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Outdoor classroom at Naperville school brings lessons to life

Outdoor classroom at Naperville school brings lessons to life

The principal at Ranch View Elementary in Naperville Unit District 203 has four reasons the school built an outdoor classroom.

• It supports the use of Next Generation science standards by helping students learn through inquiry.

• It helps with social and emotional learning by giving students a space to use their senses to experience nature.

• It connects with the community by giving parents, neighbors and seniors a new place to gather.

• It's a way to celebrate the school's 30th anniversary.

But a third-grader has just one reason: Summer is over, and it's part of her science lesson to capture the change.

"We're taking pictures of evidence that shows the seasons turning into fall," third-grader Isabelle Berry says as she lines up next to kindergartner Matteo Dodier. "We're working with our kindergarten buddies to help us take the pictures."

Classroom iPads in hand, the older students take charge, asking their younger counterparts what they see in the $40,000 garden and outdoor learning space that means colder weather is setting in.

Isabelle and Matteo zoom in on a compass and address marker, a plaque affixed to the ground that shows the cardinal directions and reminds the students where they are - at 1651 Ranchview Drive, the place they spend most of their day. The marker shows shadows, which the students think could be a sign of fall - shorter days and less sunlight mean cooler temps and a less summerlike feel.

Third-grade teacher Julie Groves would be proud. She says one of the class's lessons so far has revolved around the solar system and the tilt of the earth on its axis. Sunlight and shadows could give visual evidence of that tilting.

Other students found a small maple with leaves turned bright red, or a crunchy leaf atop a bed of crunchy grass, or a beetle to photograph as their evidence of fall. Groves said the older kids would make collages of their images once they headed back inside, cataloging them with the date so they could compare to a similar experiment they'll conduct later in the year.

"We hope to use it in all seasons, weather permitting," Groves said about the new outdoor learning area.

Parents involved with Ranch View's Home and School Association began brainstorming and fundraising for the outdoor classroom about a year and a half ago, Principal Sue Salness said. They enlisted the help of parent Robert Wroble, a landscape architect, to design the space along two walls of the school just outside one door.

They got a neighborhood resident who works in the building field to serve as construction manager. By mid-September, the space was ready to be dedicated and used daily by teachers and students from kindergarten through fifth grade.

"It allows our kids to do some hands-on learning in a different environment," Salness said.

The garden has two half-circles of "tree cookies," which are actually tree stumps secured to the ground so kids can sit for story times.

It has friendship benches, a memorial tree, a sensory path, a peace path to practice walking toward one another in a symbolic gesture of conflict resolution and a peace corner. There's a weaving loom and plants of various textures to touch, growing in pots, raised beds or straight out of the ground. Soon the school plans to add one of those "Little Free Library" boxes, where anyone can take or leave a book to page through at one of four picnic tables.

"It's a nice space to go and be quiet," Salness said.

But students know it's not all fun and games.

"They come out here and they know this is a classroom," Groves said. "They know it's not a recess, they know it's not a playtime."

They've been trained that way. The littlest kiddos can't stay outside too long - after 20 minutes or so, they'll forget that classroom stuff and just start climbing around. So teachers pick their spots and keep the lessons interactive.

Groves' students first experienced the outdoor classroom on a scavenger hunt, then visited again to introduce their kindergarten buddies to the flora and fauna, then came a third time to take pictures and prove autumn is setting in.

Other students sat with notebooks around what they call the "mystical tree," a tall trunk that Salness' father turned into a "fairy home" for imaginations to fill in the details. Writing to a fantasy prompt, the kids imagine the tree turned pink or write about the characters who live there in a fairy's abode.

As the outdoor classroom continues its first season, Salness is tracking how often teachers take their kids there and working with the school's learning support coach to develop new lessons that take advantage of the outdoors.

While the classroom is meant mainly for full class use, teachers or aides can even take single students there on their own, especially if they have special needs or just need a break.

The school playground isn't visible from the new outdoor classroom. But an outdoor lesson still bears one similarity to free time on the play lot: It ends when the teacher's whistle blows.

  Three classes of Ranch View Elementary students use the school's new outdoor classroom at once to photograph signs of fall and work on a creative writing prompt. Marie Wilson/mwilson@dailyherald.com
  Third-grade and kindergarten students visit the outdoor classroom at Ranch View Elementary during science class to gather evidence of the changing of the seasons, which connects to a lesson about the affect of the tilt of Earth on its axis. Marie Wilson/mwilson@dailyherald.com
  Ranch View Elementary's Home and School Association raised $40,000 during the past year and a half to build this outdoor classroom at the school in Naperville Unit District 203. Marie Wilson/mwilson@dailyherald.com
  Ranch View Elementary Principal Sue Salness says the school community has rallied around its new outdoor classroom by helping build elements of the space and donating $40,000 for its construction and to buy supplies for outdoor learning, which are stored in these cabinets. Marie Wilson/mwilson@dailyherald.com
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