Today we went for a walk. In fact, we’ve been going for walks everyday since the quarantine began on March 17th. On this particular day we noticed that Spring flowers were finally in bloom, so we grabbed a bag and set out to collect a few loose parts to use in our play. As we walked my daughter carried our treasures in a simple brown bag. She remarked how heavy the bag felt and wondered aloud which item we found the most of. These thoughts led us to a simple math exploration of sorting and graphing.
At the heart of it, graphing in the early years is about quantifying information in order to answer a question. That requires children to organize data in some visible way so that comparisons and generalizations are possible. Meirick & Brownell, 2019
This quote by Meirick & Brownell of Erikson Institute’s Early Math Collaborative inspired my ideas, as I worked to make this data collection experience as visible as possible.
Materials: Natural Materials/Loose Parts, Cardboard, Chalk
First, I prepared a piece of cardboard with circles and asked my children to sort what we found. This naturally led to discussions about attributes of the materials and where they belong. Do flowers with leaves belong in the flower pile? Is a sweet gumball a pinecone?
Next, we estimated which group had the most. This proved tricky because there were many different kinds of materials in various shapes and sizes. How could we accurately compare? They decided that flowers had the most and the long pods had the least.
Last, I made a simple graph and we pulled a few items out to count and compare. My 5yr old daughter enjoyed this the most. She neatly organized a few materials, counted, and wrote the number on the cardboard. Talking while we played provided an opportunity to focus on quantity, or how many. Then we talked about the size of the items and how 11 magnolia flowers looked the same as 20 small pinecones on our graph.
In reflection, we decided the next time we will find items that were the same size!
