A list of some of the best ways to implement math in the garden and increase your child’s interest in mathematics! 

Summer is underway which means it is the perfect time to go outside and do some gardening with your child! Gardening has the potential to be an incredibly enjoyable pastime for young students. Seeing plants blossom from tiny seeds into beautiful flowers, plants, and so forth gives children a sense of achievement and progress. Fortunately, gardening also presents so many opportunities for parents to teach their kids about math. In this article, we will provide you with some great ideas of how to implement math in the garden as well as what math skills can be significantly improved. 

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Counting Activities 

There are so many different ways to improve your child’s counting skills while gardening! One idea that you can try is by having your little one count how many seeds are needed to grow a specific plant. During the beginning stages of growing your garden, allow them to read out loud how many seeds the instructions say to put in the soil. After that, let them partake in the fun part of gardening by planting the seeds in the soil and giving them some water! 

This next counting exercise can be done once your new plants begin to sprout. For every week that goes by, have your child count how many new leaves the plants grew. If they want to take this activity to the next level, allow them to write down the numbers in a notebook and compare each plant to see which one is progressing the fastest! 

Measuring Activities 

Another way to implement math in the garden is through fun measuring activities. One idea is to have your child measure exactly how much water each plant or flower needs. They can even go a step further and write down each measurement to see which plants require the most water. For example, some smaller and more delicate plants only need less than a cup of water every other week. On the other hand, bigger and easier to raise plants can take around 1.5-2 cups of water every week. 

In addition, you can also have your little one measure the stem lengths of each plant. This is a great activity for them to practice their information gathering skills as they will track which plants are growing the fastest and which ones may be struggling. 

Graphing Activities 

Graphing activities are very similar to the measurement exercises that were mentioned above. However, they present an even greater opportunity for students to develop critical thinking and information gathering abilities. 

For this activity, simply have your child organize each plant in the garden into different categories. If your garden contains a lot of flowers, the categories could be “roses, tulips, sunflowers,” and so forth. In addition, if your garden is full of fruits and vegetables, the categories could be “tomatoes, squash, lemons” and so on. 

After that, allow your child to pick a graphing method. This can be either a bar graph, line graph, or pie chart. Finally, have your child count up how many plants are in each category and create a graph that represents their findings! 

Shapes Activities 

These exercises are more suited for younger math students. Despite this, they can have the potential to have a very positive impact on your child’s math interest. For this activity, have your little one identify which shape each plant resembles the most. 

For instance, some individual flower petals look like triangles while others like ovals or circles. This exercise also works well with fruits and vegetables as tomatoes can be identified as spheres while green onions take on a more cylindrical shape. If your child enjoys drawing, have them try to draw the flowers, fruits, or vegetables as well! 

Algebra Activities 

This last exercise to help implement math in the garden is awesome for students who are a little bit more advanced at mathematics. For this activity, draw up basic algebra equations based on the number of each type of plant or flower you have in the garden. 

For example, if your garden contains six potato plants. You can create an equation such as 2x + 4 = 16. Next, have your child solve the problem to figure out how many potato plants are in the garden. 

About Think Academy

Think Academy provides online teaching services and classes for math students across grades K-Middle School. We also provide tons of free academic resources such as worksheets, webinars, and more! For those who are interested, you can join our WhatsApp group to receive free weekly math resources! 

In addition, if you would like to receive free math resources via email instead. You can sign up to join our newsletter here!

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Think Academy’s Classes 

We offer numerous different math courses for children in grades K-8. We have short-term math classes that can help improve your child’s fundamental math skills. These courses last only about a couple weeks.

In addition, we also have K-8 long-term classes to ensure that students master the math material in their respective grades. These semester-long courses are available in three different levels (Advancement, Mastery, ACE) to account for all learning speeds!

As for students who want to take their math skills to the next level. Think Academy provides math competition prep classes for events such as the AMC 8 and Math Kangaroo!

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