I hear the weather forecast is good for the week, which means one thing. Classrooms around Ireland will be hot and stuffy, and not conducive to learning. Or maybe I am just telling myself that because I love getting outdoors! If the learning objectives are achieved, I don’t think it makes a whole lot of difference.
So, all going well this week I am going to try do at least one lesson, excluding PE and science, outdoors. (they will be outdoor lessons anyway.
English: If it is really warm and sunny, we will bring out reading materials outside and we will sit in a circle and read aloud.
Maths: We might bring out some chalk and do our maths in a corner of the school yard. We may also do a times tables hopscotch, which is really fun! Number line run is fun too. It is where you have two number lines and you call out a question like ’49/7′ , the child then runs to land on the answer on the number line. A maths trail would also be a good idea. We have a big 100 sqaure on the yard too so I will get lots of use out of that!
Irish: Like English, we may do our Irish reading outside, or we may explore the environment to improve our Irish vocabulary, e.g. write down all the Irish words you can see and know, so that would be garden, flowers, school, yard , children etc.
SESE: Science will be outdoors in the garden, geography will be outdoors as we investigate the different soil and places in the yard to grow the potatoes in. Again, an SESE trail is great fun too, I will share mine later in the week.
Art: We could make patterns /designs or structures using the twigs and leaves.
There are loads of ideas on line but unfortunately for me they are almost all for younger classes. Here’s a link to some ideas for teaching maths outdoors:
