Learning outdoors

Learning outdoors has two different meanings for me. The first is the way that I use the outdoor space as an extended classroom, where children complete work that could just as easily be completed indoors. The second is the way that the children interact with the outdoor environment to extend their learning. Both types of outdoor learning have a place in my teaching practice, as I will endeavour to describe below.

Extending the classroom

Unfortunately I am the only infant teacher in my school without outdoor access straight from the classroom. This has been a major frustration, especially as I often feel that I am failing to provide some children with what they need in their first few weeks in year one. Having a class with 2/3 boys also has an impact, so I try to make my classroom bigger by taking groups outside as often as possible. This means that children in the groups get better quality time from an adult (without interruption from others) and the children in class have more space to work. It makes no difference whether I send quiet or noisy children out, there is a significant drop in the noise levels inside the class.

Interacting and engaging with the environment

There are many ways that children can interact with the environment, from exploring the wild area to learn about plants, minibeasts and habitats, to co-operation and collaboration skills when den building and orienteering. Taking the children out of the school is valuable too. Why learn about the history or geography of your local area from photos when you can just go out walking? Many questions and ideas arise from interacting with the environment that wouldn't necessarily arise in the classroom. This interaction also allows opportunities to use relevant language and to explore and develop ideas. In my experience, parents seem more willing to volunteer their support when you are taking their children out of school.

This is a very brief start to my thoughts on learning outdoors and I hope to blog more about it soon.  

Digital literacy project part 2

Digital literacy, outdoor learning, art and drama all mashed up - I'm in teaching heaven!

Easi-speak chatterboxes

We had a lovely trip down to the fen last week to collect some digital assets and use our imaginations. Our digital assets included photos and videos on the ipads, audio recordings on easi-speak microphones and chatterboxes and photographs using a range of cameras. The children also had sketchbook 'field guides' that they had made by carefully folding recycled paper. You can see the fantastic time we had on our class blog.

Ipads outdoors

A creature!

 We took a range of storytelling props with us including an old canvas satchel, old rusty keys, a magnifying glass, old bottles, a hat (found on a tree) and a door (found in a tree).

Who lives here?

Creature clues!

A door in a tree

Look! Old keys! What are they for?

Next week in class we will be painting maps and the creatures we found, before animating them. We will be using photostory, crazytalk, puppet pals and I can animate amongst other digital resources. I have had a go at animating some of my creatures to see how well they will work on crazytalk. I may get the children to give them voices, using audacity. More importantly, the trip was such a success for inspiring the children's use of language and firing their imaginations that I aim to get some of them back down there in small groups during the week. 

Creatures from the field guide found in the satchel.

I have also created models for the children of a map (which we will 'find' in our usual mantle of the expert way) and a creature that I spotted at the fen. 

The creature is the second that is adapted from Spiderwick, after all we all need a little help with our imaginations sometimes. The Spiderwick Field Guide (a perfect £2 boot sale find) and copies of creatures will be available for the children, as their ability to create from their limited experiences could prove too much of a challenge. Recent work on habitats and adaptation may come in useful when we are thinking about our creatures though.