Learning Without Walls

“New research has found that more than a third of children don’t play outdoors after school and 1 in 5 don’t during weekends, raising concerns about children’s physical and mental health.”

We are taking the month of October, the time when many of us already feel mounting pressure and fears we are falling behind on something, to center something that often gets overlooked around now: taking the kids outside.

We are not talking about allotted recess minutes, or walking to and from another classroom, but creating new opportunities to go outside to move and learn. Maia inspired us with her outdoor learning in the woods, Amber showed us how even concrete and a tiny patch of green can ignite learning, but let’s talk about that letter worksheet, or that seat work time in math. One of the problems with worksheets and seatwork is that there is a lost opportunity to embody the learning, or to build the physical structure of the brain through movement.

There are lots of natural opportunities to talk about literacy and math concepts anytime you step outside, but we can also create some basic experiences that get kids moving and working towards some of those ticky-tacky foundational skills we all need (the alphabet, skip counting, etc) Why do them on a worksheet if you can do them outside?

We will explore easy, playful, low prep outdoor opportunities to stand in for worksheets and seat work this month. If you already have an hour of woods time, you do not need to switch, but if you only have 15 minutes of recess, and the yard is full of kids at every other time, this month is about using that scrap of pavement in between classrooms to meet kids’ right to be outside to move and play.

This week: obstacle courses with chalk. Shout out to Cherise who gave us the great tip of using puzzles in this way.

How do you get outside throughout the day? Let us know in the chat!