Making The Outdoors Your Classroom

By Erin Sernoffsky

HHere in Northeast Ohio, April means the chance to get our families outside and once again breathe deep. Nature provides so many avenues for growth and learning at every age. Simply being outside stimulates imagination, provides a boost of vitamin D, reduces stress, and has been shown to benefit attention and cognition.

“Outdoor play is essential to growth,” says Rachel Aidala, lead teacher at the Mandel ECE at Shaw Jewish Community Center in Akron. “The benefits of outdoor play, and risky play, are endless as kids explore and take chances.”

Make the outdoors your classroom this season. Mother Nature is an excellent planner and makes sure you have all the supplies you need for learning, creativity, and exploration. But remember, the mere fact your child is playing outside means they’re learning.

“There doesn’t have to be an academic component for it to be great for kids,” Aidala says. “Parents may be surprised to find out how much kids learn from unstructured play. It helps them develop a better sense of body awareness, consequences of their actions, and learn about the world around them. Not every moment needs to be a lesson in numbers and letters.”

Hiking trails are the ultimate outdoor classroom. Simple games engage the entire family and help draw more attention to the incredible sights, sounds and animals around. As you hike, pick out landmarks—a lake, flowers, a field— and see how many words kids can come up with to describe each one. Or compare what’s the same and different between various species of trees or flowers. These games are easy to scale for both younger and older kids to play together. Go on a rainbow hike where everyone searches for items to match each color of the rainbow. Or try a rhyming treasure hunt. Assign each kid a word—hug, flea, sock—and challenge them to find something in nature whose name rhymes with the word you give them.

Let’s face it, there’s no shortage of mud around this time of year so you might as well make the most of it. Making mud pies is not only fun, it provides great sensory input. Grab a stick and write letters in the mud for your child to identify, or let them write their name or draw a picture. The resistance from the mud strengthens muscles needed for writing and other fine motor skills as well as gives extra tactile reinforcement. Kids can also use their stick, or the branch of a fir tree to “paint” with mud on driveways and sidewalks. For added fine motor development, give them spray bottles of water to wash away their artwork.

There’s no end to the fun ways to play with leaves, twigs, rocks, grass and flower pedals. Send kids outside at home to collect any interesting items and bring them back and make nature monsters on the ground—grass for hair,flower petal eyelashes, mulch mustaches. Older children can create nature mandalas, circular artwork on the ground utilizing patterns and shapes to make unique displays. Exercise creativity and fine motor skills by using twine and twigs to hang the items for a nature mobile.

“In my experience, letter recognition is best begun by practicing the letters in a child’s name,” Aidila suggests. “Have your child find objects in nature that correspond to the letters in their name, or help them create their name out of sticks, pebbles, or anything they can find.”

Break out the sidewalk chalk and draw squares on the driveway with a number inside each. Challenge your child to a scavenger hunt to find objects to match numbers in each square—four pinecones, three acorns, two flowers. For older kids you can then use these items to create addition and subtraction problems.

Playing outside, climbing trees, getting dirty—these are what core childhood memories are made of. It’s also where incredible learning happens. Whether they are inventing their own games, or you are finding innovative ways to reinforce schoolwork, getting outside can help your child grow in every area of development.

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April 23: 11 a.m.