Planning for Outdoor Learning in Kindergarten

Our Outdoor Learning Schedule:

40 minutes of outdoor learning first thing in the morning with a staggered entry for small group instruction.
40 minutes of outdoor learning at the end of the day.

Why this schedule?

This schedule provides fewer transitions in our day for students. They only have to undress once during the day and get dressed to go outside at the end of the day. We do not go outside for a recess but have two 40 minute nutrition breaks where students eat and then often do gross motor activities to help keep them focused for the day.

Teacher Engagement

During outside learning each teacher has a “role” which we sign up for. We have specific learning centers to engage students and others are floaters who help with runners, behavior management and any students who may need bathroom breaks etc.

All classes have two teachers, so we usually ensure that one team member is at a center and the other is floating.

As a team, we collaborate on a learning template very similar to what we use in our classroom. We try our best to ensure we hit as many learning opportunities that we possibly can based upon the interests that we notice while we are outside learning together.

The following product shows a basic template that we use in our classroom and what we try to purposefully uncover while we are learning together. Click on the image to see it!

Learning Centres on our Plan

• Science & Discovery
• Math
• Language
• Paint & Visual Art
• Music
• Gross Motor: Field vs. Tarmac
• Fine Motor
• Water
• Sand
• Blocks & Building Materials

Making learning opportunities visible

At first, one team member took minutes and we documented what learning activities were being provided and which room was responsible for it. This member would print the page and post it in our shed as well as post it in our school conference for all the team members to print.

We found this very purposeful but often found that we ran out of time for deeper collaboration together.

Google Drive To the Rescue!

In response to this need, we found it valuable to create a shared google document and all team members bring an iPad to add their ideas during our planning. This has allowed all of us to input our contributions quickly and we can all glance at the activities quickly and then are more purposeful in our discussions.

Our meetings have been able to be more focused and we are all happy that we can go home quicker at the end of the day!