Get out of the classroom!

Educators know that when you can make curricular connections, children learn how to access that information faster because you are are involving more parts of the brain. At a recent faculty meeting, my colleagues shared about their experience at a recent Learning and the Brain conference that was held in Boston, MA. Although one of the major focuses was about getting out into nature and what effect that it has on us as learners, I believe that just being able to get out of the four walls of a classroom can also have a profound effect on student learning. It’s important for children to recognize that making connections and learning happens 24 hours a day, whether or not you are in a classroom.

I snapped this picture today of a 1st grader, who in math was working on finding patterns- whether it be growing, shrinking, shape, color, etc. The teacher had given photos of another student’s discovery of a pattern  as an anchor to work from, so that the new student could then travel the school to find another pattern that was connected in some way. Each new discovery built upon the last, and the children then wrote about their findings.