The Importance of Outdoor Learning in the Early Years
The Importance of Outdoor Learning for Children
In this blog, we tell you why outdoor learning is so important for children. We cover the benefits it gives for their physical and mental wellbeing, developing a holistic sense of self and having fun in childhood. In essence outdoor learning helps children grow in a well-rounded way which is very natural to their instincts. We will touch on what is outdoor learning, what Forest School is and what Outdoor Owls is all about.
What is outdoor learning?
Outdoor learning means learning in the great outdoors rather than the traditional indoor classroom! At the heart of this educational method and approach is learning through hands-on experiences. When interacting with nature, children get inspired and curious to get practical in a multi-sensory environment. Through using natural senses, children learn practically through their own senses and the open-ended space gives a platform for holistic development including physical, emotional, and cognitive growth.
What is Forest School?
Forest School is a popular branch of outdoor learning where learning takes place in woodland and forest environments or sometimes parks. The roots of Forest School come from Scandinavia where many schools incorporate outdoor learning in their programme. A central theme to such programmes will enable a child-led learning approach where educators act as facilitators, supporting children in their interests. Through many experiences many learning opportunities it helps develop children’s resilience, independence and connection with nature. Read our blog to learn more about the benefits of forest schools.
Why is outdoor learning so important for children?
By spending time outdoors children are getting physical fit and healthy. Breathing fresh air not only helps develop a healthy body but also helps stimulate the mind for learning. Children crave an environment where they can be free to roam and test and experiment in a safe space — and being outdoors provides this in abundance. By having the outdoors be a wall-less classroom, hands-on experiences children naturally experience means they build great self-esteem and mental wellbeing.
The real-world learning challenges children face serve to build a strong sense of self and character, particularly developing resilience. The calmness of the outdoors also serves as a relaxed space for growing emotionally and learning to self-regulated. Lastly, being outdoors in a changing environment is fun for children.
Building confidence
Being outdoors presents physical and creative challenges for children which stretches their comfort zone, helping support a growth, can-do mindset which in turn builds confidence.
Heading outdoors encourages children to be independent, which can mean needing to adapt to weather conditions and see and experience things that might change. Through activities such as climbing, jumping, crawling, tool work and building fires children experience self-mastery. The environment also serves different opportunities for children to decide for themselves where to go and what to do which means they are taking steps for themselves. The autonomy they have strengthens their level of self-reliance. By trying new things and taking safe steps in activities children learn that they can improve with effort and they start to feel more confident in their ability to try, fail, try again, and succeed.
Building social skills
Outdoor learning helps encourage plenty of social skills development. The large spaces and surroundings lends itself to enabling group activities naturally. Children get inspired to take on bigger learning opportunities which requires them to cooperate and communicate with each other. An example of this in Forest School may be finding and then figuring out together how to carry a large branch back to camp, carrying it together which means communication how the group can each play a part to help the goal. This builds teamwork traits. It also serves many opportunities for a leader to come to the front too. By acheiving such exiciting goals with visible outcomes helps imprint the memory and experience positively and therefore deepen bonds with others in the group.
Practical learning
By taking learning into the physical world children are exposed to endless practical learning opportunities. At a young age children learn best via their bodies. So, by ‘doing’ they are getting crucial hands-on experiences which is helping ‘joined up thinking’ in terms of what their mind is wishing to achieve and using their body to make it happen. For example, if a child is climbing a tree there is plenty of practical, mathematical learning going on in terms of assessing weight, shape, size all of which are problems to solve. Whilst reading books helps with learning concepts and knowledge, it can still remain abstract, which for younger children can be complex for them to grasp. But by making learn by doing they can see, touch and hear it for themselves — they feel it and consequently internalise and learn it concretely.
Sensory engagement
The outdoors is a multi-sensory environment that offers plenty of stimulation for all our senses: seeing, touching, hearing, smelling, tasting.
Through witnessing the ever-changing sights of the moving landscapes, wildlife, plants and weather it encourages children to constantly notice, observe and learn to take in details, helping to develop their observational skills.
