Amy Wise
Children’s Creative Learning Center
Our Nature Explore Outdoor Classroom is nestled among the rolling hills on the campus of Butler County Community College which provides the perfect landscape for nature-based curriculum.
This space provides children the opportunity to immerse themselves in nature while learning valuable academic and social-emotional concepts. Children can sit on tree cookies, build with large wooden blocks and ramps, rake leaves, dig in the dirt and sand, observe insects, pump and pour water, and construct nature scenes. Extending the learning beyond the four walls of the classroom, which is designed in coordinating natural colors to allow for “visual flow” has given the children more meaningful and varied learning opportunities. With imagination and a variety of materials, children can engage in creative learning experiences with nature indoors and outdoors.
These learning experiences not only support creativity but they enhance problem solving skills, improve academic performance, and help build connections and social interactions. Outdoor learning makes learning more relevant and helps children develop deeper interests in real life opportunities.
After reding the book Pumpkin Jack, the children were interested in creating a pumpking patch outside. With the help of our college community, we were able to grow a pumpkin patch which featured pumpkins of all shapes and sizes. When in the outdoor classroom, the children experimented with the pumpkins, they obseved them with their senses and noticed they all looked and felt different. They realized that some could roll while others didn’t. We learned how pumpkins grow from a seed to a flowering vine and into a pumpkin. We learned that some animals like to eat the parts of the pumpkin and wondered if we would too. The children were able to see what what inside the pumpkin and made recipes such as roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pie, and pumpkin bread.
We can’t wait to see if the pumpkin seeds we planted in our outdoor classroom garden will grown into pumpkins when we return in the fall.
These intereactions with nature allow children to learn by doing and experiment with their ideas. In nature, children are challenged to think, question, experiment, and learn. As children wonder, take risks, try and fail, and try some more, they gain confidence and build resilience.