Wild Horizons: Outdoor Learning Experiences Erasmus Project

Project Title

Wild Horizons: Outdoor Learning Experiences

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early childhood education and care; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

Preschoolers use all the senses when they play outside (touch, smell, taste, research and test) (White,2008). Outdoor play allows children to express themselves in ways that are not normally possible when playing indoors. It gives many opportunities for children to explore and learn about the natural surroundings, experience the weather and the seasons. As children learn and play outdoors, numerous skills develop: creative representation, language and literacy, social relations, movement, music, classification, numbers, orientation (Hohmann&Weikart,2005). Wilson (2008) argues that outdoor environment offers greater opportunities for the playing surface and a range of different materials, equipment and materials that provide an opportunity for projects that require teamwork and collaboration. The natural environment offers an immense wealth of experience that promotes the child’s holistic development, enabling their progress in all areas: cognitive, aesthetic, sensory, motor, social and emotional (White,2008).
So this project aroused having in mind these benefits. The project aims to lay good foundations for the implementation of oudoor activities that would become part of the values and culture of the kindergarten for future generations, since this kind of activities is enabled by the local environment of our institutions.
There are 6 partners countries working on this project: Slovenia, Portugal, Italy, Romania, Turkey and Serbia. All of us have different experiences with outdoor learning and exchanging of good practice between us would have positive impact on improving our teaching methodologies. The exchange of outdoor teaching / leraning practices was a very productive one, as the partner institutions had different geographical and climate settings, and also both urban and rural settlements, so we could witness a large variety of approaches to the topic. The partners have different experience in implementing eTwinning and Erasmus+ projects. Turkish, Serbian, Portuguese and Italian partners are more experienced and will support and tutor the inexperienced partners ( Slovenia and Romania). All partners shared their newly acquired knowledge with their institutions and associates, to other schools and preschool institutions in their regions , on national level conferences, in local newspapers, on TV stations. Every partner will organize “School Outdoor Day” and many other activities for parents.
The project involded a number of almost 500 students aged between 4 to 8 years old and more than 20 teachers, of preschool subjects and other disciplines required to carry on the planned activities, through an interdisciplinary approach. The project is designed to offer a large experience of outdoor activities from almost all preschool disciplines, from Children’s literature and storytelling, to Science, Maths, Music, Art, English and STEM. The learning places we worked on are both formal (schools) and also nonformal such as forests, parks,nature reserves, river banks, beaches etc. The methodologies that the project used are all student centered, innovative and motivating for the students. Some examples are: learning by doing, experiments, TPR, game based learning, cooperative learning, and critical thinking.
We planned 6 joint-staff training events in every partner country, designed on types of activities : job shadowing, conferences, workshops, trainings and coordinative meetings. They will last 5 days, every partner country will send 2-4 teachers to these mobilities. Students and teachers will be the most active participants (age of the children is 4-8) but we will also collaborate with parents, psychologists, local community members, university professors, and journalists.
Before the beginning of this project, the partners also worked on an eTwinning project together, called “The Wonders of Outdoor Learning”, which created a background for the students on this topic, and it also gave the teachers the opportunity to work together as a team for the first time, and take necessary precautions for a more efficient collaboration in Erasmus+. Etwinning was also used as a safe place for the students to connect virtually, for the project management meetings and dissemination of results.
The most important achievement of this project is the incorporation of more outdoor activities in the curriculum of each partner school, due to the benefits of being in the natural environment, and because these kind of activities were usually considered lacking formal educational value, and they were not considered necessary in traditional educational systems. The goal of the project was to make outdoor activities daily practices in our kindergartens in the future, so that many other students and teachers benefit from what we learned these two years.The participation in such a project also provided European value to all the participating institutions and a deeper specialization in the organizations of outdoor learning.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 152651 Eur

Project Coordinator

Vrtec Mehurcki & Country: SI

Project Partners

• Gradinita cu Program Prelungit Nr :3 Targoviste
• Centro de Assistência Social à Terceira idade e Infância de Sanguêdo – Colégio Santa Eulália
• PU “NASA RADOST”
• I.C. 4° C.D.Bregante – S.M.Volta
• Ozel Bahcesehir Ilkokulu