Have you ever received a bouquet of dandelions, a woolly mammoth or a cricket from a child? For the young among us especially, it doesn't take wide open spaces of nature or expensive natural playgrounds (designed by adults) to nurture a sense of wonder. Neither does it take a field trip to a forest to do hands-on learning about life science. Small, close-up natural spaces are magical places for kids (of all ages). Plan on regular field trips into the school yard this year, starting this fall.
Start the year with short learning times outside, and focus those short times on one topic, like flowers. During the first visit outside, allow students to run the boundary of the area where you want students to stay, after you describe it. This will dissipate initial energy and allow them to learn your boundaries. Allow each student to pick a flower. Ask questions about flowers before explaining that they will be doing more learning by exploring during the whole school year.*
After the initial visits outside, introduce students to the idea of habitats. Habitat can be a difficult word for students at first. Start teaching in the classroom about neighborhoods. Consider learning the Sesame Street song “Who are the People in Your Neighborhood?”
“When children comprehend 'neighborhood' start the habitat lesson by holding up a picture of a grasshopper (or even better, a live one) and say, 'Today we are going to visit the neighborhood of this grasshopper.' As the lesson progresses, use the word habitat interchangeably with the word neighborhood.” (Nature for the Very Young, p. 14)
Take students outside. Define the boundary and let the children run and explore. Gather students with your signal into a circle, and tell them to lie down silently. Ask them what they hear. Allow each student to collect something to take inside; put plants in a bag, and creatures in a jar with a cloth on top. Remind students that this is the neighborhood/habitat of a grasshopper. Ask open-ended questions about what this habitat provides for the grasshopper. See if you can elicit the five things each creature needs: air, water, food, shelter and space (range).
Once back inside, watch the creatures in the jar and the plants in the bag all day. Bring them back outside at the end of the day. Learn together the song, “Who are the Creatures in Our Habitat?”
Give each student a felt animal and take them outside to the school’s naturalized areas. Have them hold the felt animal with an outstretched arm and move it through the shrubs. Meanwhile, don't give them any verbal cues, but take out your burs, milkweed pods, and plantain seeds.
The following lesson ideas for Kindergarten classes take kids outdoors and are based on science curriculum expectations. Curriculum expectations are always based on the Ontario Ministry of Education. Many of the activities will reinforce, rather than teach, those expectations. As such, no assessment ideas or rubrics are included. Outside, students and teachers have the opportunity to see, experience and enjoy the wonders of creation about which they are learning.
Overall Expectations:
By the end of the Full-Day Early Learning–Kindergarten program, children will
By the end of the Full-Day Early Learning–Kindergarten program, children will
-demonstrate an awareness of the natural and built environment through hands-on investigations, observations, questions, and representations of their findings;
-conduct simple investigations through free exploration, focused exploration, and guided activity, using inquiry skills (questioning, planning, predicting, observing, communicating);
-use technological problem-solving skills (questioning, planning, predicting, constructing, observing, communicating) in free exploration, focused exploration, and guided activity.
-demonstrate an understanding of the natural world and the need to care for and respect the environment;
Children love recess and will likely equate going outside with free time. Stress that outside learning time is not recess, and expect that it will take some time for students to learn that. Also make the children aware of a sound that signals that it is time to gather around you.
Start the year with short learning times outside, and focus those short times on one topic, like flowers. During the first visit outside, allow students to run the boundary of the area where you want students to stay, after you describe it. This will dissipate initial energy and allow them to learn your boundaries. Allow each student to pick a flower. Ask questions about flowers before explaining that they will be doing more learning by exploring during the whole school year.*
Habitats
Materials:
- (picture of) grasshopper
- a clear baggy for each student
- a few glass or clear plastic jars with a cloth covering held in place with an elastic
“When children comprehend 'neighborhood' start the habitat lesson by holding up a picture of a grasshopper (or even better, a live one) and say, 'Today we are going to visit the neighborhood of this grasshopper.' As the lesson progresses, use the word habitat interchangeably with the word neighborhood.” (Nature for the Very Young, p. 14)
Take students outside. Define the boundary and let the children run and explore. Gather students with your signal into a circle, and tell them to lie down silently. Ask them what they hear. Allow each student to collect something to take inside; put plants in a bag, and creatures in a jar with a cloth on top. Remind students that this is the neighborhood/habitat of a grasshopper. Ask open-ended questions about what this habitat provides for the grasshopper. See if you can elicit the five things each creature needs: air, water, food, shelter and space (range).
Once back inside, watch the creatures in the jar and the plants in the bag all day. Bring them back outside at the end of the day. Learn together the song, “Who are the Creatures in Our Habitat?”
Rabbits
Materials
- a dozen or so cardboard-colored rabbit cutouts
Ascertain ahead of time whether there has been evidence of rabbit visits to the school yard. Also, hide cardboard-colored rabbit cutouts in the naturalized parts of the school grounds.
In the classroom, ask students what creatures need in their habitat: air, water, food, shelter and space. Ask what rabbits need especially (shelter) and explain how rabbits are especially equipped to be safe from predators: eyes in the sides of their heads, lots of babies, powerful noses and ears and a camouflage coat.
Consider having a bunny visit the (outdoor?) classroom. Explain that a male rabbit is called a buck, a female a doe and a baby is called a kitten.
When you take students outside, explain that a grassy field is exactly the kind of place where a rabbit may live but that they aren't likely to be home while you're outside. Ask the children to hide in the school grounds on the side of the school yard without the rabbit cutouts. As you look for students, tell them why you are able to spot those students with bright coats or those who move around. Take students to the area with the cut-out rabbits, and ask them to find the cutouts. Discuss what might have been hard about finding them: the color matches their habitat, unlike some of the children's coats. You may or may not choose to introduce the word 'camouflage'.
Seed Dispersal
Materials
- felt animal cutouts, one for each student
- common seeds: burs, milkweed pods, plantain seeds
For creatures, fall is a season of harvesting, but for plants it is a season of sowing. Sowing and problem solving. How can plants get their seeds to fall somewhere other than at their feet?
Give each student a felt animal and take them outside to the school’s naturalized areas. Have them hold the felt animal with an outstretched arm and move it through the shrubs. Meanwhile, don't give them any verbal cues, but take out your burs, milkweed pods, and plantain seeds.
When the class has gathered together, outside or inside, let students examine their felt animal for hitchhiked seeds. Let them classify those seeds as well as the ones you collected in terms of how they travel: gliders (like maple), hitchhikers (like burs) or parachutes (like dandelion).
No doubt that not only your students but you yourself benefit from going outside to learn . Regular offsite field trips are out of reach for many schools. My hope is that you are inspired to consider that taking your class outdoors at school is not only possible, but worthwhile.
For more ready-made science lesson plans for outside with age-appropriate worksheets, click here.
*Fall activity ideas below are adapted from Nature for the Very Young by Marcia Bowden New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1989
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