Fresh Lesson Plan
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For children, playing outdoors opens up a whole new world. In an increasing number of preschools, it’s part of the lesson plan too. Through outdoor classrooms and nature learning programs in The 330, kids craft pine cone-topped dishes in mud kitchens, tend to tomato plants and more.
“Creativity, imagination, problem-solving, critical thinking skills, these are all things that the natural world facilitates,” says Joe Vogel, associate head of school at Old Trail School.
Vogel and Joni Weiglin, a center director for Kids Country school in Stow that has an outdoor classroom, guide us through how learning in nature makes a difference for kids.
Fosters Creativity
Being out in nature and playing with what they find allows kids to be inventive. A broken branch becomes a sword to fight monsters with or the flagpole atop their fortress. All of this running around and making up games helps kids develop creativity.
In order to give their students more spaces to play, Kids Country’s outdoor classrooms, which are located at its schools throughout The 330, have mud kitchens, digging stations, gravel and sand pits, gardens, continuous build stations, an amphitheater, water features and more will be added this summer. “The children can dig in and create. It encourages a lot of imaginative play,” says Weiglin.
The mud kitchens consist of a table and sink with enough space to put together mud pies garnished with dead leaves for kids’ pretend outdoor restaurant. In addition, continuous build stations offer opportunities for students to set up stick castles and add on to them every day. Building together enhances motor, social and problem-solving skills. “They’re getting the same development and they’re just playing,” Weiglin says.
Old Trail School, located in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, is also investing in nature learning. It is constructing an outdoor classroom set to open in June. Meanwhile, it focuses on nature education through activities including regular hikes, outdoor electives and other time in the environment to teach a variety of lessons.
“The hikes are multidisciplinary — science teachers may teach about insects, English teachers may teach about nature poetry,” says Vogel.
Encourages Discovery
Kids are curious. Their early years are spent trying to make sense of the world around them. Learning in nature allows children to crouch down to see earthworms under their feet or look up and watch cardinals perched in a tree.
“They’re little researchers, so they’re outside trying to figure out how the world works,” says Weiglin.
In the child-led environment of an outdoor classroom, their curiosities drive the lesson. If a child sees a bird, then they can start asking questions like, Where do these birds live? “Then we’re going to go out and we’re going to investigate, find any bird’s nests outside,” says Weiglin.
Another way children learn at Kids Country is through gardens where they care for plants such as strawberries and corn. They get to observe how these plants grow, harvest them and use them to make dishes like salsa.
Old Trail has an 11-acre organic farm that teachers can use as another classroom. For example, students in art classes have learned about textiles by growing and harvesting cotton to use in their artwork. Third graders grow plants that Native Americans would have grown in Ohio for a lesson on culture. The nutritious food they harvest from the farm, like cucumbers, herbs, lettuce and other veggies ends up in their dining hall at mealtimes. It demonstrates real-world application and develops healthy habits.
“It becomes part of who they are as both young children and as learners,” says Vogel.
Develops Critical Thinking
When outdoors, kids inevitably run into problems. Their shovel hits a rock or a log keeps falling from where they propped it up. On one occasion at Kids Country, children spotted a squirrel stealing from a bird feeder and that prompted a classroom discussion of how to solve the problem. The children researched what squirrels eat and made feeders to keep squirrels from taking from birds. They named them, drew them and even wrote the squirrels letters about their day. One hungry squirrel turned into hours of learning. “What you see is more engaged children because it is their ideas and their research coming to the table — they’re choosing their learning,” says Weiglin.
Old Trail teaches critical thinking through classes such as Tunnels and Forts where students build complex forts with sticks, logs and rocks gathered from the woods. “That’s engineering 101,” says Vogel. “They’re constantly thinking about things that they might not have the language to express, such as concepts of physics like gravity and motion.”
The new Merryweather Family outdoor classroom will allow more environmental education at Old Trail. The 2,000-square-foot outdoor covered classroom will have open seating for 50 students, an indoor multipurpose space and two bathrooms. A living roof that covers the entire space will be used to teach sustainability. Many teachers have made plans to take students there for a week to spend all day learning in nature.
“Outdoor classrooms give kids the chance to learn everything in a way that it’s not work but play and investigating things that interest them,” Weiglin says. “Students learn more about the world around them and about themselves.”
Linked In
It’s easy to miss your child’s chubby cheeks or silly smile from the moment you drop them off at school. Now you can check in on them through the apps schools and day cares are using. Kids Country school in Stow uses the My Teaching Strategies app, which brings a new approach to how parents communicate with their child’s teachers. Christa Shirilla, the lead Preschool 2 teacher, gives insight on how it works.
Q: What information do parents get through the app?
A: Every day, they will get exactly what we do through the lesson plan. If it’s a science experiment, it says what the experiment is and how we do the experiment. It also gives a parent knowledge of what their child ate. It’s really just a way for parents to see what their child is doing.
Q: What is the most important feature?
A: There is a note option. Parents are able to send the teachers a note if the child won’t be here or if somebody’s picking them up that normally doesn’t. If something happened, we can communicate with the parents that way. What kind of day their child has — we put that in the iPad as a note parents can see.
Q: How can it help parents?
A: Having the lesson plan helps parents teach them at home. For example, each week we do a different letter, this week we’re focusing on the letter T. Parents are able to work with the children at home on the letter T. Even if your child is not here, a lot of times the parents will work with their kid on whatever we learned that day. So when they’d come back to school, they’re not completely lost.
Q: What would you say is the best part of the app?
A: Letting the parents see pictures of their child through the day. A lot of people love to see their child. If they’re having a bad day, they can click onto the app and there’s a picture of their child.