Relevant Math-Making a Fence For the Cucumber Plants To Vine Out

This entry is an example of how we use the garden to teach literacy. This past week we had to construct a fence for the cucumber plants so that they can vine out. We started with our problem. A real world problem for the kids to solve. We wanted the vines to grow along the fence. We determined that we needed 3 foot lengths of wooden stakes. We had 12 foot lengths of wood. We asked the students how many stakes could we get out of the 12 foot lengths. These are kids who can recite their 3 or 4 times tables no problem. When hit with the real world scenario they were locked up. Only one girl could answer the problem of 4-3 foot lengths. We discussed how we wanted to keep the cost down so we wanted to use only the wood we had. After she answered the question and we retaught why we learn our times tables and division we built the fence. They hammered the stakes into the ground and constructed the fence. I checked for understanding again after the job. All 4 of the students could answer the question.