TL;DR:

• Outdoor learning can positively impact physical, mental, and social-emotional health, while offering real-world connections to curriculum.
• Starting small with structured routines can help students transition from “play” time to “learning” time outdoors.
• Even simple activities, like reading or math practice, can benefit from the outdoors, encouraging curiosity, resilience, and community connection.

Each day in teaching brings new opportunities, fresh perspectives, and a chance to try something different. Why not make this your time to stretch yourself as a teacher and take learning outside? Outdoor learning offers incredible benefits for both you and your students. You might be surprised to discover that almost any curriculum can be brought outdoors. With a little courage and creativity, you can make this a memorable and exciting experience for your students by thinking beyond the classroom walls.

Outdoor Learning Benefits Both You and Your Students

Not only will your students experience the many amazing benefits of outdoor learning, but you as a teacher will also experience these benefits. Spending time outdoors has been proven to impact not just our physical health, but our mental, and social-emotional health as well. On top of this, students get the added benefit of building a connection with nature and their community. 

Physical Benefits of Outdoor Learning

When you are outside you move more and you move in more natural ways. For many students, the classroom is confining. Kids (and teachers) are just not made to sit at desks all day. They are made to explore the world using their whole bodies. 

When kids are outdoors, they build their gross motor skills in ways that no gym class can. Opportunities such as navigating over, under, and through trees and rocks help students build their coordination and balance. Traveling further distances to reach your learning space also helps students to build stamina and endurance. The outdoors even provides opportunities for students to work on their fine motor skills. The gentle touch required to pick up an insect or the pinching grip needed for a student to pick up rocks or sticks all help students develop their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

Taking learning outside means that we can bring learning to life, rather than just relying on textbooks and videos. - Shannon M. Click To Tweet

Mental Health Benefits of Outdoor Learning

Being indoors all day can be mentally draining. Many students (and teachers) find the classroom overstimulating (that was me.) Others may find it not stimulating enough and need a richer sensory experience. Additionally, sometimes you just need to take a break and do something different. However you look at it, providing opportunities to take learning outside can help meet the mental health needs of everyone.

Nature seems to provide just the right amount of stimulation for everyone. Spending time outdoors has been shown to have a relaxing effect and helps our students decrease feelings of stress and anxiety. Additionally, spending time outdoors has been shown to help students increase their focus once they return to an indoor classroom. 

Social-Emotional Benefits of Outdoor Learning

The outdoors has a way of bringing people together. Students naturally work more collaboratively and their communication increases while they are outside. It isn’t always easy, but outdoor learning is a great way to build authentic social-emotional learning into your schedule. 

While working outside, kids naturally find ways to work together. The outdoors lends itself to planning more games and collaborative activities for your students. Additionally, kids just naturally come together to solve problems and work as a team when they are outside. (For example, there have been so many times where I have seen a group of students move something big like a log for no better reason than just because.) Kids also have increased and more varied communication with each other when they are outside. Activities like giving directions or describing objects stretch students’ communication skills and vocabulary.”

An added benefit is that as students begin to overcome challenges and “do hard things” while outdoors their self-confidence and self-awareness increase. Over time this helps students to build their resilience and ability to overcome increasingly difficult challenges.

Academic Benefits

In addition to helping students build resilience (do hard things) and increasing focus, outdoor learning has academic benefits for our students as well. Often we can cover the curriculum in more tangible and meaningful ways. Taking learning outside means that we can bring learning to life, rather than just relying on textbooks and videos. 

Outdoor learning also provides more opportunities for emergent learning. Students are inspired and empowered to take learning into their own hands by things they witness or observe outdoors. What better way to learn about butterflies, than to actually spend time observing butterflies in your community? As students go deeper into their exploration you will notice individual interests and new themes/topics emerge.

Finally, we know not all students learn in the same way. Outdoor learning allows you to provide a broader range of learning activities to meet the needs of all students. Through taking learning outside, you can provide activities and opportunities that are more hands-on or experiential. The outdoor setting lends itself to games, group activities, and observation allowing us to stretch beyond just the paper and pencil activities and truly immerse everyone in learning. 

