Lens on Outdoor Learning

Ginny Sullivan

When most of us think about providing play space for our kids in the yard, we usually think about a swing set or a play structure of some sort. Schools tend to take the same sort of approach, but there is another way of looking at ‘play space’ and the potential it holds for learning at school, and at home.

Ginny Sullivan began her teaching career at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As a first grade teacher she started to see the ways that young children interacted with the natural elements around the school. Her thinking about how children learned moved in a new direction leading her to the University of Massachusetts where she earned her Masters Degree in Education in 1972.

As she continued to teach, her interest in the way children’s play in the natural world affected their learning, also continued to grow. Educators often talk about classrooms designed  to facilitate learning; Sullivan wanted to know more about designing outdoor spaces to facilitate learning for young children. She attended the Conway School of Landscape Design, and North Carolina State University.

The result of her own years of study, as well as her work with children and teachers of young children is Lens on Outdoor Learning, written with Wendy Banning, a teacher, teacher trainer and Director of the Irvin Learning Farm in North Carolina who she met during her time there.  “The reason for our book is the emphasis on academic standards that often leave no time for outside activities. But when you look at the ways you learn how to learn, that can happen outside. Our book goes right through the standards and shows how those standards are met by children’s outdoor ‘play,’” Sullivan said.

The importance of the time children spend playing outside has received more and more attention since Richard Louv wrote his stunning book Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder.  This book has been so influential that pediatricians have become concerned about the time children spend indoors, often in front of an electronic screen.  Some have even been know to write prescriptions for outdoor playtime.

Children who live in a rural area like ours hardly need more than prompting to go outside where we have green backyards with trees and plants if not fields and woods. Very young children will often be accompanied by a patient adult who is willing to share the thoughtful pace that preschoolers bring to their investigations of trees, bugs, slugs and weeds. If there is some kind of water to get wet in, and to watch as it moves, so much the better.

Lens on Outdoor Learning

In Lens on Outdoor Learning Sullivan goes through the educational standards that have been set by states all across the country, and then observed children playing in the natural landscape, and in the built landscape of a preschool play yard to see how those environments lead to learning.  It has been said that nature is the first teacher and we have probably all watched a tiny child be fascinated and engrossed by the movement of an ant across a picnic tablecloth, or dandelion seeds floating through the air.

Sullivan and Banning share photo credits of children expressing their curiosity, their persistence, imagination and creativity. Their activities can seem very simple, and everyday, which they are. Children are naturally curious, imaginative and creative, and they can show great persistence. It can take a skilled teacher to be able to articulate the ways these attributes lead to important learning. Given a chance children are quick to use the scientific method, observation, experimenting, making a hypothesis, experimenting some more – and feeling great pleasure when they feel they have understood how things work.

Sullivan and Ruth Parnell, her partner in their Learning by the Yard design firm, have worked with a number of schools and organizations including the Conway Grammar School PTO about designing the school landscape. “We talked to the kids to see what they wanted. Children up to second grade drew pictures, and older children wrote. One little girl asked me if we could fix it so they could go outside,” Sullivan said. They wanted a place to sit in the shade, and the teachers wanted a place to eat outside. “School grounds can nurture teachers too.” I think all of us can benefit from being outdoors in the sun – and the green.

When I asked Sullivan what advice she would give parents she did not hesitate to say, “Spend time outside with your children. Sit in the shade with them. Think about the places that make you feel good. It just takes a small invitation to get a child interested in the natural world.”

She also said parents don’t need to know all the answers to children’s questions. “Ask them what they think. Ask how they can find out the answers together,” she said.

If nature is the first teacher,  parents share that honor and pleasure, watching their child’s observations and responses to what they see. Lens on Outdoor Learning may give parents a new perspective on what the children are doing when they stop on a walk through the yard to investigate a spider web or seed head. ###

Governor Patrick is a Gardener!

Deval Patrick at the Heath School

Governor Deval Patrick visited the Heath Elementary School today. He met the staff and students for a brief All School Meeting before he went to the gym to meet with various officials and townspeople. School Superintendent Buonicanti gave a short civics lesson and asked the students if they knew who Deval Patrick was. One boy instantly piped up, “He’s going to be elected next week!”  The Governor said he certainly hoped so.

A sixth grader wanted to know why Governor Patrick wanted to be elected in the first place. The governor replied that he wanted to be governor so he could work for the people, taking a long view. He didn’t want to just look for quick short term results.

