Mindfulness in the Outdoor Classroom – Getting Started

Mindfulness in the outdoor classroom? 

Say what now? 

Mindfulness.

Nature. 

THAT’s on our radars.  It’s a way of being that our brains know could be good for us and our hearts know we need. Now, Ontario has recently released a new Mathematics curriculum.  A BIG part that is new is a strand of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). 

The intention behind this addition is to foster students’ overall well-being and their ability to learn.  Ultimately, SEL will help students build skills for resilience and thrive!  This is where mindfulness will be impactful.  Mindfulness helps students thrive on the inside, so they can use their SEL skills on the outside.  

Question time:

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Mindfulness in the Outdoor Classroom: Where to Begin?

Do you want to try mindfulness but you’re not sure where to begin or what to say or do with your students?

I’ve been there. 

Several years ago, I took some personal development workshops to teach me to calm my mind and it changed my teaching days dramatically. One workshop starting the day with a guided meditation, a gratitude practice and then some personal development activities, too. 

After seeing how well it works to calm my overthinking and highly-stressed brain AND help me prepare for the day, I started using mindfulness practice with my own children. You know, parenting does have it’s wins! This is one of the pros of parenting – trying things on your own kids prior to using them with your students.  (Thanks, kids!) 

To my surprise, my students loved a mindfulness practice! They were open-minded, easy-going and curious about it.  I honestly did not think that they would buy into mindfulness the way they did. Surely, it would be a tedious and straining task to add to the never ending to-do list. But, when I introduced mindfulness in the outdoor classroom to my third graders, the buy-in was the same. Incredible.  Let me share with you my process. 

Mindfulness in the Outdoor Classroom: What does it look like?

If mindfulness is completely new to you, prepared to be amazed by its powers! Don’t worry. No real magic is happening here.

In this article by Greater Good Magazine, Mindfulness is defined as “maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens.”  (24/06/2020https://tinyurl.com/y89zngf7)

As educators, we can use a myriad of mindfulness activities to help guide us while teaching our students about personal awareness and self-regulation. Additionally, we can bring this practice outdoors!  

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Mindfulness in the Outdoor Classroom: An Activity

Take the case of what Jessica Brittani does in her book, Breathe in Colour. This interactive colouring book teaches children different breathing exercises which is a pillar activity in mindfulness.  This book benefits students because it appeals to them – especially our hands-on kinesthetic learners. How to apply this outdoors? Grab her book, a set of crayons, a clipboard and go outside. Find a tree to sit under or a fence to lean up again and get started.

Mindfulness Ideas for Outdoor Learning: Mindfulness Rocks

Rebecca Lira, Founder of Mindfulness Rocks, will teach you to find stillness in your classroom, your living room and your life.  She is an Ontario elementary school teacher by day and also provides weekly mindfulness videos on YouTube. If you’re looking for guidance on how to start a mindfulness program for yourself or your students, this is an excellent place to start!

One activity that I absolutely love of Rebecca’s is her package of Mindfulness Rocks for Mindful Moments. I have a set in my classroom and we use them regularly throughout the year. We add new rocks. We go back to existing ones. It’s all part of developing skills for social and emotional learning.

When a new rock is introduced, each student is in their own space in the learning area – in the classroom, in the gym, on the soccer field, or in the outdoor classroom.

Incredibly, students sit still and quietly for a few minutes, thinking about how they can apply the word on that rock in their lives. (Sometimes, I breathe it all in while drinking my cup of tea!).

• A happy face rock – Think about ways you can make your friends smile

• A create rock – What are you able to make to show your incredible ability to be creative?

• A dance rock – Remember how you felt the last time that you were dancing to a song you loved. What song was it? How did it make you want to move?

Mindfulness Outdoors

There are so many wonderful, useful and effective resources out there to get you started with mindfulness in the great outdoors.  All it takes is a solid google search. Google is my friend. Is it yours?

In the meantime, what I would like to share with you, is how to do Mindfulness in an outdoor classroom.  Please don’t feel overwhelmed at the thought of yet another activity to get done or to check off the list – that is not the intention here.  What I would love for you to take from this is that mindfulness in the outdoor classroom can open up opportunities for student growth that you may not have thought of previously.  

Be that as it may, I know that teachers have to-do lists that are really long and that timelines are tight for getting stuff done.  But I promise you that once you begin applying mindfulness practices to different parts of your day, you will see the overall benefit to be far greater than the anxiety of trying something new. 

Unquestionably, you will benefit from mindfulness in the outdoor classroom and your students will too!

Outdoor Mindfulness Activity 1: Breathing Exercises with Bubbles & Pinwheels

A simple activity to try with younger aged students in the outdoor classroom is blowing bubbles. This can be an excellent activity to learn about breath control – a key component of mindfulness.  

Teach young students to blow bubbles at various speeds.  You can have them try blowing the bubble wand quickly to see how effective that speed is at creating bubbles.  Then you could have them blow the bubble wand slowly and steadily.  They will be able to see in the bubble formation that the second breath-type makes is better for blowing bubbles.  

