What Children Learn Outdoors
When you think about children’s time outdoors, you don’t necessarily focus on its value for teaching academic content. Nevertheless, there are many ways to connect content, teaching, and learning outdoors.
As you become knowledgeable about each of the components of learning, you will find many ways to promote children’s learning outdoors.
Literacy
- Expand children’s vocabulary and language by asking questions and encouraging them to describe what they see. Use a variety of adjectives when you observe with children: slimy, bright, bold, glowing, rough, furry, prickly, and so on.
- Teach children jump rope rhymes and clapping games to promote phonological awareness. Have them tune into the sounds and sights around them: how the horn on a car sounds vs. the horn on a truck or bus; identifying animal sounds-crickets, birds, mosquitoes, frogs, and dogs.
- Teach children about print and letters and words by providing traffic signs for wheeled toys. Provide clipboards for children to record observations, cardboard to make signs to identify plants in the garden.
- Teach children jump rope rhymes and clapping games to promote phonological awareness. Have them tune into the sounds and sights around them: how the horn on a car sounds vs. the horn on a truck or bus; identifying animal sounds-crickets, birds, mosquitoes, frogs, and dogs.
Science
- Guide children’s development of process skills by posing questions such as: What would happen if . . . ? How can you find out? What did you learn? Encourage children to be good observers by showing them that you too are interested in finding out what is waiting for you each day outdoors. Encourage children to explore life science by putting up bird feeders and keeping them stocked all winter.
- Ideas for the summer: Promote understanding of the earth and environment by learning about trees and plants in your outdoor area and planting a garden with children. Explore shadows: what makes them, how they move, how long they are. Encourage children to collect all sorts of rocks and compare them; examine dirt from different locations; measure puddles after a rain and see what happens to them; collect litter and recycle. Study the seasons and the changes that occur in each one.