Recommended Age: 4 and ½ years and onwards
Level of Parent Involvement: Low, the adult gives the child instructions for the exercise then the child may work independently
Prerequisites
- The child must be able to count (have one to one correspondence in order to count the tally marks)
- The child
Materials
- Small blank notebook (A5 or A4)
- Pencil
Preparation
- None (aside from sourcing the notebook for the child to use)
Steps
- Invite the child letting them know that you are going to show them an activity outdoors
- Let the child know they must dress accordingly (jacket, beanie, shoes and socks etc, providing assistance if necessary)
- Go with the child outdoors (use your backyard if you have enough space or go for a walk with the child)
- Let the child know they must use their note book and pencil to draw a picture on each page of the things they see, make suggestions for the child of things they may like to draw for example trees, bushes, flowers, outdoor chairs, flower pots, birds
- Let the child know that each drawing must have its own page
- Once the child has finished finding and drawing their items, let the child know that you are now going to go for a walk around the neighbourhood and take their notebook and pencil
- Have a conversation with the child about what a ‘tally’ means, writing an example on their paper using lines to indicate when they see one of the items
- Once the child has created a tally on each of their pages for each of the items they have drawn, either go home, or find an appropriate place to sit with the child
- Show the child how to count their tally’s by drawing a horizontal line through the lines to represent 5
- Invite the child to count each tally and write the number on the page
- Ask the child “which item did you find the most of?”
- Ask the child “which item did you find the least of?”
- Let the child know that they may keep the notebook to draw pictures of more objects found in nature to go on a tally walk another day
Variations
- The child may draw pictures of their indoor environment to create tally’s
- You may provide guidance for the child and let them know that they will only be looking for a specific classification, for example flowers, leaves, trees etc
