Does your outdoor learning area look like this? Need to clean up your space before parents visit? Here’s a fun Autumn idea that will spark your students’ imaginations, get them dancing and singing, AND tidy up your outdoor learning area at the same time!
Have you heard the Dingle Dangle Scarecrow song? The kids love it! I introduced the song indoors after rest time. I’m primarily an outdoor learning teacher, but I come indoors daily to help with lunch duty and rest time. The children enjoy making up their own dance moves to the lyrics. Click here to see the lyrics and listen to the song. There are different videos of the song on YouTube. We’ve watched several of them. That cartoon is my students’ favourite.
After several days of singing and dancing to the song, I like to invite the children to make their own scarecrow outside. Anyone who would rather play and not build the scarecrow is free to their own thing. However, building the scarecrow causes a lot of excitement and usually reluctant children are drawn into the experience. Some children enjoy just watching the others.
First, the children have to organise themselves. Building a scarecrow takes a lot of collaboration, discussion and decision-making. Who will rake leaves? How do we give all the rakers a turn when we only have three rakes? Who will sweep leaves? Who will put the leaves into the wheelbarrows? What’s the best way to get the leaves into the wheelbarrows? What part of the scarecrow should we start with? How can we work together to fill the clothing with leaves? How can we make a face?
Once his clothing is stuffed full and the face is made, new questions arise. What can we give him for feet? Can we work together to get his legs into his boots? Where can we put him? Will he sit or stand? How can we get him to stay in this chair?
This is not a process that I expect to be finished in one day. Some years we return to building our scarecrow over several days. Some years we finish him in one day. It depends on the children’s interest, persistence, decision-making skills and enthusiasm. Since our scarecrow is filled with leaves, some rainy years we don’t make a scarecrow at all because the leaves are wet. This Autumn we’ve had many consecutive dry, sunny days.
The children loved their Dingle Dangle Scarecrow* so much, they picked tiny daisies for him.
*Okay, he’s not dingling or dangling because he is sitting in a chair. And he doesn’t have a flippy, floppy hat either. But those differences were good discussion points. The kids liked him in spite of his differences from the scarecrow in the song.
What songs have you been learning indoors that you could extend outdoors?
