Boosting Engagement by Taking Math Outdoors

Looking for a way to motivate elementary math students? Take it outside: Moving math instruction outdoors can recharge both teachers and students with strategies for capitalizing on using outdoor spaces to design engaging math instruction.

First, plan

Prior to any outdoor activity, consider purposefully planning how to use available math resources for lessons or activities by including the decision-making criteria below as part of your preparation.

Survey outdoor environments: Before bringing students outside, it’s important to survey the potential learning environment. These are questions you may ask yourself: Is there enough space for students to work? What is the level of noise and distractions outside? Are the goals reasonable considering the outdoor classroom space?

Create a timeline for the activity: Is this an ongoing activity or a onetime lesson better taught outside of the classroom? A timeline is a useful tool that will help to organize the lesson. For example, I organize a potential outdoor activity into reasonable chunks, allowing time to walk to the outdoor learning space, time for providing directions or instruction, and time for an interactive student activity.

Identify goals and objectives: What is the purpose of the lesson? Identify goals and objectives that are math skills–based. Consider Standards for Mathematical Practice, for example, which offers valuable opportunities for students to practice math skills, like attending to precision by using a ruler to measure and compare lengths of leaves or sticks found outside in first grade.

Balance outdoor and indoor spaces: Plan the amount of time that will be spent in different learning environments. For instance, when designing a geometry scavenger hunt for third grade, I ask elementary students to collect data and record geometry terms found in the courtyard. Then, students analyze the information and draw graphs representing data back in the classroom.

Provide directions and safety rules: When giving directions for an activity and safety rules, explicitly outline what’s expected initially within the classroom and then again outside prior to the start of an activity. Using an indoor defined space first, like a classroom, will allow students to easily listen to directions and ask questions with fewer distractions. When outside, point out the area and boundaries of the learning environment.

Have outdoor supplies readily available: With the warmer weather, you may want to take advantage of a sunny day. Supplies like chalk, rulers or yardsticks, a small ball, index cards, clipboards, and masking tape are some of the items that are helpful to have available in the classroom for an impromptu lesson outside.

When teaching about comparing distances in second grade, students initially folded paper to create airplanes at their desks. Since it was a beautiful day, the indoor lesson shifted to the outdoors. Students grabbed their yardsticks and chalk and had an opportunity to fly their planes in the playground. They marked and measured distances, collecting data for analysis back in the classroom later. Easy access to materials resulted in an engaging activity and a seamless transition from an indoor to an outdoor teaching space.

Be flexible: Weather can change, and a lesson may have to be shortened unexpectedly. Always plan for shifting a lesson to inside in the classroom earlier than the designated time.

Scaffold instruction using outdoor spaces

There are many opportunities for learning in outdoor spaces. Here are some geometry and measurement activities to try.

Geometry Scavenger Hunt: The outdoor environment is a perfect opportunity to reinforce grade-level math skills. Ask students to practice using a ruler and identify geometric shapes by participating in an outdoor scavenger hunt. For this engaging and motivating activity, give students a list of geometric shapes to find in nature. Follow up with a discussion about the most frequently found shape and speculate why.

A geometry scavenger hunt is appropriate for grades 1–5. For first and second grades, ask students to identify basic shapes by their attributes. For example, find and draw three different-sized triangles or squares.

For grades 3–5, ask students to count the number of quadrilaterals, categorizing and classifying the polygons. Record information and explain findings. Encourage students to classify quadrilaterals by their common attributes. For a challenge, find symmetrical figures or look at leaves that illustrate the Fibonacci sequence in nature.

Measurement Mania: Measurement Mania includes endless opportunities to practice measurement skills. Here are a few to try with your students:

• Measurement scavenger hunt. Compare and order lengths of items found in nature. For example, find a stick or leaf that is half or two times the length of another. Grades K–1.
• Time to tell time. Use a hula hoop as a clock, and write the numbers of the clock with chalk. Use two sticks of different lengths as the minute and hour hands. Practice telling time to the hour, half hour, or minute. Grades K–2.
• Square hopscotch. Draw skip counting game boards and play hopscotch. Encourage students to use yardsticks to measure and draw connecting squares for their hopscotch game boards. For older students, the hopscotch boards may include multiplication basic facts. Students then play each other’s math measurement hopscotch. For older students, encourage finding the area of each square. Or, have students create a trapezoid hopscotch game board. Grades 1–4.
• Patterned path. Using chalk and rulers, students measure and draw different geometric shapes in a patterned path—for example, drawing a square, circle, triangle, square, circle, triangle. Shapes are decorated, and students walk along the different student paths. For older students, student teams can create geometric patterned paths that are parallel or perpendicular to each other. Grades K–4.

Engaging lessons benefit students by encouraging participation, motivation, and students’ positive self-efficacy about mathematics. Consider transforming outdoor spaces into meaningful opportunities for learning mathematics to motivate and engage students.