Outdoor Learning Areas and Ideas

When my daughter was really young, she went to an at-home daycare with a great backyard full of fun things for the kids to do. They had water tables and a sand area, birdfeeders and a place to do sidewalk chalk and ride scooters and there were fun stumps and flowers and dogs.

I know not every school (or home for that matter) is set up so there can be an outdoor classroom, but I think it’s a great goal to have some kind of outdoor space you can use for learning and exploring. I kind of want to set some of these things up at my house now, never mind my daughter is 14!

The outdoor music station from And Next Comes L is made with upcycled materials, and I’m sure you could find lots of things at home (or if you’re building it for a classroom, have parents donate) that would make fun sounds. If you don’t have a stand readily available you could still hang some wind chimes and have a box of musical instruments (upcycled or otherwise) to be used outdoors.

For a much more elaborate version, check out the music wall at Pre K and Sharing.

Water tables and sand tables are classics for little kids and outdoor play, but if you have an old water table that’s not getting used (or maybe it’s damaged so it doesn’t hold water anymore) you can turn it into a fairy garden like this one from Twitchetts. You could also turn a water table into a planter for small plants like herbs of flowers the kids can tend.

Speaking of planting, try making a pole bean teepee like this one from How We Learn. It’s a fun space to read under or use for other activities when it’s hot out.

Stumps or cut down pieces of old trees can provide all sorts of creative fun in a yard or outdoor classroom. They can become an obstacle course, display areas for goodies from a nature walk, or a place to sit, as with this natural table and chairs from Little Eco Footprints.

Paint some flat pavers in bright colors and number them and you’ll always be ready for hopscotch or other games, even if you don’t have a sidewalk. This idea is from Happiness is Homemade.

Set up an outdoor weather station and have kids observe the weather each day.

Of course outside is a great place to do art, too. I love this easy art station from Where Imagination Grows, and I want to make a natural weaving frame like this one from Mother Natured for myself (my daughter would actually love that one, too).

Do you take learning outside when the weather is good? I’d love to hear about it!

Outdoor Activities for Summer Fun

Tons of Outdoor Learning Ideas for Kids

8 Outdoor Activities To Keep Your Kids Busy This Summer

A classic manipulative in the preschool and early elementary classroom is the snap cube, also known as math cubes, unifix cubes or unit cubes. These little one inch cubes often come in a set of 100 in 10 different colors, and they snap together so they’re easy to use for all sorts of math learning, measuring and more.

No Time for Flashcards has a cute robot printable to use with cubes to measure the height of each robot. That one is free but they also have other printable cube mats that are a paid resource.

Catherine & Co uses math cubes to teach kids about measuring volume. They make a letter from cubes and then measure the volume (there’s a printable worksheet in the post).

Pattern recognition is another fun and easy activity you can do with the cubes. You can use printables like these from Planning Playtime, or just make a pattern from cubes and have kids repeat it or figure out what comes next. There’s another good set of pattern printables at English Created Resources.

Because there are 10 sets of 10 cubes in a pack, these are great for teaching one to one correspondence, counting, sorting and basic addition and subtraction. English Created Resources has great printable number mats you can use to form the number from cubes and count out the number of cubes that corresponds to that number.

ParenTutor has a great collection of snap cube activity ideas, most of which are just pictures, but it’s work taking a look through the post for ideas for using them at home or in the classroom.

To give just a few of their examples, you can match linked blocks to the corresponding number of pieces, use blocks to find different ways to add up to 10, compare numbers and determine which one is more or less, skip counting and weighing different numbers of blocks.

You can also use unit cubes to learn letters, like with these super cute alphabet mats from Fun Learning for Kids. Kids can trace the letter, make it out of cubes and practice writing a word that starts with that letter.

Of course you can also use them to build things, since they are blocks, and there are tons of pattern mats on Teachers Pay Teachers. I also love these dinosaur themed mats from Lets Go to Learn on Etsy.

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