In our Teacher’s Ed program we had the opportunity to go to two different elementary schools for a few hours each to engage students from Kindergarten all the way up to Grade 5 or 6 in some outdoor learning activities. Both experiences were structured quite differently, which was incredibly insightful to see not only the possibilities of how to organize different outdoor opportunities, but also how the students of varying ages respond to different structures.
We had the opportunity to engage students in outdoor learning both on school grounds and off school grounds.
We are fortunate enough to live in an area where accessing beautiful outdoor spaces isn’t very difficult, but it does seem to require a lot of planning and coordination.
The following 3-2-1 chart is a way of reflecting on a learning experience using a simply formatted log that can be adapted to many different learning experiences.
I’ve used the 3-2-1 log to document and explore my experiences with outdoor learning structures
Now what? I’d like to believe that making the effort to leave school grounds is well worth it. Surely staying on the same property for years and years gets to be a bit dull, no!? I hope to never be defeated by bureaucracy when it comes to getting kids outside!