Outdoor learning such as Forest School in early years education has several benefits for children. These include physical and cognitive development, social skills, emotional well-being, creativity and imagination, environmental awareness, sensory experiences and building independence and confidence.
Working in a small village primary school has given me lots of opportunities for outdoor learning, not just within school grounds, but exploring the local area and woodlands.
My reception class regularly take part in outdoor explorer sessions and I also take them on learning walks around their local environment.
These learning walks always have a learning goal or focus. Some of the walks I have done in the last couple of years include;
- subitising walk
- 2D shape walk
- 3D shape walk
- number walk
- healthy walk (star jumps, tuck jumps, jogging, hopping, skipping...)
- sound walk
- phoneme spotting walk
- prepositions walk
- signs of autumn, winter, summer, spring walks
- directions walk
- my community walk
- welly walks
An example of one of these walks was a prepositions walk I went on with the children and took along our class teddy. We had been looking at maps, and some of the children had shown an interest in giving directions and talking about their route to school. After our walk we went through the local park and found different ways to place ted to show prepositions we had learnt.
After our learning walks, I share pictures with the children in class either on screen or in floor books for them to discuss or write about.
These experiences have been a great way for the children to take supervised risks and make decisions giving them independence and self-confidence. They get exposure to nature and learn to appreciate the environment.
In our local woodland area, the children are surrounded by a natural environment full of open-ended possibilities encouraging creative thinking and imaginative play. They can invent games, create stories, and use natural materials in innovative ways.
Following the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, these outdoor experiences have been a great way of reducing stress and anxiety in children by giving them an outlet for expressing themselves. This, in turn, contributing to an improvement in emotional regulation and mental health.
Get outdoors, have fun!
