TBCS - Outdoor Play - Judy-Anne

https://outdoorclassroomday.org.uk/

There was a post on The NZ Teachers Facebook page on Tuesday about Outdoor Classroom Day, set for Thursday November 1. Craig and I had discussed spending time working with the two classes together as he has the year 6s while the seniors are on their tramp. We were thinking of doing some follow up watercolour sessions following our visit to the Sutter Art Gallery.

With the information about increasing well being by being outside and with my increasing focus on learning through play we decided to make plans to participate in Outdoor Classroom Day.

Checking the weather suggested Wednesday was our better option to be outside so we planned a walk down to the Domain. We spent time on the playground, had a look at the area where we helped with planting by the waterways a few years ago, made lots of noise through the underpass and got extremely muddy in the estuary. 

On Thursday we spent most of the afternoon outside. Children played on the playground, made a shelter around a iconic table with boxes, made blanket forts all round the playground and tried the new outdoor games I got from a Bed, Bath and Beyond sale. ( skittles, pick up sticks and badminton, with the croquet saved for another day)

It was great to see them running the games for themselves, generally problem solving for themselves and just generally getting on with entertaining themselves. One group of the older boys spent quite a bit of time relaxing on a blanket on the spinner and many of the younger children were down the field playing all sorts of running round and make believe games. 

Laila and I checked out the native planting area and think it will be good for box huts and reading once we have done some weeding. The weeds are easy to pull out at present.

We will be printing cerficates for room 1 and 3, the year 6s and Trent from the Outdoor Classroom Day website and Project Dirt.

Next steps:

Weed the native area

Weed the garden

Plant more

Plan Outdoor Classroom day for May 23 2019, possibly asking local ECE centres to join us

Try croquet

Get good storage containers for the new games, print and laminate instructions for the games