Another boy wanted to know what the governor did for fun, and he said “Gardening.” The governor is a gardener! So I think he obviously knows about how you have to plan, and prepare the garden, and sow seeds, and battle weeds, and be really patient and hope that the sun will be warm, and that there will be enough rain, and that bugs and deer won’t ruin things. A gardener has to pay attention, listen to advice and do the best he can – just like a governor has to pay attention, hope there will be no disasters, listen to advice and then do the best he can. We gardeners know that if you take care of your soil properly every year, your garden will be better every year. I’m glad to know our governor is a gardener.

Soup for Governor Patrick

As a thank you for coming to visit, and out of concern that he might not have had a chance for a good lunch, a delegation brought him containers of soup, and some muffins made with squash from the school garden. The students are all gardeners, too.  I wonder who among them will grow up to be a governor.

Erving Preschool Garden

Erving Afternoon Preschool Class

The children of the Erving Elementary Preschool were so proud of the sunflowers they grew that they sent representatives to the Recorder/Greenfield Garden Club Sunflower Contest in August. When the children returned to Erving they carried back prize ribbons for the heaviest sunflower head and for the third tallest.

But their garden is about more than glory.  The preschool class of 3 and 4 year olds, led by teacher Mary Glabach with the assistance of Kristin Lilly, Becky Allen and Lorie Flaherty, planted and  tended a garden of cherry tomatoes, peppers, chard, green beans, carrots and zinnias. And one sunflower planted by each of the 25 students who attend morning or afternoon sessions at the school. There are even a few morning glories twining through the garden that self seeded from last year’s efforts.

The two new big raised beds built by Jill and Ryan Betters with their son Brayden McCord, were  filled with compost rich soil donated by Michael Mackin and Kristin Lilly. It seems that everyone who has had children in the class for the past eight years has wanted to help by donating labor and funds. “We also received garden club grants from the Greenfield Garden Club. Throughout the years we have purchased gardening gloves, gardening tools, worm composting items, seeds, seedlings and garden books,” Glabach said.

The garden beds are located right outside the preschool classroom so it is easy to take the children out to work in the garden. There they might very well get a science or math lesson, having so much fun that even a passing adult might not realize that lessons are in full flow.

One of the difficulties that school garden programs run into is that so much of the gardening year occurs during the summer when school is not in session. Happily for the Erving preschool garden there is a summer enrichment program whose students care for the garden.

Parents and families are also invited to come by to pull a weed – or to use the harvest as it comes in. “I was here one day and one of the families came by. I think they might have run out of salad makings – but they knew just where to come,” Glabach said.

Glabach started gardening with children years ago out of her own love for gardening and because she saw it as a way to engage children in various subjects. This spring the preschool staff visited the Keene State College Child Development Center to learn more about the ‘Early Sprouts’ curriculum.  This program provides activities from seed to table, even sending home recipes for tasty fresh dishes like Swiss chard and cheddar quesadillas. Butternut muffins are a particular favorite.

Snacktime

Gardens can lead to healthy eating. When I visited the children were snacking on cherry tomatoes and cucumbers, but they also like steamed green beans – and even bell peppers. When we think about the obesity epidemic in our  country with its attendant health problems like diabetes, we realize that we need to provide fresh fruits and vegetables for our children early on so they develop a taste for these nutritious foods that will give them pleasure and good health all their lives.

Most people understand how gardening can fit into the science and math curriculum, with all the counting, measuring, observation  and experimentation that can take place in the garden. For dramatic play, Glabach has them set up a Farmer’s Market with real vegetables to be tasted, and real sales slips to be counted.

Pretty soon Glabach’s class will put a pumpkin in a sealed aquarium and watch it decompose.  The aquarium is sealed to  avoid a classroom full of fruit flies. While I might think that someday, when they are reading Shakespeare in high school and hear the mournful Jacques (As You Like It) complain “from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, til we rot and rot . . .” they will think of that pumpkin mouldering in its glass coffin, but Glabach has more immediate literary connections for her students. “One year we had a Peter Rabbit garden, growing the vegetables in that book. Every year we try new things,” she said.

Neither is art forgotten. Some vegetables, like gourds, can be used for making art prints! Scarlet runner beans can surprise with their striking lavender and black beans.

