It Not "Just Recess" Anymore!

Teachers often heave a sigh of relief when they take their students out to recess. Finally! The children can burn off the pent up energy they had been accruing for the past few hours indoors. But what if we change our outlook on outdoor play time? What if we create an outdoor environment that offered all of the learning opportunities that one would typically find indoors? What if children could run out to a well-planned play yard to find experiences in math, science, nature, dramatic play, water, building and construction, sensory activities, physical development, art and music? What if they play yard developed critical thinking, discovery, problem solving, and cooperative skills? The result would be that we wouldn't have "just recess" anymore. We would have The Outdoor Classroom!

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

"Must Haves" in the Outdoor Classroom

I was honored to write a guest post for Abbie at Greening Sam and Avery while she enjoys the sun and surf on vacation! Please stop by her site to see the post and learn about the absolute necessities (in my opinion, anyway!) in making your Outdoor Classroom a magical place for the children to play and learn.

Click HERE to see the post! Happy travels :-)

Adding a water source to your sand area offers stability to the sand AND encourages creativity and scientific discovery!

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4 comments:

  1. Amy A @ Child Central StationNovember 30, 2011 at 6:52 PM

    Loving the guest post today! I keep a linky open for outdoor classroom inspiration. I have been doing a wide range of trainings on the topic! If you haven't seen it, you can find it here: http://www.childcentralstation.com/p/outdoor-classroom-inspiration.html I haven't had an opportunity to get in and check out the newer link ups or to recategorize all of them yet!

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  2. BeansproutsNovember 30, 2011 at 9:21 PM

    thank you kristin for taking the time for this post. it's excellent. i was ironically just a few hours ago googling for ideas about what to put in our yard. the kids are asking for more ways to use the loose parts we have (those planks are balanced higher and higher onto other surfaces and i'm getting nervous!) so i want to get some more things to explore. i have a shopping list for the home supply store (or freecycle, lol) thank you!

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  3. KristinNovember 30, 2011 at 9:34 PM

    Thanks for the lovely comments! It is always encouraging to hear that my posts have inspired others! Amy - I will definitely stop by your link-up! Beansprouts - I wrote an entire post on loose parts, so you may want to check that one out for some fun photos ;-).

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  4. UnknownDecember 7, 2011 at 7:35 PM

    Nice to find you. Hope you can visit our site too. Blessings for a joyful holidays. Chandi
    http://chandi-holliman.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete

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