Learning Outdoors

Do your kids love being outside and learning outdoors?

If you haven’t looked into forest school or wildschooling, then it’s time to start learning about it.

Homeschooling families are coming together year-round and learning outdoors with their kids. You can too.

What Is Forest School?

While this article is more about learning outdoors, the Forest School model is a good example of how learning outdoors can look. Here’s a little information about Forest School.

• It’s a nature-based approach to learning.
• Forest school is usually combined with a child-led learning approach.
• Focuses on developing the whole child.
• Forest school also promotes play-based learning.

An Introduction to Forest School

Watch this video to gain some understanding of what forest school is about.

What Do Children Learn Through Outdoor Learning Opportunities?

• Kids develop an understanding of nature and the world around them.
• They learn how to assess their own bodies and minimize risk within nature.
• Children develop an appreciation of nature.

Forest School Focuses on the Whole Child

Proponents of forest school focus not only on the child’s intellectual needs, but on all of the child’s needs. For example, a child’s emotional needs are equally important to their intellectual or physical needs within a forest school environment.

• Social
• Physical
• Intellectual
• Communication
• Emotional
• Spiritual

What Nature Teaches Children

Benefits of Learning Outdoors

As a result of focusing on the whole child, the benefits of forest school can be large. Children can improve the following when involved in a good forest school program.

• Confidence.
• Social skills.
• Communication skills.
• Physical skills.
• Environmental awareness and knowledge.
• General happiness.

Fun Science Lessons

If you want to incorporate fun science lessons into your outdoor learning time, then check out our article about Backpack Sciences.

More Styles of Homeschooling

You can learn about wildschooling and many more approaches to homeschooling here.