Lessons · Living things
Counting mushrooms, hands behind backs
After rain in autumn there are more mushrooms within fifty steps than anyone expects. This lesson is about counting them and only counting them.
When
August to November
Outside
About 30 minutes
What it teaches
Counting things that are scattered rather than lined up, and counting gills in fives.
What is going on
What comes up after rain is the fruit, not the organism. The fungus itself is a network of threads through the soil or the wood, sometimes hectares of it and decades old, and it puts up a mushroom for the same reason an apple tree puts up an apple. That is why they arrive in flushes two or three days after rain, why they come up in rings and lines, and why picking one does no more harm to the fungus than picking an apple does to the tree. The reason this lesson still takes no basket is different and simpler: the deadly ones and the good ones can look alike enough that experienced adults get it wrong, the worst of them destroy a liver over days with no warning at the time, and a child cannot hold that judgement. So the answer at these ages is never, with no exceptions, and a child who has been told never does not have to weigh anything.
What to look for
- Rings and arcs — the fungus growing outward from where it started, fruiting at its edge
- Which ones come up under which trees. Many species will only grow with one kind of root partner
- Gills, pores or spines underneath. Three different ways of doing the same job
- What has been eating them. Slugs and squirrels do not follow our rules and are not evidence of anything
Before you go
This lesson is counting and nothing else. No child on this site is ever taught that a wild mushroom is safe to eat, and a photograph — including one on this page — is never enough to identify one. Keep hands behind backs, and wash them at home.
First, outside
What to do
What to take
- Nothing. Deliberately nothing — no basket, no bag, no knife
- 1
Pick a wet day two or three days after rain, and a patch of woodland or old grass.
- 2
Set the rule before you leave the house, and have the six-year-old say it back: we look, we count, we do not touch, nothing goes in a mouth.
- 3
Walk fifty steps and count every mushroom you pass. Then fifty more.
- 4
Choose one that has fallen over on its own and look underneath without lifting it. Count the gills in fives — there are usually more than you can manage.
- 5
Photograph the interesting ones instead of taking them. The photograph is the collection.
Out loud
What to say to each of them
All three at once, off the same bucket of acorns. Read down the column that matches the child in front of you.
2
Point and name
- “Mushroom! Point with one finger. Hands behind your back.”
- “One mushroom. Two mushrooms. How many?”
- “We look at mushrooms. We never, ever eat them.”
Subitising — seeing that a group is two without counting it — and the idea that a number word belongs to a thing you are touching.
4
Count and compare
- “Count the mushrooms without moving your feet. Now take five steps and count again.”
- “Are they all the same kind? Which two look the same as each other?”
- “What is the rule? Say it back to me.”
One-to-one correspondence: one number word per object, the last word you said is how many there were. Then more, fewer, and the same.
6
Tally and figure
- “Count the gills in fives. How far did you get before you lost track?”
- “Twelve in the first fifty steps and five in the next fifty. Which patch was better, and can you say why?”
- “Why do we never taste a wild mushroom, even one a grown-up says is fine? Because the dangerous one and the good one can look the same, and being nearly sure is not sure.”
Grouping as a way of counting past what fingers hold, and subtraction as the distance between two numbers rather than a taking-away.
When it is not working
What going wrong looks like
Most of what looks like failing is a child standing at a known place on a known ladder. Knowing which place changes what you do next, and it is usually not more practice.
About 2
Reaches for one. Hands behind backs is a physical rule, not a spoken one, at this age — give the hands a job.
About 4
Asks whether this one is the good kind. Answer plainly: some are and some are not, and we never find out by tasting. Do not soften it into maybe.
About 6
Wants to identify them and starts making confident calls from a book or a photograph. Take the interest seriously — it is a good instinct — and hold the line that identifying and eating are two separate permissions, and only one of them is on offer.
How you know it landed
They say the rule back to you before you say it, and tell somebody else's child off for reaching. That is the rule installed rather than obeyed.
Rungs of the ladder this builds
Then, five minutes on screen
The same idea, drilled
Scattered counting, where the things are not in a tidy row.
Why this order
The walk first, the game after. Reversed, the walk becomes the price of the game, and a child who has learned that outside is what you do before the screen has learned the wrong thing very efficiently.
For the fifty steps
A counter for the walk
Tap once per mushroom as you pass it. Hands go back behind backs between taps.
Mushrooms passed
0
No marks yet. Tap the big square for the first one.
When you have done it
Ticking it keeps it off the next season plan, and nothing else.
We look, we count and we put it back. Nothing goes in a mouth — not a berry, not a mushroom, not a leaf. That is the whole rule, and it is the same rule every time.
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