We took a trip as a class to Cottonwood Park on November 16th to discuss and experience outdoor curriculum. It was a cold day to start, the wind was blowing as we stood around each other in a circle. We were instructed to make groups of 3 and make a lesson plan using outdoor curriculum. I paired up with Tomas and Tessa, and we walked through the park together. It was nice to chat and see the carvings in the trees. We saw chickadees flying close by, and ducks walking on the frozen river.
We talked about doing a lesson plan for a grade 8 English class, and that we would look at nature poetry, specifically poetry about winter. We wanted to plan a two day lesson, the first would be making a poem about winter inside the class. The second day we would take the class out to a park during winter and ask them to write a poem with their new outside experience.
Once we were back in the warm classroom, Tessa offered some poems for inspiration, like “The Winter’s Wind” by John Keats, and “311” by Emily Dickinson. We thought that this would be a good lesson to do once the students were familiar with poetic form and the different kinds of poetry. Some of the core competences we wanted to incorporate was communication, critical thinking and reflective thinking. I think it was a good introduction to outdoor curriculum.
Photo Credit: Maddie Corbett, Cottonwood Park, 2023.
