The outdoor classroom: rain or shine!

Being an Early Years Practitioner in England means that there are days when I am sat outside in the rain under a little shelter informing every child that steps foot outside “You have to stay under the shelter because it’s raining”. Not only is is raining, it’s windy and freezing cold and it’s nearly the Christmas holidays. I find myself pulling up a pew on a plastic crate- not yet being used to build a racing car,- huddling up and letting out a big sigh. Being 22 there are many other places I would rather be than sat out in the bitter rain. However, being 5 and watching the rain pour down making puddles to jump in later is a whole other story. Totally exciting!

Thankfully, not all days are cold and wet. When it is dry and warm it is much easier to appreciate the great outdoors as another classroom for early years children. All around the playground there are different opportunities to learn, play and develop. There is the stage with all the noisy musical instruments for the children to sing ‘Let it go’ over and over. The little Wendy house for a big happy family to cook dinner and read stories in. The number area where “this week we are learning about measuring so draw around your friend and see how many footsteps tall they are”. The construction area to build any number of buildings. These are just a few of the areas that these lucky children get to chose from. It’s the same old playground as always just with different opportunities each day.

In the summer term, my team turned our bike track into a car wash. The children still had the same opportunity to develop their gross motor skills and ride those bikes around the same little track. However, this time it was much more exciting! Other children were able to squirt the bikes as they drove around with loads of water trying not to get their friends wet, and unwittingly developing their fine motor skills. Once a system for sharing had been arranged, all the children laughed and chatted away as they whizzed around the track.

The outdoor classroom is fantastic for ensuring gross motor development and allowing children with lots of energy to burn it off. However, it is our job as the practitioners to create an environment where the children are not only having a great time but are also learning the more fundamental skills to help them through their lives, for instance, writing.

This year my team discovered that there were a handful of children who did not chose to write anything, ever, inside or outside. This isn’t a problem until there is not evidence to support the argument they have reached a good level of development in literacy. Forcing children to write a sentence does not show that they are interested so instead we had to think of cunning ways to get them to write.

First, we tried to get them interested in writing inside. I stuck paper on the underneath of the table, the class teacher bought magic spy pens and set up a secret spy club. Nothing seemed to be working. Our target children were still not really that interested. So we had to try something else. As this bunch of children were predominately boys who spent 99% of their free choosing time outside, we thought we would aim there.

It was a slow process to start with. First, we stuck big rolls of paper on tables right outside our classroom door to encourage some outdoor mark making. Nothing. Then a couple of days later we stuck little pictures of superheros on the paper. I stood close to this and as the target group ran out I yelled “Boys, look what I’ve found”. For the first time, they were outside and excited to mark make. We started to draw a huge superhero city and flying cars and anything else remotely fascinating to these boys. I pretended that I wouldn’t be able to remember what I had drawn so “I must label it using my sounds”. Soon enough these children were writing, they too were labelling what they had drawn. I stepped away and watched from afar as they continued their masterpiece. It may have only been words they had written but this was a step in the right direction. I bounded into the class teacher and rejoiced in the progress.

Every day after that we thought of new ways to get the target children to write. We knew they wanted to be outside, we knew they would need to be lightly encouraged. But we knew they would enjoy it once they had begun. We put out endless sticks of chalk for the children to mark make and write on the floor. We used cardboard boxes to build houses and label each part. We told them that when they were playing their catching game and wanted a time out then they needed to have a card with ‘time out’ written on it with whatever sounds they could hear. Eventually, these target children started to engage in outdoor writing completely independently, thinking of all kinds of reasons to draw and write. In the end, the ones who were able could write a sentence about what they had created.

This is just one example of how my team and I overcame a problem using the outdoor classroom. It is hard to stay positive about it at times when the rain is lashing down, but when it only takes a few weeks to see a break through in a child’s learning, it is certainly worth it. The majority of children love being outdoors and there are so many opportunities for discovery, language development and friendship building that it has to be seen with an open mind. It is good to know that even when the space is manipulated to achieve a certain goal, the children are still happy, laughing and having a wonderful time at school.