“Taking learning outside”—a phrase I’ve heard from those in the environmental education/school garden world. The idea is this: if you can teach it in the classroom, you can teach it outside. (Agree? Disagree? Discuss.)
Here are some ways non-garden activities have moved into the garden in the last year:
On Science Day, students met in the garden with the amazing naturalist/teacher Kat to pound and braid yucca fibers into rope:
Girl Scouts held their “bridging ceremony” during which they pass to the next level of scouting:
An Easter Egg hunt last April:
Yoga class:
A kindergarten teacher uses the garden with a yearly unit on the gingerbread man!
And finally, “reading buddies” (third graders paired with first graders) and SSR (“silent sustained reading”). Do they still use that term? I remember reading at my desk, but I would have loved to have read in a silent, sustained way in a gazebo!