203: Summer Outdoor Classroom Ideas Across Four Teaching Gardens

So I want to just introduce the idea that summer outdoor classrooms deserve more than just a few raised beds and a watering can.

This becomes a thought-provoking discussion.

We might ask that question why many educators are comfortable outdoors in spring, why summer often feels a little less structured.

And I have to tell you a little secret.

I have often had a really tough time in summer because of the fact that I love In so many ways, it's interesting.

I have to really work on this myself in letting go of the structure and letting go of even in the outdoor classroom.

And summer really is a signal to sort of let go of even more of that structure.

And The pressure to entertain children and the tendency to repeat the same activities.

But this misconception that gardens are projects rather than learning environments.

So what really happens in your outdoor classroom? What happens in nature during summer? It's been a very rainy spring here in Massachusetts, in the New England area, and it might be in your area.

The weather has been wonky.

But when, hopefully, the heat will finally arrive, and when we think of summer, and some of us don't even have programs in the summer, but it might be a peak time of growth for both the food that we might be growing, might be the peak pollinator activity, Incredible things are happening in our gardens that attract wildlife.

There is a lot of seed formation happening.

There's incredible amount of bird behavior.

Just even today, as I was cleaning up from my class, it felt like the birds were having a party.

Truly, it was a chorus of birds.

I felt like they were all just singing to me.

But to really, I was actually down in Maryland visiting my mother the other last month, and she was saying, wouldn't it be just, she's 93, she says, wouldn't it be wonderful to know the names of all the birds and their calls as they're all talking to each other? So, yeah, I was listening to the chickadee-dee-dee and what that all means and how they're all talking to each other.

And just, again, the insect diversity, what's happening.

We had a huge rainstorm and I was telling one of our children, that I was so excited about him coming because he's such a bug guy.

With all the rain, I'm sure that we would have so many more bugs today in our secret gardens.

And it's also, summer's also a time of harvest.

It's a wonderful, beautiful time to harvest.

So I want to invite you to think about your own program and your own outdoor classroom.

And I want to shift from just gardens to teaching gardens.