Written and illustrated by Catherine Moore

3rd Grade PA Core Standards for Mathematics:

"I have the perfect idea!" Nora exclaimed. "We'll create the garden that mom has always dreamed of!" 

Nora, Annika, Elias, and Matthew were desperately trying to find a gift for their mom. Mother's Day was just one month away, and these siblings needed to get started on their garden very soon. 

As the children ate their lunch, they brain stormed ideas of what flowers to plant. "What if we made multiple gardens? Mom loves to be outdoors and she likes having extra produce around the house. How about we make one garden for beautiful flowers and another garden for yummy vegetables," stated Matthew.

The siblings agreed with Matthew's idea. After walking back home, they jumped in the family truck and drove to the hardware store to find supplies. Of course, they welcomed Beau, the family dog, to tag along.

Once at the hardware store, the siblings were shocked with the huge variety of plants they could purchase. Elias and Nora picked out flowers while Matthew and Annika picked out seeds for the vegetable garden. 

The siblings selected the perfect flowers and vegetable seeds for their garden. Annika paid for their new finds, and the boys loaded the truck.  Beau stayed in the truck bed to guard their flowers. 

"We need to hide these plants somewhere that mom will not see. If she sees them, the surprise is ruined," exclaimed Elias, the youngest of the four. "Maybe we can leave them in the field overnight and start our project in the morning?" Nora questioned. The siblings decided to return home and begin tomorrow, like Nora suggested. 

Back at the house, the four children saw mom preparing dinner. They helped her in the kitchen and awaited their father's arrival from work. Once Dad got home, the children were very excited to tell him about their plan for Mother's Day.

Dad was very proud of his children and their surprise for Mom. He pulled them into the living room to ask them more questions. "Well," said Dad, "your plan sounds very nice, but how will you know how much space you'll need?"

Matthew and Nora didn't think of this before and they were puzzled. Nora's eyes widened as she said, "I know how to do this! We will find the the area of a plot of the yard and make sure all of our plants fit inside of it." Dad smiled and nodded.

The next morning, with measuring tools and shovels in hand, the children returned to the drop off spot for their plants. When they arrived, they saw that some of the plants had chunks taken from their leaves. "Oh no!" exclaimed Elias, "Our plants have been eaten!"

"Hmm, I wonder what creature ate our plant leaves," said Annika. 

"How will we stop more animals from eating our flowers?" Annika asked. 

"I know, we must build a fence around our garden to keep away the animals," Matthew stated.

The girls returned to the house to get the truck. They would buy the wood needed to build the fence. As the girls went to get enough supplies for the fence, the boys stayed in the yard to begin digging.

"How do we know where to start digging?" asked Elias. "Here's what we'll do," Matthew said. "We will measure out 10 feet in one direction and 5 feet in the other direction. This will give us a rectangle to plant our flowers in," stated Matthew.

With Dad's permission, the children decided to fence in their whole yard. Annika calculated that they will need 80 feet of wood for each side of the yard. How many total feet would they need for all 4 sides? If each plank of wood is 8 feet long, how many planks will they need to buy? 

                        80'

  80'                                      80' 

                       80'

The girls gathered wood from the hardware store and the boys begin to dig their plot of land for the flowers. Annika and Nora calculated that they would need 320 feet of wood for all the sides of the fence. They purchased 40 planks of wood and drove back to the boys.