Beyond Recess: Why Outdoor Education Matters

date: March 9, 2026

It’s the morning of November 21st and children are scattered across the schoolyard, the nearby urban forest, and the park. It’s one of the most exciting days of the school year. Children are running, smiling, reading, measuring, scooping, building, drawing, climbing, observing, relaxing – outside. It’s Global Outdoor Learning Day.

Many students across the country are facing the same challenges: stress, disengagement, and screen time are all on the rise (Toigo et al., 2025). Some children are showing signs of nature-deficit disorder (Louv, 2019), outlining the cost of reduced outdoor time. These challenges are each having a profound impact on student wellbeing and learning. In recent years, the outdoor classroom has gained popularity across the country. The growing interest in outdoor education, risky play, and play-based learning has been at the center of countering these challenges. In fact, when students are given opportunities to learn, play, and take risks outdoors, their wellbeing and their learning are directly and positively affected (Beaulieu & Beno, 2024).

The Benefits of Outdoor Learning on Student Wellbeing and Learning

Outdoor learning creates the optimal conditions for student wellbeing. Opportunities to learn and explore outside increase students’ physical activity, energy, and motor skills, and even benefit their immune systems (Beaulieu & Beno, 2024). Outdoor education also reduces stress and anxiety, helping students to regulate their nervous systems and build confidence, problem-solving skills, resilience, and autonomy (Beaulieu & Beno, 2024). There is an important sense of joy that children experience that cannot be replicated indoors.

Similarly, outdoor learning promotes student learning in important ways. It supports a plethora of valuable skills that support learning, such as self-discipline, perseverance, critical thinking, communication, attention, problem-solving, creativity, curiosity, and executive functioning skills, among others (Duval et al., 2020). It provides a calmer, more safe space for children to learn, creating a more cohesive, inclusive, and flexible environment to learn in (Berrigan & Turcotte, 2021). In addition, due to the numerous opportunities for direct, experiential learning, some students have an easier time retaining and integrating content, making it possible to see better results in reading, writing, and math (Ahehehinnou & Couzon, 2019). This type of learning allows for real-world, authentic connections to curriculum to help cement the learning to concrete experiences in meaningful places.

The Educator’s Role

As educators, we play a pivotal role in providing our students with the opportunities that prioritize student wellbeing and learning outdoors. Getting the full staff at your school on board can be tricky: some educators may experience some resistance due to their fear of injuries, school board policy barriers, access to appropriate supervision levels, parental permissions, and parent concerns, for instance. However, bringing families and school boards into the conversation to address this resistance can help increase staff agency to move the learning outdoors. Strategies that can help educators feel better prepared to bring learning outdoors include reframing language about risk and outdoor play, providing a safe and supportive outdoor environment, observing children carefully, having open conversations with families, and documenting outdoor learning outcomes.

As a kindergarten or lower elementary teacher, it is beneficial to focus on cultivating a love and appreciation for the natural world outside: invite students to observe nature, imitate nature, draw nature, play in nature, and imagine nature in stories (Centre de services scolaire de Montréal, 2020). Middle elementary teachers have the opportunity to put understanding nature at the forefront of their work – habitats, food, flora, and fauna, for instance – and upper elementary teachers can work on encouraging students to take action in their communities to contribute to the protection of nature (Centre de services scolaire de Montréal, 2020).

From Theory to Practice: Activities to Help You Get Started

While there are a countless number of outdoor activities that support student wellbeing and learning, here are some of my favorites that can be adapted to any grade level.

Sensory walks. As a class, go for a walk in the neighborhood (or around the school yard) to help your students explore their senses in the outdoors. After the walk, find a safe spot to host a listening circle, where students sit in a circle to share their sensory experiences and to listen to their peers. This outdoor activity helps to regulate the nervous system and offers a movement break through authentic, experiential learning.

