On this week's programme I speak to Paddy Madden about teaching and learning outdoors. Among the topics we discuss are:

How weather engages the senses when we learn outdoors
Benefits of teaching outdoors
Forest bathing
Noticing Nature
Cloud watching, listening to the sound of birds, smelling flowers.
Daily 15-minute walkabout
Teaching outdoors across the curriculum
Book: Sue Waite Children Learning Outside the classroom
A silly symphony
Preparing for outdoor learning
Learning outcomes
Ways of Knowing by John Quinn
A spiral curriculum – revisiting topics at a more complex level
Teaching outdoors in September
- What to do when a wasp enters your classroom
- Spiders
- Planting a square metre of wheat
Integration across the curriculum using topic of wheat
Painting – called The Gleaners (I mistakenly called it “The Garners” in the recording)
Places to visit at this time of year
Fruit and seed walk: Dry fruit (e.g. helicopters, nuts) and succulent fruit (blackberries, rowan berries, sloes)
How school grounds can sometimes be barren
Paddy’s vision of ideal school grounds
Creating raised beds in a school grounds
Furniture for outdoors learning
Making a pond safe for a school setting
Making clipboards from recycled corroboard
How to position a bird box correctly
The value of a compass in school for showing directions
Why he dislikes terms such as a “bug hotel” or a “bug viewer”
Working outdoors in an urban environment
Using window boxes to grow food
Using binoculars with early finishers
The “Engage with Nature” website
Nature as a stage
The value of unstructured play
Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
John Feehan’s books
Richard Louv: "The more high-tech we become, the more nature we need."
Sacha Hamilton, the Duchess of Abercorn and activities of the Pushkin Trust

Podcast 404, Teaching and Learning Outdoors with Paddy Madden (21-9-20)