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You are here: Home / Learning Activities / Addition with Rocks: An Outdoor Math Activity

Addition with Rocks: An Outdoor Math Activity

June 23, 2015 By Terri Thompson

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Whether your child is just learning a new math concept or needs help reinforcing a skill, math manipulatives are always a big help.

Manipulatives aren’t just a fancy new math term, nor is it something you need to run out and purchase.  It’s simply a group of small items used to illustrate a math concept.

I’m teaming up with a group of bloggers to showcase ordinary items you probably already have at home and the fun ways you can use them to reinforce math concepts. We’ll be doing some addition with rocks. It’s a great indoor or outdoor math activity.

Practice math in the backyard with this for outdoor math activity, Addition With Rocks, which uses rocks as a math manipulative to work on adding.

We’re using a basic item, rocks.

With rocks, you can do math anywhere… in your house, in your backyard, on a camping trip, in the park.

They’re easy to find. And, if your kids are anything like mine, you may already have a nice collection of rocks at home.

We’re using them to reinforce addition skills, but they can be used in many other ways.

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for more details.

Practice math in the backyard with this for outdoor math activity, Addition With Rocks, which uses rocks as a math manipulative to work on adding.

My youngest daughter just finished kindergarten where they started learning the basics of addition.

She understands the concept, but doesn’t have her facts memorized. (It’s a bit too early for that anyway.)

Right now, the reinforcement she needs is to work on is the concept and manipulatives are perfect for the job.

Table of Contents

  • How do we illustrate addition with rocks?
  • Other fun ways to use rock manipulatives:
  • You may also enjoy one of these fun math activities:

How do we illustrate addition with rocks?

It’s simple.

Check out the picture above. The problem we need to solve is 3 + 2.

Add 3 rocks and then another 2 rocks. Add the rocks together and you have 5. Easy peasy.

Practice math in the backyard with this for outdoor math activity, Addition With Rocks, which uses rocks as a math manipulative to work on adding.

Even before a child is writing the number sentences, they can start learning the basics with manipulatives.

Make 2 piles of rocks and ask your child how many rocks they have all together.

Or, start with a small group of 3 rocks. Ask your child to add 2 more to the pile, and then ask them how many they have all together.

It can be a very simple way to sneak in a bit of math practice.

Other fun ways to use rock manipulatives:

Practice subtraction. Start with a pile of 7 rocks and ask your child to take away 3 rocks. How many do they have left?

Use the rocks to help when adding 3 or more numbers together.

Do you have toddlers or preschoolers? Use them simply to learn how to count. Help them count a small pile of rocks. Or, ask them to collect 10 rocks.

Have you ever practiced addition with rocks?

Practice math in the backyard with this for outdoor math activity, Addition With Rocks, which uses rocks as a math manipulative to work on adding.

Rocks aren’t the only fun everyday math manipulative you can use. Check out all the great ideas from a group of fantastic bloggers at this link, or on the image below.

You may also enjoy one of these fun math activities:

Plus 1 Minus 1: An Easy Math Game

Number Stories at the Park

Driveway Hundred Chart

Math Fact Sticks

Paper Plate Addition at Better Than Homework

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Terri Thompson

Terri is a writer and mom of two elementary-aged girls. She has a passion for learning and is always looking for ways to make learning fun. You can find her here writing about fun learning activities, art, craft, and family fun ideas.

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