Summer offers endless opportunities for your child to build nature smarts. There’s gardening, swimming, biking, and other outdoor activities to enjoy.
While it’s good for kids to spend time outdoors, it’s also important for them to keep their academic skills sharp over the summer. It’s even better when you can combine summer fun and learning!
It’s time for you and your child to explore math in nature.
Finding Math in Nature
At first glance, math class and the backyard seem like two different worlds. But the two are actually very connected and math is all around us. In fact, math was developed to describe patterns in nature!
Here are some familiar math concepts with real examples in nature. There are also simple math-in-nature activities for you and your child to try.
Definition: When one half of an object is the mirror image of the other half.
Examples: Butterfly wings, flowers.
Activities: Make a list of 25 things in nature that have symmetry. Go outside to search for examples, if needed! You can also do this Leaf Symmetry Craft to get you started.
Definition: A perfectly round, three-dimensional object.
Examples: Earth, sun, an orange.
Activity: Find an example of a sphere in nature and one that’s manmade. What’s different about them?
Definition: A series of squares with lengths that match the numbers in the Fibonacci sequence. It forms a spiral when you draw a line through the diagonals of each square.
Example: The inside ...