Last Child in the Classroom

Maybe you can get excited about the concept of taking the classroom outdoors, but are mystified about how to go about adding outdoor learning to your already full and intense days.  There are plenty of resources about the benefits of taking the classroom outdoors, but not as many resources with practical information to get you and your school started.

 Welcome to Wonder. This blog aims to demystify and simplify outdoor education, so that you, your school and almost any school can take the classroom outdoors.

The benefits of taking the classroom outside has been well-documented, and I have noticed those benefits myself.  For example, I  noticed that my students were calm and focused for quite a while after coming back inside at the end of an outdoor lesson. Here is a summary of the benefits noticed in educational research.

• Students have the opportunity to be more active
• Students have more opportunity to be in fresh air
• Students have the opportunity to be filled with wonder at the creation and the Creator 
• Students have the opportunity to learn not only cognitively but also experientially, supporting meaningful learning about biology, geography, and other sciences 
• Students develop better problem solving skills and physical literacy
• Students develop better social skills 
• Being outdoors makes children more observant 
• Being outdoors make children more excited and, at the same time, more calm and focused 
• Being outdoors makes students more curious 
• Being outdoors makes students more creative 
• Being outdoors supports better learning inside the classroom afterwards

While field trip budgets are being slashed, your school community may become motivated to increasingly develop its own school grounds for the purpose of enriching student learning with the wonders of the natural world right at school. Like this award-winning teacher in Arizona did.

Return regularly for lessons, tips and inspiration for outdoor learning at school.