At our school we have a garden teacher who is there for the whole morning and during that time (9-12) any child may go outside . We have divided our garden into zones - physical activity, becasue some children need that huge physical release of running, climbing, kicking etc. We also have 1 little girl who has been teaching herslef to skip with a rope for the past few weeks and has spent hours practicing; diging and construction, this includes the veg beds but also has digging tools of all kinds, bricks (left over from building a wall), lots of differently sized planks of wood, some wooden guttering. This gets added to depending on childrens' interesets; a maths zone - this has an outdoor spindle box (10 buckets with 0-9 painted on them and equal length sticks collected on walks) lots of weatherproof maths games and chalk boards for recording; a literacy zone with a bower to read in, a box of books, table and chairs, writing tool boxes, white boards, chalk boards, pavement chalks, clip boards, pens pencils, crayons; a sand/water tray with drawers beside them with all sorts of different materials to be used with sand/water; a creative area with easel, paints, paper, crayons, junk for modelling, this is changed to reflect childrens' interesets; a den making zone with a big wooden packing box on its side, tarpaulens, bungee ropes, pegs, blankets, poles etc; a role play area, currently a garden centre, changed half termly and tweaked weekly; a small world area - train tracks, little people, little houses anything like that.
There is also a daily adult-led activity which is planned for in the weekly planning meeting and relfects the needs/interests of specific children. If only one child shows an interest that is as valuable as if 10 do.
We keep most of it outside in waterproof drawers which the children have free access to just like in the classroom. They have the same rules out as in - put it away when finished with . This is a new school (openend in september) so the garden is evolving and growing but the important thing is that we have some chidren who would be out there whatever the weather so it is up to us to make/ modify classroom materials that reflect their learning style. Not all children concentrate by being still and we would be failing them to insist on their outside time being restricted to "play" only.
It is very interesting to me to see it all writtin down like that!!! It really concentrated my mind as to why we have this area and how it is used. In many ways it is the most important part of the school. Some of our children are out there for 3 hours every day and need that physical space. They are doing the same work as the children inside because we have set it up to reflect the classroom. Some children go out for a specific activity and then come back in again, some are less predictable, depending on what they are interested in at the time. I have to tell you it has not been expensive to set up. We bought very little ready made - most of the materials are like the spindle box - made to do the same thing but to be durable and different looking. We are looking to add a practical life area this term and have washing clothes and some other activities in there but often they happen naturally in other parts of the garden.
Sorry this is so long but it may help you fight your cause!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment