Neighborhood Counting Walk

Who goes for a walk outside when it’s 97 degrees? Well … we do. Apparently, my son and I are both crazy.

Creative Family Fun posted such a great idea in June, I knew I had to give it a try. It seemed like just the kind of thing my son would love; I was right.

Stop and read the original post from Terri about the adventuresome Counting Walks she takes with her five year old daughter.

I love that this activity is just as much about exercising our observation and math skills as our bodies … AND it’s outside. Isn’t that what summer is all about: getting outdoors?

To work on tally marks and skip counting, I created a recording sheet for my son. Truth be told, I made two so we can do this again (hopefully when it's cooler).

Download a PDF of these cards here.

A ballpoint pen, clipboard, and bottle of water and we were off. My son made tally marks every time he saw one of the objects on the recording sheet. When we got home, he skip counted the tallies and wrote the number of each item down. Then on the back of the card, he put the items in order from least to greatest.

What did we see the least?

Dogs. (Apparently it was even too hot for them.)

The greatest?

Mailboxes.

Did we have fun?

Most definitely.

Sweat?

Boy, did we ever.