1. Math in the Science Discovery Center By: Marina Natalia Santos

2. Materials

3. Plastic Bugs and Animals The children can use these bugs and animals for counting and sorting by various attributes. They can analyze data that they gather about the bugs and animals and they could also create pattern sequences.

4. Calendar and Weather Station The children can use this calendar and weather station in multiple ways that pertain to math. They can use the charts for number recognition and counting. They can use the weather chart and calendar to analyze information and make predictions about what may come next based on the numbers and data that have been gathered. The children can also use this calendar to see if they notice any patterns.

5. Class Pet The children can use a chart or graph with numbers to keep track of feedings and amounts of food and water being fed to the pet. They can track his growth and make predictions based on the data collected. When feeding, they can count out and measure food amounts.

6. Hanger and Bucket Scale The children can use this scale to experiment with measurement, particularly weight. With this scale, the children can also practice problem- solving and probability to guestimate how much of something they need to put in one side of the scale to balance it. They also are practicing counting and composing and decomposing by adding and taking away items from the scale to balance it.

7. Discovery Bottles The children can use these bottles in many mathematical ways. Allowing the children to participate in making them can allow them to measure and sort out the items needed to make them. The children can use the bottles to make patterns if you provide multiples of the same ones. They can discuss the shapes that compose the items in the bottles as well.

8. Rock Collection The children can use these rocks as a collection for sorting. They can also use the rocks to create patterns and to make outlines of various shapes. The rocks can also be used for counting and to represent one-to-one correspondence when matched up to something like another rock or a container or marker of some sort.

9. Worm and Bug Collection The children can use these bugs to discuss any shapes that they notice on or about them. They can also use the bugs to discuss patterns that may be on their physical bodies or patterns that they make in their tunnels or homes. The children can also explore measurement through feeding mechanisms. They can use data analysis to predict and track tunnel development or hill building.

10. Rulers and Measuring Tapes The children can use these items to explore measurement and numbers (by the print on them).

11. Ramp and Small Objects Provide the children with blocks or wood to construct a ramp and various small objects that will and will not roll. The children can use these materials to experiment with probability. How high/low do I make the ramp to make the object roll here? Which objects will roll? Won’t? How far will they roll? The children can also experiment with spatial sense when decide where and how to place the ramp and objects. (On/under/over/next to/between…)

12. A Bucket of Miscellaneous Nature Items The children can use these items to experiment with size, color, shape, and texture. They can sort the items by attributes and make groupings of likenesses. They can also investigate these materials and use them to investigate measurement. They can line the items up or stack them to measure. They could also use them to balance the scale. The children can also count the items.

13. Garden The garden has numerous mathematical possibilities. The children can explore measurement through growth charting and analyzing data they gathered; they can measure the growth and food/water for the plants. The children can discuss the shapes and colors of the plants. They can also, when planting the garden, count the numbers of seeds they are planting, and measure the spacing, possibly create one-to-one correspondence with the seeds and or bulbs being placed in pots or holes.

14. Books

15. In the Garden: Who’s Been Here? By: Lindsay Barrett George Summary: This is a book about children who go to their garden to gather veggies only to discover that other animals have been there first. The children use clues left behind and their math skills to figure out which animal has been where. Potential: This book can be used for children to use their cognitive and logic skills to figure out who did what. The children can gather their facts and create charts to show and decipher their data. Purpose: Data Analysis and Probability

16. The Gruffalo’s Child By: Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler Summary: This is the sequel to The Gruffalo. This story tells about the Gruffalo’s child and how she sneaks into the woods in search of The Big Bad Mouse. The Gruffalo’s child encounters the mouse, snake, and fox, all of whom try to scare her. Just when she is about to give up, she finds a mouse who uses his whit to scare her away by making The Big Bad Mouse’s shadow appear. The Gruffalo’s child flees and the little mouse follows her tracks back to the Gruffalo cave. Potential: The children can learn about the animal tracks. The children could use animal track cut outs to make trails and create patterns. They can also talk about the size and shape of the tracks. The children can also learn about shadows, like the mouse makes in the book. The can use a light source, like a flashlight to create shadows and trace or draw them. They can transform them and try to recreate the shadows and/or the can graph their data. Did the shadows turn out bigger or smaller than the real object? Purpose: Patterning through the tracks, measurement through shadow exploration.

