Outdoor Learning

Learning Outside the Classroom

Outdoor spaces provide wonderful opportunities to explore how numbers and shapes create both the built and natural worlds

Outdoor Maths

With research suggesting that Covid-19 transmits significantly less in open spaces than indoors, many schools are seeing the power of Outdoor Learning – as its approaches allow children to work in “bubbles”. Our Outdoor Learning programmes have long been both popular and successful – and are ideally suited to the current situation, providing children with fantastic opportunities to place curriculum areas in context, to enjoy all the myriad benefits of being outside and to engage in social (but safe) behaviour. All of them exist in age-differentiated formats from EYFS to Year 6 (P1 – P7) – and allow us to work with a number of groups in a single day.

Schools’ outdoor areas offer a wealth of stimulus for learning in Literacy. Whether it’s an observational poetry activity, a reading challenge or a story-building workshop, levels of pupil engagement are always high when they are running about in the fresh air, looking for clues or following a trail. This is, in turn, reflected in the quality of their writing. Whether your outdoor space is mostly concrete and brick or green playing fields and wooded areas, we can design a literacy activity that will use this ready resource to inspire and enthuse your pupils.

Outdoor spaces provide wonderful opportunities to explore how numbers and shapes create both the built and natural worlds. So our engaging (and very active!) outdoor maths workshops, which feature a range of tried and tested al fresco activities, bring home the relevance of numeracy to our everyday lives – and provide lots of scope for problem solving too!

We have developed age-appropriate activities for all year groups from Nursery to Year 6 / PI - P7, including our specially designed portable Outdoor Maths Trail – allowing us to offer open air workshops over a whole range of timescales.

Exploring (depending on time, age and group size): maths-in-context, maths language, number investigations, additive and multiplicative reasoning, number sequences and patterns, shape investigations, properties of 2D and 3D shapes, positional language, measurements, data collection, presentation and interpretation.

Duration: different activities require different amounts of time – so we’ll work with you in designing a timetable appropriate to your needs.

And Don’t Forget … we’re also experienced in designing and delivering Outdoor Maths CPD programmes for teachers, including twilights, half days and full days! 

“All the pupils from Nursery to Year 6 enjoyed exploring how much fun Maths can be outdoors. All pupils were engaged and enthusiastic about Maths. Jo delivered an after school family outdoor activity, which was a great way to engage parents and carers. Would definitely book again. Thank you." (Maths Teacher, Kirkdale St Lawrence C of E Primary School)

 

Outdoor Science

Rather than relying on “whizz bang” experiments or outlandish props, our creative science programmes use arrange of drama-based techniques to cement prior learning, clarify difficult concepts, introduce new content and extend thinking. So they provide a brilliant way of allowing your children to work in individual “bubbles” while safely interacting with others. We have different workshops for each year group, all developed in line with curriculum requirements – and, of course, we make use of age-appropriate strategies throughout.

 

Outdoor Literary

Schools’ outdoor areas offer a wealth of stimulus for learning in Literacy. Whether it’s an observational poetry activity, a reading challenge or a story-building workshop, levels of pupil engagement are always high when they are running about in the fresh air, looking for clues or following a trail. This is, in turn, reflected in the quality of their writing. Whether your outdoor space is mostly concrete and brick or green playing fields and wooded areas, we can design a literacy activity that will use this ready resource to inspire and enthuse your pupils.

 “Thanks for a great course today Jo @ascreatives. I'm sitting in the sunshine planning my first of many weeks of outdoor learning." (Class Teacher, Homerswood Primary)

 

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