Global Outdoor Classroom Day

Outdoor Classroom Day is a global campaign to celebrate and motivate outdoor learning and play. On 12th October 2017, The Indian School-Second Shift joined thousands of children around the world to take lessons outdoors and proritise playtime.

Outdoor learning improves the health of children and engages them with nature. Play not only teaches critical life skills like resilence, teamwork and creativity but is central to childrens enjoyment of childhood.

Several activities were meticulously planned and conducted to harmonise indoor and outdoor learning with an objective to enhance self awareness, self management, social awareness, relationship management and responsible decision making.

Classes at different levels conducted different activities as an extended learning of the curriculum. Pre School-Bulbul collected dry leaves in newspaper bags and then transferred them into the School Manure machine to convert them to manure for use in potted plants. The children concluded this activity with a song, Out in the garden each fine day'.

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P S-Robin had a story-telling session outdoors. They enjoyed making masks of animals and the acting like them!

P S-Sparrow spoke about different vegetables. They used green paint and leaves to print. Aloo ka birthday' was a rhyme they ended off their activity with.

The Pre-Primary conducted various activities too, which included a nature hike where they bent to touch the soil, crush fallen leaves, observe their shadows and also observe different the types of insects, stones and plants around. For Texture-hunt, the children walked around and felt different elements of nature around them to feel their texture and identify whether they were rough, smooth, hard or soft. 'Simon says Dance Party' was the most enthralling activity, where the teacher gave instructions to the children, to flap their arms like birds, wiggle like worms , roar like the lion and so on. Treasure-hunt, an activity where the children were given clues on a word card. They as followed the cues, by turning stones , digging up the soil etc to spot the clues.

Classes I and II had subject- related activities. Class I had a 'bucket and ball activity' where they segregated the cards of hundreds and tens in two different buckets, they 'treasure hunted' for letters and then framed with them, they made planers with trash plastic bottles and planted Chlorophytum, an oxygen-producing plant in them. Shapes were created on the field by the children holding hands, there was an obstacle race where different actions to start and finish the race were undertaken, to acquaint them with action words.

Class II took part in a treasure hunt where the children searched for verbs from amongst chits and used these to complete sentences. They also added up the total of the numbers caught in the hoola hoop. Placards of neighbourhood services were displayed and the children had to select the appropriate service as per tag handed out.

The entire day was a very worthwhile experience as it got the children outdoors to learn and play in a most willing way.

Ms. Sarita Gupta.