The sounds of nature are very calming too, whether that’s the sound of a breeze through trees, birds chirping, or the sound of splashing in puddles. By hearing these children develop further their auditory attention. There are also plenty of different textures around for children to develop their sense of touch. From tree bark, leaves, mud, soft grass and pincones children have plenty of tactile interaction which helps them connect their understanding of properties and the planetry environment.
Through the changing of seasons new smells are on offer! This can be in the form of new plants and growth and fresh smell of rain. Such connection of smell sense helps make learning more immersive. Even in terms of taste there are opportunities for children to go on walks and forage edible plants — picking blackberries can be a favourite. In Forest School, children will also cook over the fire and can have their taste buds enjoy a toasted marshmallow. Lastly, the sense of proprioception, to have coordination and spatial awareness of the body is constantly being tested and developed.
New, fun experiences
The adventurous nature of being outside makes experiences of outdoor learning so joyous and memorable. We only get one childhood, and especially before many children go indoors for school it’s a special time to be able to be outdoors as much as possible.
Nature provides the best playground for children to get imaginative and be free to create with natures resources. There is so much for them to discover! Children are also extremely curious about other wildlife and seeing insects, bugs, birds, squirrels and more. For children who spend a lot of time in cities and towns with limited countryside, partaking in outdoor learning and Forest School gives them a whole new experience of life and the world we live in. By having children be comfortable in all weathers, especially in grey and rainy days, which can be often in many places around the world, it develops a sense of fun even on such days. To develop ‘weather positivity’ can help children to have good mental wellbeing and to seek experiences when others may shy away.
Connection to nature
Bringing children closer to nature has critical benefits for our future world and civilisation. We need to create the future generations with a deep level of love, care and empathy for our planet — to protect it for years ahead. By having children, especailly in the early years develop a strong connection to nature and undertsanding of our ecosystem and biodiversity, they will be more likely to want to prioritise this thinking in their life personal and professional life ahead of them. The mental benefits of spending time in nature is also huge and more and more research shows the profound positive impact of spending time outdoors and lower stress and anxiety levels.
What is a Forest School nursery?
A Forest School Nursery is a setting where learning is based in woodland or a forest, or sometimes in parks. It is a child-centered approach where children learn to explore and discover for themselves, building independence and autonomy for their own interests and learning.
Ages of children will typically be from two to five years and some provisions may take children from even a younger age. As a nursery, as well as a Forest School, the provision will likely focus on fullfilling Ofsted criteria if it is registered with them and then deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum. This curriculum will focus on children developing in set core areas, particularly in language & communication, personal social and emotional development and physical development. Other learning goals will focus within maths and literacy too. By coupling both the educational environment and approach of Forest School and traditional nursery elements, this defines and Forest School Nursery. Read our blog on everything you need to know about Forest School.
Outdoor learning with Outdoor Owls
At Outdoor Owls we deliver Forest School learning coupled with traditional nursery learning but all outdoors. Our settings are based in a safe, inspiring natural woodland environments for children age 12 months up until 5 years. We also provide holiday camps outside school term-times for children aged 4 to 7 years, to experience more advanced and structured activities. We have camps for different age groups to support and enable children to flourish guided and care for by a passionate, well-trained and qualified team.
We have settings based in Surrey, in Cobham and Guildford. For families living in London we also have minibus points in Putney and Richmond where our team and children travel to our forest in Cobham to spend the day learning outdoors. Families can enquire online or speak to us on the phone and come for a onsite showaround to learn more.
Our days are spend fully outdoors where children experience lots of child-led, play-based and unstructured learning where their inspiration dictates what they learn. We also mix this is structured time so that we ensure a well-rounded curriculum is delivered. We have dedicated 'preschool’ activities for children ages 3 & 4 so that they learn the transferrable skills that will get them ready and lead them to success in school. This coupled with child-led learning means they obtain the skills and outcomes to help them get ready for life.
