3 Ways to Make Outdoor Learning Fun
Whether you’re teaching summer music camp, summer music class, or you’re starting to plan for the new school year, there are lots of great ways to make learning fun and get your kiddos outdoors for a little mother nature TLC.
Did you know that being outdoors is great for your mental health? So much so that doctors are starting to prescribe time outdoors to their patients with anxiety and depression.
Some of the benefits of time outdoors include more exercise, an enhanced ability to heal, lower blood pressure and less stress, and improved mood. For more information on the benefits of time outdoors, you can check out this article by the National Foundation for Cancer Research, 5 Ways Spending More Time Outside Benefits Our Health.
It only stands to reason that if being in the outdoors is so good for you, you might want to plan some time outside with your kiddos this school year. And what better way to introduce your outdoor time than with a great storybook?
Last week in my new community, The Music Teacher Group, we spent some time talking about 3 great storybooks to use for getting yourself and your students outside. Here are the deets:
1. The Listening Walk by Paul Showers is a fantastic example of a storybook to introduce your students to a musical adventure in the great outdoors. This story is all about a girl and her dad who love to take listening walks. During these walks, their purpose is to listen to all the sounds they hear along the way, and this means they have to be silent so they can listen. Take these steps to create a wonderful adventure-filled listening walk for your students:
- Read the storybook.
- Discuss how to be successful on a listening walk.
- Give each student paper, pencil, and a clipboard.
- Instruct students to write down all the sounds they hear on their walk.
- Go outside and take a listening walk.
- Store answers for following week, when you and your students can create rhythmic phrases, ostinatos, or improvise on barred instruments based on the sounds you and your students heard.
2. The Hike by Alison Farrell is a storybook about the adventures three young female explorers who take a hike through the forest near their house. This story focuses more on what our young adventurers see, rather than what they hear. They go up to the top of a great hill and see lots of insects, plants, and animals along the way. One of the young hikers even sketches what they see along the way. Here are some possible steps to create an outdoor experience for your kiddos, based on this storybook:
- Read the storybook for enjoyment.
- Take a picture walk thru the book and help your students find the repeating patterns (tap, tap; shook shook). You will go back to repeating patterns later in this activity.
- Discuss how to be successful on a discovery walk.
- Find a partner.
- Look for nature – plants, animals, and insects as you walk.
- Whisper/talk to your partner about what you see.
- Write down or draw sketches of what you see.
- Pass out paper, pencil, and clipboards.
- Take a hike with your students through the outdoor area near your school.
- Store answers for the following week, when you and your students can create rhythmic patterns, ostinatos, or improvise on barred instruments or nonpitched percussion instruments.
3. Finding Wild, by Megan Wagner Lloyd is so much fun. In this storybook, two kids leave their urban homes to find what is wild in nature near their own backyards. This storybook is full of movement words (when you read a word you see movement in your head. Some examples from this storybook are creeps and slithers). Sometimes the movement is inferred (you have to imagine the words, because they aren’t actually there). For example, at one point in the story, you would infer that the characters are leaning forward to smell the fresh mint of their surroundings. Here are some steps to take to find wild with your students:
- Read the storybook for enjoyment.
- Take a picture walk thru the book, discussing the movement words and inferred movement you and your students find.
- Discuss how to be successful when finding wild outdoors:
- Find a partner.
- Look for wild (nature, animals, insects, unique smells)
- Whisper/talk to your partner about what you see.
- Write down or draw sketches of what you see.
- Pass out paper, pencil, and clipboards.
- Take a walk around the nature in your school.
- Store answers for the following week, when you and your students can create rhythmic patterns, ostinatos, or improvise on barred instruments or nonpitched percussion instruments.
These particular storybook lessons are amazing for your students in so many ways. Not only will they get outdoors and enjoy some time in nature (benefits above), but they will also get to practice other important learning skills like:
- Listening skills – elementary school students are still working on their listening skills, and this is a great way to help them with that, because they are on an adventure and will be more likely to actually listen.
- Inference skills – an inference is being able to reach a conclusion based on evidence and reasoning. Your future scientists will be able to gather lots of information on their walks/hikes and come to conclusions based on the evidence.
- Composition skills – all three of these storybooks allow for amazing opportunities to compose rhythmic patterns and ostinatos.
Storybooks about exploring the outdoors are many and varied. Be sure to search for more outdoor adventures for your students. The benefits of these types of activities make the time you take to explore so worth it. And your students will thank you for the time outside on a beautiful day!
Storybooks for the win! They can be the perfect way to introduce or practice any music concept, from dynamics and melody, to musical opposites. For more information on how to develop your own storybook lessons, be sure to join my email community.
Need more information about next steps in developing rhythmic phrases, ostinatos, and tiny melodies using storybooks? Sign up for my free masterclass by click the word masterclass.
This post contains live affiliate links to storybooks I suggest. I will receive a small portion of the proceeds from Amazon. 50% of these proceeds go towards a charity that purchases storybooks for children in need.