Outdoor Classroom
This fall, our Upper Elementary students (ages nine to twelve) spent a few days away from campus at Outdoor Classroom’s Ocean Park site in Maine. Outdoor Classroom runs overnight programs for students with real-world, hands-on activities in natural settings. The children explored the forest, the salt marsh, and the beach. They encountered wildlife, made nature art, played team-building games, ate and served family-style meals, and learned about the environmental impacts of food and water waste.
Students collaborate to solve tasks
While an overnight trip can look like a break from learning, for children this age, it is part of the work. It is such an important experience for them to take the step of being away from their family for a few days at this age, as it helps to build independence in a way that is developmentally appropriate. The children think through what they will need to bring on the trip, what they need to bring with them each day for the various activities, and how they need to dress in order to be comfortable for the activities, with reminders and instructions from staff and chaperones along the way. Sometimes a child forgets something and has to deal with the consequences: missing free time to go back to the cabin and get it, borrowing it or going without until there's time to retrieve it, coming up with something to use in its place, or even sharing with a friend.
Nighttime team-building games
The students also worked through some of the frictions and discomforts that come with being away from home. Maybe they felt homesick, maybe the bed was uncomfortable, maybe they were unused to sharing a room, maybe their shoes got wet and they had to walk back with soggy feet, or maybe they forgot a jacket and were a little chilly for the evening activity. We also watched the community come together to support each other: an older child who is homesick feels better if they can support someone younger who is feeling the same way, someone shares a jacket because they also have a sweatshirt, a group of roommates writes an agreement about how they are going to treat each other with respect and kindness during the trip.
The Upper Elementary children returned to the classroom with a new sense of community, new problem-solving skills, and new ideas about how to respect the environment. Once back at school the students put several lessons into practice. Some students now stop the group to make sure we hear everyone’s ideas, some have new ideas for how to structure setup and cleanup for lunch, and they have shared new games with our whole school on All Play Day. Some lessons learned from our experience at Outdoor Classroom are just seeds for now; we can only wait to see when they sprout!