Outdoor Learning Gets Creative
The warmer weather can make the classroom seem oppressive and uninviting, especially to children who all just want to be outside and playing. It can be difficult to inspire children when their thoughts are concerned with playtimes and lunch breaks, but with the increase of a number of schools incorporating outdoor classrooms, inspiration is not far away.
Outdoor classrooms can be used in a variety of ways, some schools use these outside learning areas in the form of secret gardens, creating imaginative play and inspiring creativity with regards to expressive writing and art skills. Other schools use the classrooms as areas for sensory awareness, using sight, sound and touch to stimulate children’s natural ability to be imaginative, but it also teaches them about the basic of how life works and the importance of respecting the environment we live in. There are a few companies that provide outdoor classrooms to enhance the environment, as they use environmentally friendly products and recyclable materials.
Drama classes are a perfect way to utilise the outdoor space and storytelling lessons can also be used to create the most of the outside and get the creative juices of the children flowing. Although the areas are used much more in the summer months, even on wetter days they can be used in the day to day lessons of the school as the majority have roofs, giving extra protection for the rain, also the roofs can be used to protect the students from very hot days and the heat of the sun.
The use of an outdoor classroom can aid all children and the types of lesson that can be taught is quite varied, children respond better to learning when they are enjoying the activity and one of the best uses of the outdoor space is practical lessons. If the area has a enough room the use of a vegetable garden helps children to understand where the food they eat comes from and the fresh produce can be used in cookery lessons or even on the school dinner menu.
As many schools understand the benefit of using the space they have outside, more outside classrooms are beginning to be part of the day to day experience of children, even if it is a secret garden with the old vegetable and herb in there. It is an amazing way to inspire learning in a different environment. Children can learn about nature from reading through books but what better way to learn is there than being outside and around the natural world itself.
Written by Pete Tooley, a former teacher who now designs outdoor play areas for schools using eco-friendly school playground equipment. The use of outdoor classrooms can have amazing results and a opens up a whole a new way of teaching.
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