17. Nature’s Paintbrush: The Patterns and Colors Around You By: Susan Stockdale Summary: This is an imagery filled book about the patterns and colors that occur naturally in the world. Potential: This book can be used for children to learn about naturally occurring patterns. It can serve as a guide for them to hunt for patterns in their environments and to recreate patterns. Purposes: Pattern awareness, identification and replication.

18. How Many Bugs in a Box? By: David A. Carter Summary: This is a counting/measuring pop-up book about bugs getting in and out of a box. Potential: This book can be used for children to learn about counting and measurement through volume/capacity. Purpose: Number and operation-counting, composing/decomposing. Measurement-quantity and volume.

19. Color Zoo By: Lois Ehlert Summary: This is a virtually wordless book (other than labels) about animals and shapes and the shapes that compose them. Potential: Children can use this book to identify various shapes and see how many shapes can be arranged in such a way to create other things-like animals in a zoo. Purpose: Geometry

20. Waddle, Waddle, Quack, Quack, Quack By: Barbara Anne Skalak Summary: This is a story about a Mama duck and her ducklings and one who gets lost. The story uses spatial terms to help the family reunite. Potential: The children could use this book while exploring hatching eggs or if they have ducklings in the classroom. When reading they can learn about the spatial terms and what they mean by reading about and seeing in the images how the direction movement and relationships with the environment. Purpose: Geometry and spatial sense

21. Questions and Comments

22. Math Processes 1.How can we know our pet turtle is really growing? 2.Tell me about some other things that we could measure with our rulers, what are some other tools that we could make or use for measurement? 3.How can we show or display all the information we gathered?

23. Number and Operation 1.How can we split the bucket up so everyone gets the same amount? 2.Tell me about these rocks. What does there seem to be a lot of? A little bit? 3.What happens to these groups if I add two more leaves?

24. Patterns, Functions, and Algebra 1.Tell me about some different patterns we can see in this center? 2.Let’s look at this calendar/weather chart. Do we see any patterns? What are they? 3.How can we finish this pattern with this bucket of nature items?

25. Geometry and Spatial Sense 1. Tell me about the shapes you see in these discovery bottles. 2.How can we know which shapes each item in the nature bucket are and how to sort them? 3.Let’s look at these ramps. Tell me about how we need to place the objects to make it work? (On/under/next to/high/low)

26. Measurement 1.Let’s look at this this scale. How are we going to balance it? What items in this center can we use? 2.How can we use these measuring tools to see how tall our plants in the garden grew today? 3.Tell me about how can we measure how much food and water the turtle is eating each day?

27. Data Analysis and Probability 1.How can we track and keep track of our worm tunnels? 2.Tell me about how we could see how much our plants are growing each day? 3.Let’s look at our calendar. What do we predict our weather will be tomorrow? Why do you guess that?

28. Learning Indicators

29. M-3K-2.2: Show one-to-one correspondence through three when counting real objects. The children can use the bugs and colored shape containers or some other container or manipulative to create one-to- one correspondence. The children can plant one seed or bulb in one hole or pot. The children can line up rocks one-to-one.

30. M-4K-3.3: Recognize a simple pattern and extend. The children can recognize simple patterns in the center and recreate them using the materials provided. (Rocks, leaves, pinecones, calendar cards…) The children can discuss and notice pattern occurrences on the calendar. The children can notice patterns in the hills and tunnels that are created by the bugs.

31. M-3K-4.1: Recognize simple shapes in the environment. The children can recognize various shapes in the center. The children can recreate shapes and their outlines using the rocks of nature box items. The children can recognize shapes that make up the body of the bugs.

32. M-3K-5.3: Explore measurement informally through play. The children can gather data from the measuring devices (sale/rulers/measuring tapes), weather/calendar station, and living creatures in the center and analyze it to varying degrees. The children can use various items to balance the scale. The children can use the rocks or nature basket items to create lines of measurement with the ramp objects being rolled.

33. M-4K-6.1: Organize and represent data with real objects. The children can sort items in the basket of miscellaneous nature items by varying characteristics. The children can use images on the calendar to chart the weather. The children can sort the items they have grown in their garden by fruit or vegetable or color or size with a chart that uses images.

34. M-4K-1.5: Classify objects in the environment by color, shape, size, or function. The children can identify shapes, colors, and size differences in the discovery bottles. The children can classify the items used with the ramp as able to roll or not able to roll. The children can classify the bugs in the basket by size, color, wings/no wings, or leg number.

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