Celebrating Math In Nature! Hello! Welcome to the 149th Playful Math Education Blog Carnival – Celebrating Math in Nature! I’m so glad you have stopped by as we are going to have fun looking at lots of ways in which you can combine a love for nature with a love for math. It’s time to discover, explore and investigate the…
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When the sun starts to shine and the winter cold has disappeared, it’s time for an outside treasure hunt! It’s time to hunt for bugs! Put on your boots! Grab a magnifying glass, a butterfly net, and a jar, and come with us to find some mini-beasts! There are so many insects, bugs, arachnids, and invertebrates hiding in your backyard!…
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Spring is the perfect time to create your very own herbarium. A Herbarium is a collection of plants that have been pressed, dried, identified, and filed. The collection of plants can be from your own backyard to a woodland or coastal area you like to explore. If you’d like to collect plant specimens from public land or a conservation park,…
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Have you ever seen a Platypus in the wild? Our mission for our nature study this month was to search for the Platypus. We knew that it was not going to be easy to spot this elusive creature, so forward planning was in order to give us a better chance. I also thought that it would be a great opportunity…
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All the wonder of springtime is hidden in the bud of a waiting flower; and when you come on millions of them at once – well, you just hold your breath and give yourself over to the marvel. ~ Amy Mack (A Bush Calendar, pg. 104). (Winter’s) resting time is over, and millions upon millions of little buds are justing…
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I wonder if you are finding it hard to incorporate nature study into your week? Some of you are not living next door to the beach, rain forest, or national park. Going out with your little ones may seem a little too hard. I understand, I’ve been there. I know you want to feel the freedom of being outside, of…
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Have you ever considered how much math you can cover as you study the weather? From the graceful arc of the rainbow, the incredible formations of the clouds, to the seasonal variation in temperature, come on a weather discovery adventure with me and add some math to your day. Because we have such long dry summers, when it rains, it…
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The Autumn Equinox is a time where the length of our day is equal to the length of our night. The days are becoming shorter, and at the equinox, the length of day will be 12hrs and the length of night will be 12hrs (approximately). After the equinox, the days will continue to become shorter until we get to the…
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We are all living in a strange time of forced lock-downs and controlled movement. You may be feeling like nature study is harder than ever. Or it may not be the lock-down that is preventing you from getting out and about. It could be sickness or the logistics of getting many little ones ready to go on a walk. I…
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I wonder if you have ever stopped to watch an earthworm? What do you notice? I thought it might be fun to include some math in our observation of earthworms this week. Our focus was measurement and statistics. Can you measure a worm? This is the question I asked my children. My 14 year old was adamant that it wasn’t…
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“Higher up the bank a host of red spider flowers jig like living things to the music of the wind.” Amy Mack – A Bush Calendar Usually, when we think of searching for wildflowers we think of Spring. But in Amy Mack’s A Bush Calendar, we are introduced to an amazing array of beautiful flowers gracing the Australian bush in…
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Do you like searching for mushrooms? This Fly Agaric is such a pretty mushroom, but it’s not one you would want to eat. Australia has some amazing fungi but some are deadly. While this Fly Agaric will probably not kill you, the Death Cap (Amanita phalloides) might. I enjoy searching for mushrooms and photographing fungi, but when I want to…
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