Tag: outdoor learning

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Classroom Ideas, Educator Spotlight, Exploring Our World, Main

How This Outdoor Educator Drew a VIP Visit From Parks Canada

The key to starting a successful outdoor education program, according to educator Bill Bagshaw, is to capture students’ enthusiasm. Teachers must create a “long sales pitch where you are promoting it and how much fun it is,” he said. If you’re able to organize field trips, that can be a good strategy: “That really sells the program, and you can then work to build it up. Once that has been done, you can add some things, like research projects.” Continue reading How This Outdoor Educator Drew a VIP Visit From Parks Canada

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Classroom Ideas, Educator Spotlight, Exploring Our World

Why Abi Henneberry Takes Her Class Outside Each Day

“We have delighted in discovering slugs underneath oak leaves, muskrats surfacing in local ponds and swimming to shore, and migrating geese establishing nesting grounds,” kindergarten educator Abi Henneberry told me. “Once, we discovered very active, fearless voles in the green space surrounding a local storm pond. They had created holes and tunnels in the grasses we had passed many times, and they were jumping everywhere. This was a tremendous opportunity for children to appreciate their place as visitors in another species’ world.” Continue reading Why Abi Henneberry Takes Her Class Outside Each Day

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Classroom Ideas, Educator Spotlight, Exploring Our World

How to Get Students Outside? Try Backward Planning

“I have always looked for opportunities to get students outside,” Xena Biffert told me. Xena is a district science consultant in Alberta, Canada, where we both live, and previously taught kindergarten and grades three through six. When she started bringing her own classes outdoors, it required her to think differently. “As I began taking students outside more, I really needed to reconsider the way I planned,” she said. “I started to do a lot of backward planning.” Continue reading How to Get Students Outside? Try Backward Planning

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Young girl sitting with her notebook outside
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Our #TeacherStrong Strategy: Partnering to Share Outdoor SEL Activities

This post was written by student learning specialist Kelly Koller and psychologist Byron McClure. Kelly: Last spring when schools shifted online, I was worried about kids spending too much time on their screens. I started wondering, “What gifts do I have to contribute and how can I help?” The environment and the outdoors have always been an interest of mine and I’ve done lots of … Continue reading Our #TeacherStrong Strategy: Partnering to Share Outdoor SEL Activities

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