TeachMeet Beyond and the Outdoor Numeracy Notes!

This weekend I ventured down to the Central Belt of Scotland for an exploration into unknown territory. It was my first venture through Bathgate, my first visit to a scout camp and my first ever TeachMeet. This was TeachMeet Beyond with a focus on outdoor learning (yay)!

For those of you have no idea what a TeachMeet is, then have a look at the wiki which gives you a flavour. Basically, it's an opportunity for teachers to meet other teachers and share ideas but with a sequence of events and activities that allow everyone to participate. The opening began at a campfire,  "hosted" by Iain and Jen...

Who clearly had everyone's attention...

We shared ideas and tips about taking learning outdoors. Here's the "dancing tree" activity to help learn about the parts of the tree. It was a funky version of a Joseph Cornell's "Build a Tree" activity and extremely entertaining! Find this and many other nature based activities in Sharing the Joy of Nature.

Then followed a fast-paced discussion on risk that kind of emerged from nowhere into something where people were contributing their thoughts, left, right and centre.

The next day involved series of workshops. Below are participants on the Mission Explore workshop. Their mission was ME0058: Go for a back-to-front walk and see what happens. They even had to wear their clothes back-to-front!

The teachers below are on ME0088 Record a place... the smiles are to demonstrate the friendly nature of the place!

Cassie Law gave a helpful workshop about simple and practical outdoor learning activities based upon the work she had undertaken with her own classes. I liked her introductory statements about the need for learning outside needing to be embedded and relevant, that it doesn't have to be all singing and dancing and that it's great for messy activities that can't be undertaken indoors.

Kim McIntosh from the John Muir Trust also gave a workshop about the John Muir Award, a simple, straightforward scheme for encouraging individuals, group and organisations to discover, explore, conserve and share their findings about wild spaces and places.

Jen Deyenberg also gave a Geocaching workshop. It's worth checking out her blog for different ways of doing this. For example, look at the range of caches created by participants from TMBeyond. 

I offered a workshop on taking numeracy outdoors. Below are the ideas presented by some of the participants. My apologies to those who I've inadvertently omitted. Please tell me and I'll add in your activity!

Symmetry works well outside. Set up a picture or pattern for another person to copy...

The activity below nearly caused a riot! We were asked to find a small branch and then order ourselves in terms of the number of twigs coming off the branches...

Below is a very simple activity which involves children estimating the number of paces to a feature in the vicinity and then checking their estimates against their actual number of paces.

Great minds think alike, as the teachers below also developed a similar activity! Below, participants were asked to choose a feature in the vicinity and give instructions to their partner for getting there, e.g. 3 steps forward. Turn right 90 degrees. Take 5 steps forward. Setting challenges such as doing this in 3 instructions is helpful for children too.

I'm very fond of using transparent tarp for activities as well as shelter. Cassie and Cecilia demonstrated how to use it a a huge quadrat for recording information about plants growing underneath.

In the stones and cards demo below, participants had to find create sums with the digits presented in a variety of different ways...

Olivia demonstrated how simple algebra can be undertaken outside. I liked the quick switching of twigs to change functions between add, subtract, multiply and divide in this equation...

Sinclair showed that tossing cones into the air can be linked to the radioactive decay and the half-life of an isotope...

Another group of participants, demonstrated number bonds and other mental arithmetic through a tug of war!

These teachers devised a simple activity based on using sticks and children's feet to help children understand the difference between squares and rectangles. They suggested this could be extended up the ages to investigate area and perimeter using non-standard units of measurement.

All-in-all, I think it's a positive sign of the times that we have teachers in Scotland who are prepared to give up their free time to get together and share their thoughts on outdoor learning. Thanks and best wishes to you all. I hope to TeachMeet you again in the future! 

PS A big cheer too for Iain Hallahan who masterminded this event!

Eco Art in the School Grounds

Last week I blogged about Fraserburgh South Park's Nursery Fences. This was only part of a whole school  grounds makeover that happened a week or two ago. There was a big focus on reusing unwanted items.

Firstly, at all the entrances into the school, there are now these bright murals, designed and painted by the children. I'm a big fan of child-painted murals in that if vandalism occurs, it's much easier for the children to touch up the paintwork. Gloss paint was used on thin board and the murals were attached using a masonry drill bit.

The older children each made a tile from old bottle tops, shells, broken tiles and other bits and pieces. There are displayed at the entrance to the school.

The bits were attached to the acrylic tiles using "no nails glue" which is tough and can withstand weathering outside. Again gloss paint was used for decoration.