Glabach said she is very lucky to be teaching at the Erving Elementary School because “the whole community really cares about their children and the importance of their education. They are willing to fund different programs.”

When I asked if there were any plans for expanding the garden, Glabach’s eyes lit up.  “We are working with Paul Bocko, Erving’s Curriculum Coordinator, looking for ideas to possibly extend our growing season.”  Hmmmm. Do I see a little greenhouse in the preschool’s future?

More and more people have come to recognize the value of letting children ‘play’ in the dirt, and letting them be responsible for growing things. This recognition has led to more and more school gardens. I saw that Holy Trinity School Garden had entries in the Franklin County Fair, and of course, I am familiar with the Heath School Garden. I would be very interested in hearing about other school garden projects. You can email me at commonweeder@gmail.com if you want to let me know about a school garden – or any other notable garden project.

Between the Rows   September 25, 2010

Don’t forget this is the joyous Garlic and Arts Festival in Orange this weekend.  Check out www.garlicandarts.org for full information.

Heath School Gardens

Over at Garden Rant Mary Gray’s guest rant bewailed the state of many school grounds, all concrete and lawn. I am very familiar with the school grounds that she describes, but I feel fortunate that the children in our small town have a very different school experience.

Heath Elementary School wellhead

The Heath Elementary School, which opened in 1996, was built in a pasture surrounded by woodland. When the school bus pulls off the dirt road onto the driveway it passes a path that leads to the school’s wellhead. This area is well used for science study, with information about the importance of clean water, and how it is kept clean.

Heath School Entry

The children debark they welcomed by perennials on either side of the entrance.

Heath School Playing Fields

The school and its grounds are held in the embrace of a woodland, where science can be studied, and the beauties of nature can inspire art classes. Perhaps inspire a poem or essay or two as well.

Heath School Meadow

The meadow fills the circular drive where buses and cars drive up to, and then away from the entry. Right now it looks all neat having just been given a back to school trim, but in the spring it is a hazy blue meadow of lupines, followed by a bouquet of summer wildflowers.

Heath School Vegetable Garden

The newest addition to the school landscape is the vegetable garden, punctuated by some bright annuals. This has been producing for three or four years now and the soil gets better every year.  There are some apple trees, too. I’d like to be able to tell you that the kids enjoy some of those vegetables at lunch but I am sure, absolutely sure, that they would never break the law which forbids this kind of activity. Isn’t the law interesting? There might be another lesson there.

This school with its gardens doesn’t come about just because it is a small school out in the country. It takes devoted and energetic parents who volunteer time, labor and money, and creative teachers who find a hundred ways to integrate the garden and the landscape into the Mass Curriculum Frameworks.  Heath is pretty lucky!

Kids in the Garden

I didn’t need all the talk about ‘nature deficit’ to think that children can be entertained, educated and nurtured by spending time in the garden, with and without adults. As a child I spent a fair amount of time watching the bugs on my aunt’s black seeded simpson lettuce, while I daydreamed in the sun.  I don’t know how that affected my personality development, but I am sure it was in many good ways.

Black Dog Publishing also believes children will find good things in the garden  and have just published Kids in the Garden by Elizabeth McCorquodale. They are giving my readers a discounted offer that will bring you this $17.95 book for less than you can get it on Amazon.

To order your copy email Jessica (jess@blackdogonline.com) with commonweeder in the subject line. You will get a 40% discount, which makes the cost $10.77 plus shipping.  Jessica will tell you about shipping once she has your address.  I do not make any money on this transaction, I just like to encourage getting children in the garden.

Kids in the Garden is an easy and fun guide for children to use on their own or with adults, and encourages children to learn about gardening, healthy eating and caring for the environment. With easy to follow step-by-step instructions, with bright photography and fun illustrations. The book is aimed at children aged five upwards with adult supervision, then for older children up to 11 to complete on their own.

The book features more than 50 projects, with full instructions on the materials needed, companion plants, saving resources, harvesting seasons, seeds, the water cycle and indoor gardens. There is also a section on wildlife, showing how to encourage animals into your garden, as well as how to make a mini pond, birdhouses, pest patrol, building a wormery, rescuing bees and ladybirds, and much more. The plants and vegetables featured include potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, peppers, herbs, strawberries, blueberries, sunflowers and many more. The recipes included are simple to make with the fresh produce and include; one pot jam, minty fizz and easy pizza sauce.