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What are some fun and engaging outdoor activities that can be done with students that are safe and affordable?
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In my college course we created giant bubbles outside. This activity used two long wooden dowels, washers, a bucket of our bubble mix, and wind. It was a great activity for college students working on becoming teachers. This activity could also be tweaked to work for younger grades. You could make the dowels small and have students try to make the largest bubble, This lesson could be used to talk about wind, states of matter, or volume.
Good luck!
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I agree with Erick, you can have them experiment with making giant bubbles. I have tried this and it is great.
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Hello Rebecca,
Going outdoors is awesome for kids, sometimes they just need to get the wiggles out! When I worked at a learning center with preschoolers we used to create nature scavenger hunts. We would make a list for example : find something fuzzy, find something crunchy...etc. this not only provides visual stimuli but sensory which is so crucial in this age group. If there is concrete you could create a hopscotch with sight words or math facts on each square, this is great kinesthetic learning and will help them practice on their learning from the classroom.
Hope this helps!!
Good luck,
Lindsay
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You can have students to discover different types of rock or flowers and have them to draw a picture of what it looks like. However, I would prefer flowers. Each students can have the magnifying glass to take a close look at their chosen flower from the grass and draw a picture of it and write down what they look like and what color are they.
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I like the idea of creating a giant bubbles. I would definately used that idea for my future teaching, when doing science activities
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This is a very good question, as it is very important for early childhood care and schools provide safe and engaging outdoor activities for children. An affordable route to go, would be maybe as a teacher creating a series of stretches that will allow children to get ready for whatever else they will be physically engaging in during their outdoor activity. If no playground provided, there are many games that teachers can look up and allow children to engage in as a whole during outdoor time. Children enjoy games, and it will be fun and safe for them as sometimes very minimal material is required, and teacher is engaging as well. Science and nature can always be incorporated into outdoor activity time, where children are able to see and interact with the outside world.
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I think this is a great idea. Not only would students be engaged and have fun, it could also be really practical. Thanks for sharing!
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One of the activities that I do with my class is a plant and insect investigation. Students are handed a hands lense and they are asked to go and search for certain plants and/or insects on the list. They observe and draw/sketch what they see. It's very hands-on and of course students love it because they get to go outdoors. Give it a try!
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I really like this activity or project. I think the students will have a very good time exploring and discovering the plants and insects. This activity is very interesting and engaging for students and its something that I would want to try with my own students someday.
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Something simple we just did was an awesome Rock Lab to describe the Physical Properties of rocks we found outside (2nd grade). As a class, we went out on a "Rock Hunt". Every student created a Rock Log where they described the size, color, texture, and shape of their rock. They also were able to illustrate their rock.
This was a lot of fun! The kids really enjoyed it and were eager to find more rocks to log! :-)
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During the fall, you can take the children out and look at all of the different leaves that are on the ground and maybe make a little collage of all the leaves of fall.
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How productive can Outdoor Activities can be for Elementary students to learn science concepts?
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Going outdoors is extremely important for teaching science in a elementary level. Many teachers don't do any experiments that involve going outside because they are afraid of behavior problems. They also may be stressed out about an upcoming assessment. It isn't right to be robbing students from valuable experiences. Being able to go outside may help students deepen their understanding because they are actually doing a hands-on activity where communication is present. plus it is great for building interest in science.
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I completely agree with you on this. Going outdoors during science is definitely very beneficial to younger children because it allows them to explore and gain deeper understanding on their surroundings because science could be found just anywhere. And I definitely agree, having them outside will allow them to learn more than doing hands-on activities and worksheets inside the class. And behavior problem wise should not be problem as the teacher has good management skills.
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Do you have space for growing plants? I've seen really great school gardens that kids have planned and made. It could also tie into a lesson.
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These are all really good to read, it gives me a lot of good ideas!
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You can gather supplies from outside like twigs, leaves, feathers, etc and make animals out of them as like an art project. The kids can create an animal and even do a project about the animal they created. You could always expand on this project for older kids and have them look for animals and listen for animals throughout the summer to make a log of everything they've seen.
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I took my students on leaf hunts. We would visit the different trees around our school and compares the leaves of the different trees. This allow students to start to notice the world around them. I also love to do fun games that incorporate science topics. One time I did an activity where my students were particles of water and they cycled through the water cycle by running to different areas of the basketball court. The kids loved it and it really tired them out by the end.
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I like these ideas! I think that having a base idea and being able to sort of modify it for different age levels is a beautiful thing! Such as the bubbles, I think you could utilize this in a young classroom as well as higher elementary and change the follow up questions that are asked as well as the expectations.
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