Outdoor yoga. This class activity lends itself to the outdoors: tree pose, mountain pose, downward dog, and butterfly pose, for example, mimic the natural world. Take this mindful practice outside for a new experience. Outdoor yoga is a great way to help students connect to nature while reducing stress and encouraging emotional regulation. It also stimulates curiosity, creativity (Bollimbala et al., 2020), and focus, further supporting learning in the classroom.

Land art. Land art is nature’s way of providing the resources and the space to make art outside. Using natural elements found in your environment, students can use their creativity to create ephemeral pieces outdoors. Land art encourages attentive presence and self-expression, and builds students’ creativity, observation skills, and critical thinking skills (Walshe et al., 2020).

Treasure hunt. Go on a hunt for little natural treasures in your environment, collecting as many different colors and textures in nature as possible. This is a great way to have a conversation with your students about how nature, much like treasure, is valuable and must be put back where it was found. This activity encourages healthy movement, inquiry, curiosity, and vocabulary.

Read outside. Simply allow for time for children to hear stories and read stories outside. The calm comfort of the outdoors promotes a positive association with reading, supporting literacy development, reading comprehension, and productive discussion. Many high-quality books can be used as springboards to a rich outdoor learning activity. Here are some of my favorites, all of which are also available in French: I’m Like a Tree and a Tree’s Like Me by Sylvaine Jaoui; Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner; Little Cloud by Eric Carle; On a Magical Do-Nothing Day by Beatrice Alemagna; Where’s the Elephant? by Barroux; The Gold Leaf by Kirsten Hall; Tidy by Emily Gravett; The Invisible Garden by Marianne Ferrer; and The Honeybee by Kirsten Hall.

Outdoor free play. Real, deep learning doesn’t require a worksheet or a test. A substantial amount of learning takes place when we let children lead in their play – no matter the age. Outdoor free play and exploration encourage creativity, problem-solving, imagination, and language development (UNICEF, 2025). The large, open space also encourages children to be physically active and to experiment with movement.

Build and create. The outdoors provide the opportunity to build and create in ways that are different from what children are able to do in the classroom. Outside, they can use natural elements as their loose parts to construct on a large scale (Trina & Monsur, 2025). Not only does this activity foster motivation, imagination, and collaboration, but it also supports real-life STEM learning.

Risky play. Children are natural risk-takers. Allowing time and space for children to explore manageable risks in their play – such as climbing large structures, running, balancing on logs, building wobbly structures, and playing with sticks – is important for their global development (Beaulieu & Beno, 2024). In fact, risk-taking has a direct, positive impact on independence, self-esteem, emotional regulation, stress management, creativity, problem-solving, and attention (Beaulieu & Beno, 2024). Although research demonstrates the benefits of risky play, each school district, school, and individual will have a different risk tolerance.

As educators, it is crucial that we support this kind of play by understanding the fundamental difference between risk and danger: while risk is uncertainty that a child can assess and manage independently, danger is the presence of a threat unknown or uncontrollable to the child (Beaulieu & Beno, 2024). Our role, then, is to understand the local risk tolerance and evaluate the potential dangers, while leaving students enough space to face the challenge on their own.

One way to encourage this is by designating an outdoor area as a “challenge-ground” – in this controlled, limited, and supervised space, rough-and-tumble play is permitted among children who mutually agree to play rough. In doing so, students can build confidence, self-awareness, autonomy, and motor development. Risky play also supports brain development through decision-making, critical judgment, executive functioning skills, and problem-solving.

Outdoor Education: A Necessity, Not a Reward

In today’s climate, outdoor education and risky play offer valuable learning opportunities. However, a common misconception about play and outdoor time is that it is “just recess” and that it takes away from important instructional time that teachers need to meet the curriculum’s academic requirements. As such, some educators may see outdoor time – or the removal thereof – simply as a reward or, conversely, as punishment, for complete or incomplete work and for expected or unexpected behavior, for example. While this pressure on teachers can exist, viewing outdoor time in this way can be troublesome.

