TMO Day 2023: Health & Wellbeing

Enjoy these activities for Take Me Outside Day and week, or any other day of the year! Please feel free to share widely, and reach out if you know of an activity or resource that should be added to the list. Then head outside!

Thursday October 19th – Theme: Health and Wellbeing

Scavenger Hike

Grade: K-12

Subjects: Phys Ed, Health, Geography, Language

Teaching Strategies: Movement based learning, Critical thinking 

Provide students with the list of natural items they can find and photograph on a hike and enjoy connecting to your local environment while engaging in fun community based exercise! For this Scavenger Hike resource from PHE Canada click here!

Patterns Through the Seasons: A Year of School Garden Activities 

Grade: K-12

Subjects: Science, Health, Geography, Language

Teaching Strategies: Movement based learning, Place based education

Looking for ways to connect your students to their food and making a local, healthy impact on their community? This resource, a joint production of Lifecycles and Evergreen, is an experiential-learning tool focused on food gardening. Lessons are grouped into seasons to help support educators in making the most of learning opportunities in the garden throughout the school year. Designed for schools in BC, the lessons can be easily applied to school gardens across the country. 

Check this great resource out from Evergreen for School Garden Activities! 

Bird Seed Heart Treats and Other Loving Ideas

Grade: K-12

Subjects: Science, Health, Art

Teaching Strategies: Place based education, experiential learning, artistic approach to ed

Fill your cup by creating and giving a natural gift to a loved one! Follow Megan Zeni’s steps to creating a Bird Seed Love Heart! 

Silent Hiking

Grade: All Grades

Subjects: English/Language arts, Geography,Math, Phys Ed, Science

Teaching Strategies:  Outdoor learning, Metacognition 

This activity can take the form of 3 separate stages:

Pre Activity: Encourage students to reflect on spending time outdoors and getting active. What do students enjoy being outdoors?  Discuss elements of physical and health literacy. Include a small physical warm up. This can include stretching, jogging on the spot. Students can measure their heart rate during the warm up and compare it with their results post hike. 

During the Hike: Encourage students to be completely silent during the hike. Students should be aware of their senses. Ask students to listen, smell, touch, and see nature. Stop for a break if necessary. 

Post Activity: Allow students to measure their heart rate, and compare results from the warm up. Use interdisciplinary teaching by asking them questions such as: What math equation gave them  their heart rate measurement? What direction did we walk in? What animals did you notice? What were they doing? Ask students to jot down and reflect on their experience of the silent hike. They can also draw their experience, if preferred. 

Pick It Up!

 Grades: 1-3

Subjects: Gym, Interdisciplinary

Teaching Strategies: Outdoor learning, Active learning, Reflective learning, Constructive learning

Help the environment while students practice their balance and coordination skills by picking up trash! This two- in -one activity encourages the development of fine motors skills and physical fitness for younger students. These skills transfer to sports and activities that involve dynamic balance and coordination.

Ensure that students pick up safe items by providing them with a graphic chart on what to pick up (i.e wrappers, water bottles).

This activity can be paired with a post discussion or personal reflection on recycling and caring for the environment, as it relates to relevant curricula. 

For other variations on this activity, visit activeforlife.com

Balance Poses

Grades: All Grades

Subjects: Gym

Teaching Strategies: Active learning, Outdoor learning

Feel like warming up before our Virtual Yoga session led by Satya Studios? Continue your yoga skills with this activity! “Balance Poses’ is a great starter activity to develop balance and coordination skills, and can be used for a variety of skilled yogis! Just add more moves to challenge advanced learners, or focus on developing ambidexterity. 

For more ideas to learn and play in the great outdoors, visit activeforlife.com

Get Your Ears On!

Grades: K-6

Subjects: Interdisciplinary

Teaching Strategies:  Communicative Practice, Reflective Learning, Metacognition

Can you [ear] me? This activity focuses on mental health awareness, specifically eco-anxiety. By encouraging students to discuss their feelings on the future of our environment, the hope is eliminate feelings of anxiety.

Have fun with this activity by encouraging students to wear animal ears when they feel a need to talk or discuss concepts that make them worries or anxious.

Students can make the ears of any animal of their choosing! Find the animal ear template, here.

For more resources on eco-anxiety and other activities focused on the environment check out The Earths Rangers Podcast for elementary students!

For secondary students, check out Earth Ranger’s Podcast “The Big Melt” !

Looking for more? Did you know Take Me Outside has a searchable resource directory? Click here to check it out!