Building Relationships With Nature

One of the most profound benefits of spending time outdoors with our students is the relationship that they begin to form with nature. Unless our students have the opportunity to spend time in nature, they will never begin to make connections to or understand their role as a part of nature. By taking learning outside we are giving students the gift of understanding their own relationship with the Earth. As students begin to understand that their actions affect nature and the earth, they start to care more about their impacts on the planet. 

Tips for Getting Started With Outdoor Learning

Safety First

Check out your site and schoolyard to ensure that everything is safe and accessible for all of your students. If you need to find spaces away from your schoolyard ensure that you get permission from your admin, school district, and families. 

Ensure that you are prepared as well. Take a first aid kit, whistle, phone, and any other safety materials you may require.

Templates and worksheets to help you navigate outdoor learning safety can be found in this free “Get Outside Tool Kit!”

Start Small

Outdoor learning is something that will be new to your students. For most, outdoor time has been mostly playtime. Both you and your students will therefore need to practice to get into the habit of seeing outdoor time as both play time and learning time (you can integrate both into your outdoor time!). 

You might want to start with just 10 minutes outside. It could be something as simple as taking reading outside or trying a sharing circle outside. Once you have built some confidence you can start to extend the amount of time you spend outdoors. 

If you are taking learning outside of your schoolyard, start by only going a short distance away at the outset. Then gradually build up the distance (and therefore the time) that you are able to get away from the school.  

Build Outdoor Learning  into Your Schedule

By building outdoor learning time into your schedule you signal to yourself, other teachers/administrators, and families that this is valued learning time. As a result, you can try to ensure that student pullouts aren’t scheduled during outdoor time and that families know to send their kids prepared to be outdoors. Additionally, it signals to you that this is something that you are making a priority this school year. It is on the schedule, so you can make it happen. 

Set Up a Routine

Setting up a routine for outdoor learning will help ground students and help them understand what is expected of them during outdoor learning time. Just like in the classroom, routines help students feel safe and help them to feel more secure in understanding the flow of their time outside. 

Some examples of routines could be:

• Lining up in a particular way before you go outside or meeting at a specific location 
• An opening circle to welcome everyone or an opening activity
• A game to start out your time outside
• A reflective moment or a sit spot

Keep a Single Focus

Yes, you can do so many different things outdoors and cover the content of so many different topics. However, if you try to do everything at once you will overcomplicate things. Keep your focus simple, otherwise you will create confused students and chaotic lessons. 

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Some Easy Activities to Try Outside…

1. Take your circle time, sharing circle, or class meeting outside
2. Do a read-aloud story outside
3. Do a scavenger hunt or active game related to something that you are studying 
4. For younger students, take play time outside (but away from the playground) 
5. Take your silent reading, math practice, or spelling practice outside
6. Go for a walk in your community looking for numbers, shapes, etc. for younger students or discussing aspects of the community with older students
7. Try sketching, watercolor painting, or another art activity outside

Now Is the Time to Get Outside…

You don’t need to be a super “outdoorsy” teacher to take learning outdoors. You most definitely don’t need to be an expert on the plants and animals in your schoolyard or community. All you need is a sense of adventure and a desire to try something new. In fact, not being an expert can show your students that they don’t need to be experts either, all they need is a bit of curiosity and wonder. 

Be patient with yourself and with your students. It may take a while for your students to get used to learning outside. After all, up until this point outside has probably just been a place to play for our students. However, don’t give up. You will likely encounter obstacles and challenges along the way. When challenges arise, simply remind yourself of the benefits of outdoor learning and look for small successes. Once your students start experiencing the joy and magic of learning outside, they will be hooked. 

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About Shannon McLeod

Shannon is a regular classroom teacher who discovered the joy and excitement of outdoor learning early in her career. She has a passion for helping other teachers, even those who don’t consider themselves to be “outdoorsy,” take learning outside.

Over the past 15 years, Shannon has taught everything from kindergarten to 8th grade in a rural school setting. In each of her teaching positions, Shannon has found ways to adapt the curriculum for outdoor learning. Through taking her students outside on a regular basis, Shannon has seen both the amazing holistic health benefits as well as the academic benefits of outdoor learning in her students.

When she is not teaching, Shannon enjoys spending time with her husband, daughter, and their rescue dog, Vance. They enjoy hiking, canoeing, skiing, and going on adventures together.