas, based on the conference’s workshops and Ms. Humphries’s work at Coombes. We hope that you—our readers—will try these activities with students at your own local schools.

Please click here to download your own free copy of this new publication entitled, Experiential Outdoor Learning in the Schoolyard. We also hope you will use these schoolyard curriculum ideas in conjunction with the additional schoolyard activities found in our companion publications available for free on the same webpage.

We greatly enjoyed Susan Humphries’s visit, and learned so much from her while she was here. We hope schools across the Bay Area (and beyond) will incorporate her educational philosophy and curriculum ideas into their own practice. As you try the outdoor learning ideas in this publication with your own students, please write to us to tell us about your schoolyard adventures.

Thank you, volunteers!

Green Schoolyards America would like to thank our wonderful, dedicated conference volunteers who helped to lead the workshops and ensured that the event ran smoothly! You are all amazing and greatly appreciated! Thank you again, Golestan School, for hosting the conference on your lovely school grounds. And thank you, Susan Humphries for coming to California to share your expertise and wisdom with us. We are grateful for our wonderful community of partners.

A heartfelt thank you to our wonderful Conference volunteErs and Collaborators! Left to right: Susan Humphries (visiting speaker), Mary Roscoe, Shari Wilson, Kim Walker, Richard Parker, Lisa Howard, Sharon danks (GSA Executive Director). Volunteers not pictured: Maryam Atai, Ayden Danks, Yalda Modabber, Wanda Stewart.

Announcing a Hands-on Conference with Inspiring School Ground Innovator, Susan Humphries: Sept. 27-28, 2019

An outdoor lesson in progress at The Coombes School, within a child-planted forest.
Photo: © Sharon Danks

Green Schoolyards America is honored to announce that we will have a very special visitor this fall, in town from England! Our colleague, Susan Humphries, MBE, MA, will join us in the San Francisco Bay Area at the end of September to share her expertise and deep understanding of how to use school grounds to foster children’s learning, play, and happiness.

Ms. Humphries will collaborate with Green Schoolyards America to lead a two-day, professional development conference that shares what she has learned over her 40+ year career as one of the green schoolyard field’s international founders. She brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in teaching methods that are based on outdoor experiences and an understanding of the natural world.

Save the dates!

September 27 – 28, 2019

DAY 1: Hands-on Teaching and
Learning in a Green Schoolyard

DAY 2: Making the Most of
Asphalt-Covered School Grounds

Timing: 9:00 am - 3:30 pm, both days
Location: Hosted by Golestan School, El Cerrito, CA

Our conference program is designed for preschool and elementary school teachers, and will also be well suited to after school and childcare staff, educators in non-formal settings, garden teachers, designers of children’s environments, and members of the public interested in children’s wellbeing, learning, and play.

The program will include a keynote presentation each day with vibrant examples drawn from Ms. Humphries’s inspiring work at The Coombes School in Berkshire, England, where she was the Founding Headteacher (principal) and led the school for almost four decades. The program will also include hands-on workshops designed to bring her teaching philosophy and methodology to life, and provide resources and ideas that participants will be able to use at their own schools after the conference.

A music lesson in progress on the asphalt playground at The Coombes School.
Photo: © Sharon Danks

More information about the speaker:

Susan Humphries, MBE, MA, is the Founding Headteacher of The Coombes School in Berkshire, England. She led the school from 1971 to 2002, and remained involved with their program and landscape development for an additional decade after her retirement. In 2011, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Faculty of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden to acknowledge the foundations she has laid in building individual and group responsibility for healthy ecosystems and use of natural resources. In 2012, Humphries collaborated with her colleague Susan Rowe to write a book called The Coombes Approach: Learning through an Experimental and Outdoor Curriculum, to share teaching methods used at the school. In 2018, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International School Grounds Alliance to recognize the formative impact her ideas have had on the green schoolyard movement across the globe.

Enrollment:

This conference is open to the public. Click here for more detailed information about the event and how to enroll. We hope you will join us for this special event!

Conference organizers:

This conference is a project of Green Schoolyards America, in collaboration with Susan Humphries. It will be hosted by our partners at Golestan Education, on their beautiful school grounds in El Cerrito, CA.

Children, Nature, and School Grounds in Oakland, California

Conference participants visited the beautiful garden at Hoover Elementary School in Oakland, CA.

We had the pleasure of working with our colleagues to shine a spotlight on school grounds in Oakland during the Children & Nature Network’s 2019 International Children & Nature conference in May.

We participated in two conference sessions that explored Green Schoolyards America’s ongoing collaboration with the Oakland Unified School District and The Trust for Public Land to develop and help implement a vision for greening school grounds across Oakland.

On May 15, 2019, we helped the Children & Nature Network to lead a special pre-conference session focused on using green schoolyards as a mechanism to bring nature into children’s lives on a daily basis. Participants in this session came into town from across the United States and around the world, and are engaged in schoolyard greening efforts in their own local regions. We had a lively and productive group discussion and exchange of ideas in the morning.

Sharon Danks (Green Schoolyards America) talks about our collaborative work in Oakland.

Just before lunch, Green Schoolyards America, Trust for Public Land, and Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) gave a collaborative slide presentation about our work together, and our vision to green school grounds across the City.

After lunch, the whole group boarded buses and we had the opportunity to bring everyone to see three Oakland schools where greening is planned or underway.

Participants in the schoolyard tour visit Markham Elementary in Oakland, CA to learn about changes planned for the grounds.

On our visit to Markham Elementary, The Trust for Public Land showed the visiting group a schoolyard master plan that will help transform a very paved school site (above) into a more park-like green space with trees, gardens, and a variety of outdoor learning and recreational spaces. This school is one of the five pilot projects that our partnership is producing. The Trust for Public Land is leading the design process.

On our visit to Hoover Elementary, garden teacher Wanda Stewart shared the work she has been doing with her students, school volunteers, and the wider community to develop a spectacular garden and outdoor learning space on the school grounds. The program already in action at this school is a model for others in our region, and its benefits to students are already very clear. Several students joined the tour and told the visitors about what they appreciated about spending time in green space at their school. The students were also expert tour guides who led the adults through the garden and helped them to see it through their eyes.

Students at Hoover Elementary joined the discussion about their school garden, and helped the visiting adults learn about the program.

On May 16, the three partner organizations also spoke at a separate conference session about greening school grounds in Oakland. Sharon Danks (Green Schoolyards America), Alejandra Chiesa (Trust for Public Land), and OUSD School Board Vice President Jody London co-presented (shown below), and engaged the audience in a conversation about the tremendous need for this work, the challenges involved in trying to dramatically change school grounds, and the process and strategies we are using to bring green schoolyards to scale in Oakland.

The Trust for Public Land’s Alejandra Chiesa speaks to conference attendees.

OUSD School Board Vice President Jody London speaks at the conference.

Later in the day on May 16, Sharon Danks (Green Schoolyards America) also collaborated with colleagues John Fisher (Life Lab) and Nathan Larson (Wisconsin School Garden Network) to lead a separate session at the conference focused on the topic of developing and sustaining networks to further the school garden and green schoolyard movements. Our workshop shared examples from our own work, and promoted a lively dialogue about network-building among session participants.

Green Schoolyards America greatly enjoys sharing our work at conferences and meeting our colleagues. It is wonderful to hear about inspiring efforts happening all around us, near and far. We will close this post with a snapshot (below) of our green schoolyard colleagues who were in town from across the United States as well as England and Chile!

A lively gathering of green schoolyard colleagues from near and far—out for ice cream to continue our conversations after the conference!