I don’t think it’s any secret now that I love PE, but especially I love being outside for PE! Taking opportunities to go outside is something I really want to incorporate into my teaching practice, whether it’s for a dedicated PE class or just to get some sunshine & fresh air during the day. Daily physical activity and the chance to spend time outdoors every day is so important for our kids (and us!), and one of my personal quests is to convince everyone that this is the case.

I think this week’s lesson, and the fielding games lesson 2 weeks ago, gave us great examples of how easy it can be to take our students outside. As we discussed with Steve, outdoor ed doesn’t have to be the big camping excursions or expensive, specialized sports like we tend to think of. It’s literally as simple as going outside. We’re lucky that our home is so rich in natural environments that would be perfect and easily accessible for daily outdoor education. Like Maria said in her post last week, one of the teachers at Southlands takes her class for a walk in Pacific Spirit Park every morning. This would be easy to do in a lot of areas in North Vancouver too, and even in urban areas if there’s a large-ish park nearby.

I found an interesting project by UC Berkley: The Outdoor Classroom. Although this is specifically targeting early childhood education, many of the core concepts are applicable to elementary classrooms as well, including:

• “Most activities that can be done indoors can also be done indoors”
• “The outdoor space offers a balance of areas for physically active and less active play” (or learning!)
• “The outdoor curriculum evolves from and changes with children’s changing needs and interests” (particularly relevant to inquiry learning!)
• “Children experience nature in as many ways as possible”

All in all, I think outdoor education’s star is rising. There’s been a bit of a reversal in activity trends in education, but I’m hoping that educators, administrators, and parents will begin to understand the importance of physical activity in their children’s lives and embrace outdoor education as an important element of education.

Firstly, thanks Tobi, Emily, and Gemma for an awesome lesson! You were all fantastic in front of the group and I really appreciated getting outside into the sunshine and playing such hilarious & fun games!

When they introduced Chuck the Chicken I was SO excited! It’s one of the games we play at work (with kids/teens who are on the autism spectrum) and it’s one of our favourites, even though it never *quite* works the way it’s supposed to – getting such a diverse group of kids to play a cooperative game is quite a challenge!

One of the most important things I learned in my PE classes in undergrad was that the games we play in PE, especially with the younger kids or to accommodate a diverse group, don’t have to look like the ‘real’ game forms. It’s OK to modify and adapt games to make them fit the needs of your students – not making the kids fit into the game. This is something I’ve come to understand well through working with kids with disabilities: trying to play a ‘real’ game of soccer or basketball almost never works, and it’s really so much better to modify it. It’ll make you happy, because it will work, and it will make the kids happy, because they’ll actually be able to be successful! And the new versions often turn out to be super fun, like 3-ball kick baseball! I don’t think any of us would have rather played kickball on Wednesday because we were having so much fun with the modified, more inclusive game!