A change of scenery - especially when it involves learning outside - is a great way to reengage your 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students.
Below, find 11 different example activities for taking your classroom outdoors! All of the activities are educational - you will find ideas for taking ELA lessons, math lessons, and science lessons outside.
I sometimes recommend a resource that can be found on Amazon. These links are affiliate links - should you choose to buy, I might get a small compensation at no cost to you.
Outdoor ELA Activity Ideas
1. Vocabulary Review With Chalk
2. Let Nature Inspire Student Writing
Give each student a writing journal, go outside, and have them write! You could let students free write or give them nature specific writing prompts:
- Tell a story from an ant's point of view
- Describe something you see outside using all 5 of your senses
- Describe the weather
- Write similes, metaphors, or other sentences with figurative language about a tree, the sun, an insect, etc.
Being outdoors can also inspire poetry writing! Have your students write a haiku about their experience outside. You can use this No Prep Haiku Packet to help. It teaches students about haiku, provides plenty of examples, and has templates to scaffold their own writing.
3. Go On an ELA Scavenger Hunt
Send students outside to explore the playground area or go on a nature walk, but give them specific things to be on the lookout for. You can adapt this based on the ELA skills you want students to review. For example, you could have students search for:
- nouns (and then have them write adjectives that describe the nouns or review other parts of speech)
- things that are compound words
- something that rhymes with cat
- something that has a prefix or suffix
- something with 3 syllables
These 8 no prep scavenger hunt worksheets are a great way to enjoy the outdoors while reviewing a variety of skills. Or create your own outdoor scavenger hunts with these ideas.
4. Read Outside
Never underestimate the power of a change of scenery! Have students do their independent reading outside - or let them relax and enjoy a good read aloud. The Great Kapok Tree makes a great read aloud for Earth Day - and these questions and activity ideas can help make lesson planning easier.
Or, read aloud one of these fun nonfiction books about animals!
5. Interview Something in Nature
Have students choose something in nature and pretend to interview it. This is sure to get their creative juices flowing, and helps them practice thinking about different points of view. As a class, brainstorm different questions you could ask things like trees, rocks, sticks, and butterflies, and then send students outdoors with a clipboard and a sheet of paper. Have them write down their interview questions and answers as they soak in some sun.
Or, you could have students interview a friend - but in an outdoor setting!
Take the classroom outdoors with these fun outdoor scavenger hunts that cover a variety of skills. The 8 scavenger hunts include:
- 5 senses scavenger hunt
- nouns and adjectives hunt
- math review
- living and nonliving
- syllable sort
- ...and more!
Get 8 scavenger hunts for $2.00 and enjoy some sunshine with your students!
Outdoor Math Activity Ideas for Upper Elementary
6. Measurement Activities
There are endless outdoor measurement opportunities. You could:
- Find the perimeter and area of different objects like garden beds, blacktop courts, fenced in areas, etc. (measuring tape might work better than a ruler)
- Measure the length and height of different objects in the playground
- Use chalk to draw lines of a certain length
- Measure the length of your shadows
- Find the circumference of different trees
7. Equations With Nature
8. Math Hopscotch
Teacher Amanda Anderson has her students create multiple hopscotch courts with different numbers. Each court focuses on a different math skill, like:
- even/odd numbers
- fractions
- finding products, sums, or differences
Students spend a little time at each hopscotch court to review a variety of math skills!
9. Math Races
Get a set of cones and write numbers on them. The numbers you will write will depend on what skill you want to practice - see the ideas below for reference.
Spread the cones out around the blacktop or playground, and then split your classroom into small groups. Have groups work together to grab as many numbers of a certain type as you can. The team with the most correct cones wins!
You could have students grab cones that:
- are greater than or less than a certain number
- add up to a certain number (let them use multiple addends!)
- are factors of a certain number
- are multiples of a certain number
- are even/odd
- are prime numbers
- put numbers together to form large numbers
- make a pattern
The possibilities with this are endless as well! If you want, you could set this up more like a relay race.
10. Go on a Geometry Scavenger Hunt
Take 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students outside and assign them the task of finding:
- different 2d or 3d shapes
- objects with certain angles (obtuse, acute, right angles)
- parallel and intersecting lines
- objects with lines of symmetry
- patterns in nature
Find more outdoor scavenger hunt ideas here!
Outdoor Science Ideas
11. Trout in the Classroom
A teacher that wished to remain anonymous shared this amazing national program with me. Trout in the Classroom has all sorts of resources, free lesson plans, and more to help your students connect more with nature while learning.
Below, see some students enjoying a Trout in the Classroom lesson and exploring insects. Watch more about the program here.
12. Camouflage Caterpillars
13. Compost With Your Students
Teacher Annemarie Holmyard composts with her students and shared this idea with me.
Students can read articles explaining what composting is, weigh food waste and graph results, journal about the process, learn the benefits of recycling food waste, and more. This lesson plan that includes a reading passage might help you with the process.
14. Build a Nest
15. Grow Plants
16. Playground Physics
Never Stress Over Sub Plans Again!
Make copies, find a fiction book, and you'll be ready for any emergency that comes your way!