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Giving an Outdoor Play
Students reenact a popular book while using their outdoor playground as the stage. In this dramatic interpretation instructional activity, students follow oral narration to act out events in a story. They use monkey bars as the setting...
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Outdoor Activities/Problem Solving: Home Design
Young scholars create with sticks and stones. In this early childhood lesson plan, students use their problem-solving skills to make houses out of items they find outdoors.
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Sorting and Classifying Outdoors
Students use their math skills of sorting and classifying with materials they collect outdoors. In this early childhood math lesson, students participate in a treasure hunt to gather item in nature and categorize their finds.
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Outdoor Observation
Students use observation materials to record what they find outdoors. In this senses lesson plan, students use their five senses to observe things outside. They use a clipboard, pencil, crayons, magnifying glass, and their senses to find...
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Summer Activities: Let's Try Bubble Blowing!
Students observe as the teacher blows bubbles from a large bubble pipe in order to take note of the colors and sizes of the bubbles. For this bubble blowing lesson, students experiment with a variety of bubble-blowing objects,...
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Summer Fun Activity: Dream Vacations
Students can turn the block area into a travel agency. In this early childhood problem solving lesson, students use creative-thinking and language skills as they design a play environment.
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Summer Health Activity: Visiting the Doctor
Students play with dolls to act out feelings about a common experience. In this early childhood lesson plan, students use social, language, and fine motor skills while developing an understanding of their own bodies and the role of an...
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Summer Safety Activity: Playing with Environmental Print
Students look at the words, symbols, and signs that surround them. In this early childhood lesson plan, students use observational skills as they note the abundance of letters and signs in their world, then apply this awareness to block...
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Summer Safety Activity: Time to Tidy Up
Students find that cleaning up can be easy. In this early childhood lesson, students practice fine motor skills while making their classroom more safe. Students create large storage boxes.
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Activity Plan Mixed Ages: Community Cooperation
Students learn how members of communities work together. In this early childhood lesson plan, students explore their neighborhood and discover the people and places that comprise it.
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Activity Plan Mixed Ages: Sunny Science
Students develop problem-solving, observation, and critical-thinking skills. In this early childhood lesson, students explore the topic of the sun as they notice shadows and light.
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Energetic Atoms - Active & Spaced Out
Students discover the power of the sun through an outdoor experiment. In this solar power lesson plan, students view a PowerPoint presentation on atoms before they complete an atom worksheet. Students utilize a solar bag to demonstrate...
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Spray Bottle Paint Mural
Sometimes all you need is a quick and easy outdoor art project. Perfect for the end of the school year, this mural project allows kids to make a mess while creating art. They use spray bottles full of paint to "spray" paint a large sheet...
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Outdoor Photography with Digital Cameras
Young scholars become familiar with perspective, composition and framing of pictures. In this photographing nature lesson, students photograph and then describe their pictures in a paragraph. Young scholars build pictures to tell a story...
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Plant Life Cycle Activities and Lesson Plans
Curb spring fever by bringing some of the great outdoors into your classroom with plant life cycle activities.
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Activity Plan 2-3: Outdoor Picture Math
Learners match images of objects to their real counterpart. In this play-based matching instructional activity, children explore the playground and match real play equipment with what is seen in pictures. Lesson includes a language...
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Summer Activities: Super Sand & Water!
Students use funnels and create tunnels. In this early childhood lesson plan, students begin to understand science and math concepts such as flow, force, gravity, and volume and develop skills in areas such as problem solving and...
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Fall Lesson Plans
Students participate in various fall activities. In this fall lesson plan, students take a trip to a farmers market and purchase the ingredients needed for vegetable soup. Students paint fall scenes and create a fall story. Students...
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Activity Plan 5-6: Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!
Students become entomologists for a day. In this life science lesson, students go on an insect hunt and investigate insects and their homes. This leads to the creation of an insect by each student. Lesson includes a take-home activity...
University of Kentucky
Beneficial Bug Scavenger Hunt
Many people think of bugs as annoying pests to be squashed, but most insects and spiders are beneficial, eating the actual pests or pollinating plants. After reviewing some of the common bugs in your area (they may differ from those...
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Outdoor Activities: Taking Science Outside
Students participate in various outdoor science activities to enhance their observation, classification, and analysis skills. In this outdoor lesson, students begin by observing a tree from a straightforward angle, then from the...
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Get Acquainted with the Great Outdoors
National Parks and Recreation Month offers opportunities to improve health and education.
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Hula Hoop ABC Relays
Adding hula hoops to any activity can present a fun challenge. This worksheet explains how to conduct an activity that combines the recognition of capital/lowercase letters and a hula hoop relay. Outside on the playground, each student...
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Child Safety
Explore reading comprehension and child safety in this young adult literacy lesson plan. High schoolers practice using context clues to figure out word meanings after observing a teacher model this process. They read an article about...