How can literacy outdoors get used effectively and how does it benefit children?

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All children benefit from outdoor activities, it helps develop children to communicate and to develop language skills. Evidence shows that children work and learn better outside than they do indoors (Bilton,2012). During this blog, I will be discussing what activities can be used to use literacy outdoors and how literacy in the outdoors can benefit children’s development educationally.

Although children will be using literacy and gaining educational developments. Children will also be benefitting from –
·      Health and fitness.
·      Problem solving.
·      Conservation and sustainability.
·      Nature experiences.
(Outdoor learning handbook, n.d)

All of these benefits are a big element of children’s learning. It’s an ideal way to also assess children without them being in the classroom.

There are many activities that can get taken place in the outdoors to develop children’s literacy such as –

Creative writing can be used outdoors to develop literacy skills and imagination. Putting creative writing in to practice outdoors could bring in technology and the use of word on their iPad’s or on other devices that are suitable to use outdoors, to create a poem or a creative writing piece. Below is a creative writing piece that my group created in welsh, this is an example of what you could do with literacy but to also develop creative and imagination skills.

                            “Gwhaddiad yn y goedwig gaethon ni
                                      Llawn hwyl bwrlwm a sbri
                               Parti yn y goedwig dewch I lawr  
                                   Mae pawb yna, yna nawr.” 

Below is a video taken on a iPhone, but children could use iPads etc..
This is a good activity to trigger children imagination with creative writing and so on... 


Using technology with literacy outdoors is a good way of getting creative and to get digital competence involved with learning outside. Children can use iPads to take photos of their creations outside to take back into classroom to write about them and to keep. 
The photo below is a picture of a task completed with literacy outdoors, we had to create a house fit for a fairy or creature, we had 10 minutes to think of a story to go with it. This took team building skills and this would be a crucial skill for a child to develop. 


(Photos from outdoor literacy session)

The outdoors provides children with one of the best possible environments for learning (Mcmillan,1925). Children will have many opportunities to develop educationally outdoors such as -


  • ·      Talk about their experiences in the outdoor environment with peers.
  • ·      Talk and discuss about key features of the outdoor environment.
  • ·      Use language to describe, explain, predict and ask questions.
  • ·      Interact with practioners to develop language and communicational skills.
  • ·      Develop ideas and creativity within literacy.
  • ·      Listen, respond and link language with physical movement in action songs and rhymes, role play and practical experiences.
(Learning outdoors, n.d)




References
Mcmillan, M. (1925). [online] Ccea.org.uk. Available at: https://ccea.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/curriculum/area_of_learning/fs_learning_outdoors_resource_book.pdf

Learning outdoors (n.d.). [online] Ccea.org.uk. Available at: https://ccea.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/curriculum/area_of_learning/fs_learning_outdoors_resource_book.pdf


Learning.gov.wales. (n.d.). [online] Available at: https://learning.gov.wales/docs/learningwales/publications/140828-foundation-phase-outdoor-learning-handbook-en.pdf.