Category Archives: Outdoor Learning

Outdoor problem solving….to indoor tree making

The weather was not on our side today. It drizzled fairly heavily the whole time we were out before lunch, but it didn’t dampen our spirits and we tackled our given problem with great enthusiasm.

It was an indoor lunch which meant it was just too wet to head outside in the afternoon for more outdoor learning. Instead we stayed indoors and worked on creating a mini Christmas tree using sticks collected outside. We were very lucky to have some experts in the class who had made these trees before. Erin was fabulous at showing everyone how to construct them and we had lots of other eager helpers assisting those who were finding the knot tying a little tricky too.

 

 

safety, orienteering and problem solving in the snow

Despite the cold, wet weather we ventured out and took a stroll through the wood making sure we focused on safety the whole way. We warned everyone about risks as we came across them (fallen trees, jaggy holly, puddles, roots etc)

After that we worked in teams to practise some orienteering skills finding numbered cones around the snowy grass. Teamwork was really important and we had to stick together to work with each other and make sure we found the cones in the correct order.

It then got a bit wet so we decided to head back indoors. On the way back inside inside there was a special request to make snowmen….it was a little wet for that so we had a competition to see which team could make the biggest snowball instead!

After lunch we ventured out again and worked on a logic problem using the snowballs to help us picture the problem. Again the weather stopped us from staying out the whole time so we finished off sharing our strategies to solve the problem back inside.

Observations and team work

We put our new multi functional “hi-tech” outdoor clipboards to good use today. After searching for interesting leaves we spent time recording details about them and then working in teams to identify them too. We took part in interesting discussions and gave constructive feedback to each other.

We also played a mapping game and will continue playing more next week to develop our skills in orienteering.

Outdoor problem solving

This afternoon we enjoyed our first outdoor learning session with Mrs Kelly, although the persistent rain meant we all came back inside a little wetter than we went out!

We took part in some warm up games to help us listen to each other and worked in teams to create words using lettered stones before tackling our problem of the day.

Here are some photos of us playing the games and solving the magic square problem together.

Friction – Ball Rolling

We have started to investigate Friction as part of our science work.  To kick start this area of learning we carried out a simple investigation using a range of different balls outside.

We compared how each ball travelled on three different surfaces.  The pitch, the playground and the grass.  We used a tennis ball, hockey ball, a spiky ball, a basketball ball and soft football to compare how the size and weight of the ball changed how well the ball travelled.

In groups we noted down our findings and then we compared them with the other groups as a plenary.