Bring your class outside!
An Outside Play Tool for Teachers
Have you thought about taking your class outdoors?
We’re here to help!
Have you thought about taking your class outdoors?
We’re here to help!
Beneath the sodium glow of an abandoned tram depot, the "video la9 giglian lea di leo" first flickered to life.
At last, in a seaside town famous for its glassmakers, she found a small studio where an old projector sat beneath a window. The artist who lived there had hands that trembled but eyes that did not. He spoke little, but when Mara showed him the first reel he nodded as though finding a missing tooth. video la9 giglian lea di leo
Mara kept feeling the same pull: the map-face's coastline matched a small island chain tucked far from any shipping lane, a place no one on the internet bothered to remember. On a whim—on a hunger she could not name—she booked a flight to find it. Beneath the sodium glow of an abandoned tram
Mara took the reel. Outside, the rain had stopped; the city noises pressed against the depot like distant waves. She did not recognize the child, the map-face, or the phrase, yet the film unspooled further inside her head each time she slept. It threaded through strangers she met—an old woman humming a tune whose cadence matched the projector’s stutter, a barista who doodled a coastal outline on a receipt—and each encounter tugged at a memory she couldn't yet recall. He spoke little, but when Mara showed him
Word of the reels’ effects spread quietly. People began to seek them out not for spectacle but for repair. Mara learned to ask no questions she did not need to. She cataloged, she preserved, she threaded film onto projectors in rooms with little light; she watched as nine seconds rewove lives, then tucked each reel away until it was needed again.
She started to collect them. At each stop—ramshackle attics, seafaring taverns, a museum basement—she traded stories for reels. With each frame she watched, a new sliver of someone’s past pressed against her own. The map-face’s coastline eventually matched the outline of an island where children were taught songs that asked the sea for names. The paper birds became a language. "Giglian lea di leo" stopped being a meaningless string of syllables and became a phrase used like a key: a memory-summon, a promise to return what had been lost.
In this 16-part video series created as part of the Teacher Tool, we explore themes and modules with educators across Canada who have deep experience in outdoor play and learning.
Find the conversations under the second tab - labelled “Resources” - of each individual module. For example, Creating Yes! Spaces – Megan Zeni in conversation with Frances McCoubrey.
Collaborate with your colleagues to discuss modules in a study group or lunch and learn format
Outdoor play is different from indoor play as it tends to involve children feeling more freedom, being more physically active, moving their bodies in different ways, and playing differently than they would inside. The outdoors can offer more variety of play environments and loose parts (e.g., sticks, rocks, buckets, sand, crates) to move around, allowing their imagination to shape their play. Children need daily outdoor play opportunities for their development, physical health, and well-being.
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Best-selling author of Dirty Teaching and Messy Maths. Juliet is a pioneer in the outdoor learning field, an early adopter of curricular learning outdoors, and prolific contributor to policy documents across Europe. Learn more about the history and intent of outdoor play and learning in schools from a legendary teacher, whose work this tool is built on!