Use the bubble blowing activity in the outdoor classroom to show students the importance of breath control and how calming and enjoyable blowing bubbles can truly be! Tie in counting bubbles and elapsed time to pop all bubbles if you’d like to connect it to curriculum.

Outdoor Mindfulness Activity 2: Focus on Nature

Another great activity that is perfect for all ages because it brings awareness to something outside of yourself is Nature Focus.  This is how I explain it to my students.

To do this activity, you need to find one item from nature – it could be anything! A blade of grass, a blooming flower, a snowman, or cedar hedge.  

The item you pick doesn’t matter. What matters is that whatever item you choose, you need to focus on for 5 minutes.

At first, five minutes staring at a piddly stick or flower is going to seem like a long time.  Until you begin to look more closely at the item you chose.  What will happen is that you start to notice different details that you did not see originally.  You might notice that it has a distinct smell or that the texture changes on various surface parts. My favourite think to notice is how it moves when I hold it and how it wiggles when the wind hits it.  

You will see, the struggle will come when you want to look away, shift focus and do something else.  If your mind wanders or thoughts pop into your head, allow them to come and then let them fade away.  Bring your focus back to your nature item and keep noticing new things about it. 

Now can you see? Mindfulness in the outdoor classroom is an excellent way to gain insight into your students abilities to monitor focus and the perfect way to start any outdoor lesson you have in mind.  

You might be thinking? Are my students ready to try mindfulness outdoors?

YES! Your students are ready.

Are you?

Are you looking for inspiration & motivation to bring your students outdoors?

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Classroom management is a skill that will help you whether you are indoors or out. One of the first things you will need to recognize is whether students are in a calm or hyper mood.  Read the room to determine if a quiet and peaceful activity matches the vibe. 

So, something that works for me is to bring students to the outdoor classroom and start with a group chat.  I like to give a clear description of the activity as well as share what my expectations for the activity will be.  Typically, I participate in the games, activities, and mindfulness exercises that we do mostly because they bring me joy but also because modeling these practices will help engage students in participating fully. 

Otherwise, I drink my tea. Observe. Take notes.  

If you try mindfulness in the outdoor classroom once and it bombs, please go out and try again another day.  Mindfulness for some children is challenging but when they are given many opportunities to take a chance on it, they are likly to eventually find success.  Practice makes progress, right?

New Year. New Routine.

This new school year, try to make mindfulness in the outdoor classroom part of your normal routine. 

In my third grade class, we start every day with a morning meeting.  Part of that morning meeting is an activity, and mindfulness activities are some of our favourites.  Remember, almost any mindfulness activity that you can do inside, you can do outside as well.  

Sharing in our challenges and success after practicing mindfulness in the outdoor classroom is a key part to learning.  I noticed that when I share a little bit about what might go well and what might not go well, students feel prepared to try their best.  If I notice a student struggling with an activity, I like to prompt, question or support as needed so that they can feel successful in completing the activity.  But ultimately, sharing post-activity is always my favourite bit.  I learn so much from my students when they share with me the parts of activities that they struggled with. It’s great to hear their successes as well.

This is what guides my teaching of their learning skills as well as their academic skills.  

Now, Your Homework

Get a pencil and paper and write these things down in your new teacher planner. Better yet, grab those flair pens and fancy stickers and make it pretty while you’re at it.

1. Set Your Priorities for Outdoor Learning

Now is the time you need to set your prioritiies for yourself as a professional educator and for students in your care.  Think of opportunities that would allow you to implement mindfulness practicies in an outdoor classroom.  Make a note of how that might look for you and your students – decided on the activity and the date that you will do the activity and put it into your planner now.  

• I will bring my students outdoors every Friday afternoon for a read aloud
• We will add a mindfulness practice at least once a month on <insert date>
• Go for a short walk in the neighbourhood during recess to reset and refresh on Tuesdays and Thursdays, no matter the weather

2. Find a lesson plan that is fresh, new, exciting and…..meant for the outdoors.

Choose a lesson that you love to teach and try to bring it outdoors. If your students need a brain break, or need to stretch, head outdoors and do a quick mindfulness activity. Here are some easy ideas:

• Outdoor Classroom Drama Games (Summer Edition)
• Outdoor Classroom What-Am-I? Game
• Math in the Outdoor Classroom ideas
• Cactus Colouring Pages
• The Ultimate Scavenger Hunt Collection

3. Join the Outdoor Classroom Teacher Community on Facebook

The Outdoor Classroom Teacher Community is a growing group on Facebook. I hope it will be a place to share ideas for learning in the outdoor classroom for elementary grades 1 through 6. Click here to join! Share your ideas for Outdoor Classroom day. Link an article that you think the group would enjoy. Ask questions. We can be your people. I hope to see you there!

Outdoor Classroom Learning

Did you enjoy this blog post today and will it be useful in developing your professional teaching practice? Let me know how & why in the comments below.

If you’re new to this idea of outdoor learning, simply curious about how it might work for you or an experiences teacher keen to keep learning, I would LOVE for you to sign up for my newsletter.