Counting Walk
Introduction
Curious George is always counting. His walk from his house into town is filled with exciting things to count. You and your students can take a walk around the block in the neighborhood of your school and do some counting, just like George!
Materials Needed
- One clipboard per child
- One pencil per child
- One piece of paper per child
- Chart paper
Background Knowledge
It is helpful if children understand the expectations of a neighborhood walk and have had experience going into the community on previous occasions. You may want to ask some family members to help chaperone the walk. You will want to have discussed the safety issues involved in taking a walk around your block, especially in terms of traffic if you will be walking close to streets.
You may want to read
Curious George Learns to Count to your students to help give them ideas about things to count in their neighborhood. They should know how to keep track of what they count using tally marks.
Teaching
Before you leave on your walk, brainstorm together about all the different things you could count in your neighborhood. Make a list that the children can see. Have each child choose (or assign them, if you prefer) one thing to count as you walk around the block. Have children make predictions about how many of each thing they might see. You may want to ask comparing questions such as "Do you think we will see more fire hydrants or more cars? Why?" or "Do you think we will see more people or more dogs? Why?" Give children clipboards, paper, and pencils before you leave your room. Ask them to write their names and, if they can, the name of the object they are counting. If they are not yet writing, you can have them draw a small picture of the object.
Activity
As you walk around your block, stop often so that children have a chance to write a tally mark each time they see an object. You may want to avoid extremely numerous objects like windows if you live in a densely populated area!
Share
When you return to your classroom, have children count up their own tally marks. Make a chart together that notes how many of each object were seen and counted. Discuss what, if anything, surprises the students. Were their predictions accurate? Did they see more or fewer dogs than they expected? Did they choose anything that was too hard to count (cars, pigeons, etc.) because there were too many, or because they were moving too fast? Did they leave anything out of their list of things to count that they wish they had counted?
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