Every October 22nd, we celebrate Take Me Outside Day!

Take Me Outside Day is a non-profit organization that strives to provide every child with outdoor learning experiences. They work closely with several school districts to ensure that children across North America are able to get outside and do some of their best learning being surrounded by nature.

This year in EDCI 250, we celebrated Take Me Outside Day by creating our own “I love a challenge” challenges for a local school in my community. They were tasked with reading a book about being OK at things! Essentially trying to say that not everyone is perfect at everything!!! This is exactly what “I love a challenge” is all about! The I love a challenge challenge, is when you create a physically active challenge that students can complete and then they create the next level. This idea fosters a growth mindset in children by allowing them to challenge their skills and have to continuously work at something!!

My group this year worked on skipping!! First, we had the Kindergartens come out and practice their skipping skills. They were able to skip Independently with two feet as well as partner skip with two feet. The next group was grades 1-3. The challenge was for them to level up from where the Kindergartens left off!! They loved this and were so innovative. What really surprised me was how into it the grades 4-6 were!! They were so excited to challenge themselves and try new things!!! I think at one point we had the most kids at our station, which was really cool!!

The next day in EDCI 336, the grade 2 students we were working with had previously read “The Leaf Man” by Lois Ehlert. We were split into small groups of 2 student teachers and 2-3 grade 2 student’s. Our task was to walk to Elizabeth Lake to collect items from nature so we could create our own leaf man!! We took iPads from the school and off we went!! The students were super engaged while we were out in nature!! Once we captured our picture and were back in class, the students created a talking leaf man using the Chatter Pix Kids app on their iPads. After completing this fun and interactive animal, the students were able to download their creation to Seesaw for their parents to see!! This was such a fun and interactive afternoon. Once again, the students thrived being outdoors!!

Below is a comparison and contrast of both days that I made in Canva! I really enjoyed both in situ opportunities! It’s always so meaningful when we are able to spend time with the student’s, learning from them and their teachers!! I think Take Me Outside Day is definitely something worth bringing awareness towards. If I could share one major takeaway from these experiences, it would without a doubt be that student’s are far more engaged when they are able to be outside and active!! I will definitely take advantage of the beautiful place we call home and teach outdoors as much as possible!!