Learning By Topic KS1: The Great Outdoors and Mathematics

Group different minibeasts by the number of legs they have: those with two legs, six legs, 8 legs, more than 10 etc.

Spend time in your garden everyday for a week and keep a record of minibeasts you have observed. Use tally marks to record what you see. Now plot the results on a bar graph. You might like to use a magnifying glass for this activity! Top Tip: you can find KS1 blank bar graphs online to assist with this activity.

For each of the minibeasts you observed in your garden, look up their life spans. Which minibeast lives for the longest amount of time? The shortest amount of time? What is the difference? Did any of this information surprise you? Why do you think some minibeasts live longer than others? (Cross Curricular: English. Genre of writing: Personal Response and Explanation)

Measure your garden – how many metres long and wide is your garden?

Do some measuring with water using millilitres and litres; estimate how many empty milk cartons water bottle it would take to fill up a bucket (other items can be used in replace of a milk carton); thinking about a small pond that you have visited estimate how many litres of water it holds; find as many items as possible around your house that measure in millilitres, without looking at the measurements estimate how many millilitres each one holds, check to see if you were accurate or how close you were! Top Tip: Ensure prior understanding of how many millilitres are in a litre before commencing this activity.

Find out the length of each of the minibeasts you observed in your garden (if you are unable to measure them yourself, look the measurements up online). Draw the minibeasts to scale and order them in ascending order according to their length.