By Winnie Sim
In 2019, the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) established Outdoor Learning as an integral part of the early childhood curriculum, and has since drawn much attention amongst early childhood professionals.
Outdoor Learning is not a new subject or topic – it is an approach to teaching and learning. Our programme at Little Seeds Preschool (St Hilda’s Church) focuses on Outdoor Learning and we seek to articulate the vision of The Outdoors – Our Classroom, Our Playground in our curriculum.
With a landscaped garden built within our campus, we offer a safe, rich, and exciting outdoor environment for our children’s naturally inquisitive minds. With the facilitation of our passionate educators, it is little wonder our garden has quickly become the children’s favourite place to be at!
Why Outdoor Learning?
According to research, outdoor learning brings many benefits for young children.
As stated in the ECDA National Guide for Educators, children become better learners. The rich base of experiences that the outdoors offer promotes wonder and curiosity, which are intrinsic motivations to explore and discover.
Educators are also encouraged to conduct physical activities in the outdoors because it helps to promote children’s health and social emotional well-being. Being physically active in the outdoors not only improve children’s motor skills, it also helps reduce the risk of myopia and strengthen their immune system.
Encouraging outdoor learning in LSP (SHC)
Levinia Ong, Senior Educator of LSP (St. Hilda’s Church) takes the children to the outdoors for learning daily. She believes the outdoor environment has much to offer for children’s exploration and that learning should not be confined within the four walls of the classroom.
The children are always excited about going out to the outdoors. Levinia recalled: “Once, the Nursery children saw a snail with a crushed shell. They squatted around the snail and began to have conversations on what happened to it, why there were ants around it and what they should do.” At the end of their discussion, the children decided to leave the snail where it was as they did not want to hurt it further.
Levinia said: “The children were not terrified of the dead snail, and they were even concerned for it. I saw a collaborative discussion and respectful agreement that happened out of a natural occurrence. It is a precious experience that the children and I will remember.”
Our Assistant Educator Spencer Pai (affectionately addressed by the children as Uncle Spencer) also facilitates children’s outdoor learning in Mandarin. He encourages children to use their senses to explore the outdoors. In one of his facilitations, he teaches children to use their sense of smell to identify the various leaves in our garden.
He shared: “为扩大孩子的体认范围，我们到校外参观邻居的菜园，并对菜园内外的蔬菜及香料叶做认识。结果孩子们也想种菜，所以此嗅觉的探索将延伸到我们菜园的成立与蔬菜种植上。 ” (Translation: As an extension to the children‘s learning, we visited the neighbour’s vegetable garden outside the school and learnt about the vegetables and spice leaves in the garden. Thereafter the children also wanted to grow their own vegetables, so this led us to build our own vegetable garden in school.)
The children have since been looking forward to growing their own vegetables and have been asking when they can bring their vegetables home!
Sharing her thoughts on Outdoor Learning in Little Seeds Preschool (St Hilda’s Church), Levinia said: “Our children sit on the path, play with the stones, create stories and sounds out of those stones on the ground. They walk outside the path and observe the trees and chico plants. They pick up a fruit that has fallen onto the ground, look at it closely, smell it, and inquire on its taste.
Levinia said: “The children continue to observe them in class using the magnifying lens to find out more about their colour, texture, and patterns. It is a seamless connection with nature, and nature bridges learning. These experiences build up the children’s vocabulary in context, not in textbook.”
The nature of the outdoors has engaged children in ways that are not possible indoors. The experiences are not just limited to learning in the outdoors, but also about the outdoors and through the outdoors. In providing these aspects of outdoor learning, our outdoor environment has become the third teacher to bring children on a journey of learning and discovery.
Encouraging outdoor learning at home
Outdoor learning is not only possible in a school setting. Parents can also create outdoor experiences with their child in nature or urban spaces. Here are some suggestions to make outdoor learning an integral part of children’s everyday life:
- Be intentional to go outdoors.
Create a schedule and stick to it. It gives children a sense of anticipation to the activity.
- Use senses and ask questions
Invite your child to use their senses to explore and articulate what they observe, feel, hear, and smell. Ask questions and use complete sentences to model speaking skills.
- Extend conversations.
Listen to your child and acknowledge what they say. Invite them to share more by asking how and why questions.
We look forward to building a strong partnership with parents to support our children’s learning, both in school and at home!
To find out more about Little Seeds Preschool, visit https://littleseeds.edu.sg/.
