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Math Garden

How does your garden grow? Students will see that math can help them grow theirs as they add flowers and petals to drawings.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • White Paper

Steps

  • Step 1

    Review some basic addition and subtraction problems with students. Talk about balanced equations and give examples such as 3 + 2 = 4 + 1 or 9 - 4 = 8 - 3. 

  • Step 2

    Ask students to write a balanced math statement and draw flowers to whose petals match it. For example, if their equation is 8 + 4 = 6 + 6, then one flower would have eight petals and the other would have four on the left side of the equal sign, and the flowers to the right of the equal sign would each have six. Students could embellish their art with features such as grass or a sun if they wish.

  • Step 3

    Have students present their art and challenge classmates to solve the problems. Then display the work on a "Math Garden" bulletin board.

Standards

MATH: Use and connect mathematical representations.  

MATH: Apply mathematical operations to solve real-world problems. 

Adaptations

Have students create a balanced math collage. They can write their balanced equation at the top of the paper, then create a collage using the correct number of items to glue on either side.

Have students make predictions based on their estimation of what an item might weigh. For example, they might say seven crayons are similar in weight to five pencils. Then have them test their answers by checking the weigh on a gram or ounce scale or looking up the standard weights online.