Addition By Playing_ Math Outdoors

Outdoor activities in school playgrounds have been shown to improve a student's physical, social, and mental health, including building upon their emotional and behavioral development. Letting children go outside, relieves them from stress, and gives a fun break from the classroom routine of teachers and textbooks in the classroom. To play outside offers children an opportunity to engage with their physical movement and independence to build up their confidence. Outdoor learning helps their views toward school as positive to learn more and be well behaved. A subject that is determined by going outside is math.

Studies have shown that learning math in different ways is a great way to reach out to students who don't like math and lack confidence in it. The traditional numbers and calculations from a textbook may be tedious and confusing to them, but using examples while outside could give them a better grasp of the subject. Going out for so-called math excursions has been prevalent in schools for a long time. Science museums also involve math exhibits since the two subjects go hand-in-hand where students learn the basics of distances and how engineers calculate the speed of a moving object.

What is found outside during play is also important because children can use these visual things to guide them and allow children to control how they play. Complex learning works through a child's planning and problem-solving, not by structured play from teachers. For example, there may be trees to count up, rocks that can be lined up based on size, and the length of grass that can be measured. Or, just by playing sports can also help because of the number of points being scored, the distance of each line, and the height one child has on another.

Outdoor commercial playground equipment play also involves toys with wheels, including bicycles, wagons, trucks, and balls. Math play encourages children to act in complex ways. Teachers can incorporate toys into math play by getting creative with what children need to count and organize, whether it be by size or color. On pavement, they can use chalk to draw a hopscotch board, or use dice to roll on a picnic bench, and even a checkerboard and chessboard. And when they run, as in physical education, the sprint of 100 feet can be recorded in seconds and compared with other students. Sometimes, math is already embedded in the game.

Taking children outside the classroom for fun helps them relax and more receptive to learning things. Children will be focused on how to calculate math problems instead of the final number. They will find their surroundings more exciting than a textbook and getting in touch with what they see. Even the simplest of things is more intriguing than what is presented to them on paper. Nature improves many things for children, and taking them outside provides better health for their sakes and teachers because staying indoors all the time only hampers their education.

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