Big tractor tyres suddenly seemed to have become fashionable in schools. However, I've not seen any others look as beautiful as the ones here. Here's the distance shot...

But look at the detail when you move in closer. Very good use of the natural tread has been made to create the art work.

As well as each child growing plants in recycled milk bottles, there were lots of laminated bits of artwork. I like the flower nestled between the containers here...

The butterflies have see-through wings which allow the light to shine through...

I'm wondering if anyone has counted the butterflies on the fence. There are hundreds!

Some of the older classes opted for weaving projects. Look at the tessellating patterns...

Old wrapping paper, ribbon and other strips of plastic-based material have been used...

The leaf paving stones were made through hammering the tiles inside a plastic bag. Again gloss paint was used. 

The contrasting white paint against the green grass enhances the rather fetching flower display...

This miniature den will soon be covered in sweet peas. Any climbing plants make excellent summer dens for children. 

Finally what does this feature remind you of? Blue loch water? Snake-like bumps? 

Yes! This school now has its very own Loch Ness Monster. The tyres were painted then dug into the ground. The blue loch rectangle has mulching sheet put down to prevent weeds coming through. The stones were painted with blue gloss paint.

A lot of these projects relied on gloss paint. It's worth asking your local council's recycling officer if there are paint depots where the paint can be accessed. Local painter and decorators may also be willing to donate their leftover paint.

Congratulations to Fraserburgh South Park School children, staff and community! Lots of ugly fences covered. Beautiful outdoor art. The world salutes your efforts!

Outdoor Maths: investigating right angles with sticks

The concept of a right angle can often stump children. After all, surely when any two lines meet, it's an angle, right?

Using right angle detectors of various shapes and sizes and going on a right angle hunt around a school can be helpful. But past experience is that children jump about from angle to angle without really being sure of what it really is and supervising a class of 30 children to ensure they all get it can be a challenge.

However, once again, I've discovered that using sticks seems to help children understand and enjoy learning about right angles in quite a purposeful manner. Last Monday, at 9am, a class of P3 children, armed with sticks and some multilink cubes headed out into the gentle rain to carry out a right angle investigation.

The children worked in groups of four to create a shape or picture that had the most number of right angles they could possibly make. In order to check an angle was "right" a multilink cube was placed in the corner.

We discussed how to make a right angle and check it especially with sticks which are prone to being a little wonky rather than neat and straight.

The children began to see the possibilities. One group discovered that if the sticks were placed carefully together, a second right angle could be created in a corner...

And that if sticks were carefully crossed over each other, then this created four right angles. Aha! 

And suddenly the creativity and possibilities multiplied, from basic structures like this...

To this! Wow!

And this! Suddenly, the triangles disappeared!

One group noticed the kilt that a girl was wearing and the right angles within the pattern. They used this as an inspiration...

This led to considerable discussion about who was wearing the most right angles on their clothes! Hmm.

It will be interesting to meet the class tomorrow and see how this activity impacted on their indoor work on right angles. I'll check with the teacher...as I've more outdoor angle work waiting to be tried and tested!

An outdoor shape activity with sticks

The sticks are getting a serious amount of use at the moment. Last week I used them for an activity in a P5-7 class to reinforce the language of shape. This is what happened:

The children had to get into groups of 4 and take 12 large and 12 small sticks. The challenge was to make a shape or picture that contained the most shapes possible.

Some groups decided that a picture would work best. In the photo below if you turn your head, you'll see a tractor with a trailer...

Another group opted to make a rocket. I had to take the photos at odd angles, owing to the sunlight... 

One child needed to work on his own. He used a few sticks donated from the rocket group and another group and was happy to experiment with different geometric shapes on his own...

The geometric shapes seemed to work in terms of looking at shapes within shapes...

This initially took some practice, but the group that created the shape below had lots of discussions about the number of trapeziums within their shape...

The challenge didn't end here. On a wall I had put some suggested letters and symbols. Using chalk, the groups had to identify through colours and the codes, the different attributes. This was a great way to reinforce these concepts.

The boy with his own shape, made a right angle detector to check the angles...

What interested me was that the children did not seem perturbed by the odd curve and knobble in the sticks. 

The chalk marks left an interesting reminder of the activity once the sticks had been tidied away. 

If I was doing this activity again, I'd use counters such as multi-link cubes or natural materials such as shells instead of chalk to highlight the angles, etc. Many playgrounds eat up chalk and so it's not economical. What variations would you make to this activity?