In fact, this view of outdoor time may communicate to children that outdoor learning should be earned as it is less important than academic work. In turn, this may reinforce extrinsic motivation and may lead children to see movement and nature as optional, potentially hindering their wellbeing and learning. Ironically, in using outdoor time in this way, it is often the children whose learning and wellbeing would benefit the most – through the need for motivation, expenditure of energy, and connection to nature, for instance – that are barred from it.

**What Can You Do?**

While It’s easy to think about all of the constraints placed on us as educators to adopt this kind of approach, I challenge you to think about what you do have to get started.

What human, material, financial, time, and environmental resources do you have in your school environment that can help you put this approach into place in your own practice?
How might your students’ learning and wellbeing be impacted if they had more time and space to explore, play, take risks, and connect with the outdoors?
How does the personal comfort levels of the staff members at your school influence their teaching practices and, in turn, the school culture and policies?
How can you ensure that staff members, school board members, and families all share a common, research-based understanding of the benefits of outdoor learning and risky play, and how can you address their concerns?
What might a school-wide implementation of outdoor learning look like in practice, and how can you measure the impact of the approach on your students?

You don’t have to wait for the next Global Outdoor Learning Day to bring your students outside to run, smile, read, measure, scoop, build, draw, climb, observe, or relax. You can start now.

References

Ahehehinnou, P. & Couzon, N. (2019, April 22). La réussite scolaire pousse-t-elle dans les arbres? Réseau d’information pour la réussite éducative. https://rire.ctreq.qc.ca/lareussite-scolaire-pousse-t-elle-dans-les-arbres/

Beaulieu, E., & Beno, S. (2024). Healthy Childhood Development Through Outdoor Risky Play: Navigating the Balance with Injury Prevention (Position statement). Paediatrics & Child Health, 29(4), 255–261. Canadian Paediatric Society. https://cps.ca/en/documents/position/outdoor-risky-play

Berrigan, F. & Turcotte, S. (2021). La classe flexible: Une opportunité pour promouvoir le mode de vie physiquement actif. Vivre le primaire, 34(3), 58–59.

Bollimbala, A., James, P. S., & Ganguli, S. (2020). The effect of Hatha yoga intervention on students’ creative ability. Acta Psychologica, 209, 103–121.

Centre de services scolaire de Montréal. (2020). Guide de ressources en éducation relative à l’environnement. Gouvernement du Québec.

Duval, S., Cadoret, G., & Montminy, N. (2020). L’éducation par la nature : Un contexte signifiant pour observer et soutenir les fonctions exécutives. Revue préscolaire, 58(4), 27–29. https://aepqkiosk.milibris.com/reader/revue-prescolaire

Louv, R. (2019). What is nature-deficit disorder? Children & Nature Network. https://www.childrenandnature.org/resources/what-is-nature-deficit-disorder/

Trina, N. A., & Monsur, M. (2025). Plants and play: Value of plant databases to transform plants as loose parts play materials in outdoor learning environments. Learning Environments Research, 28, 813–834.

Toigo, S., Wang, C., Prince, S. A., Varin, M., Roberts, K. C., & Betancourt, M. T. (2025). Recreational screen time and mental health among Canadian children and youth. Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada, 45(7/8), 311–322.

UNICEF. (2025, May 1). The importance of outdoor play (and how to support it). UNICEF Europe and Central Asia. www.unicef.org/importance-outdoor-play-and-how-support-it

Walshe, N., Lee, E., & Smith, M. J. (2020). Supporting children’s well-being with art in nature: Artist pedagogue perceptions. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 14(1), 98–112.

Meet the Expert(s)

Jessica Migueis

Teacher

Jessica is a passionate kindergarten teacher with seven years of experience teaching French as a second language in Montreal. She is dedicated to supporting the global development of young children through play-based, early learning pedagogy in inclusive and outdoor learning environments.