Oh.......we need some dirt in schools!
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- Published on Friday, 15 March 2013 11:15
By Shara Lawrence-Weiss
Oh........we need some dirt in schools!
This morning I was browsing around on Deborah's site: Brain Insights. I saw a link to an archived post titled Research indicates that playing in the dirt may stimulate further learning and less stress for the brain.
The post reminded me of something I wrote in May of 2010: The phases and stages of a love of dirt
Deborah's post linked over to information on the Science Daily site. The article asks, "Can bacteria make you smarter?"
{Photo copyright: Shara Lawrence-Weiss | MommyPerks.com}
Playing in nature is a natural antidepressant. We've known about this for a long time. The sunlight affects our bodies and brains and according to studies, so does dirt! Here is the portion of the study that got me thinking:
"It is interesting to speculate that creating learning environments in schools that include time in the outdoors where M. vaccae is present may decrease anxiety and improve the ability to learn new tasks."
Even though the post went up in 2010 the information remains valid and useful. There is no expiration date on this information. I currently began working in a school again and one of the strategies I'm using, as often as possible, is movement and outdoor time. When the kids were sitting for a while last week I said, "Okay - let's get up and do some jumping jacks now, before sitting again!" This did help but soon enough they were antsy again. I asked the sub, "Can we please go for a walk outside now? The kids need to get out." In addition, we extended their playground time.
One of the things I love most about Montessori learning is that they often have the children plant gardens. This is a wish I have for public and private schools, too. Many private schools and charters already have garden centers but I have yet to work in a public school that offers a garden planting center - unless the teacher is creating one in her own classroom. It gets tricky if the weather is too cold or too hot. We need to figure out a way to get around that.
I'm going to ponder this for a while and see if there's a way we can start a garden in our room at the school. If you have already successfully done this in your school, I'd love to hear your ideas.
We plan to start a garden in our yard soon, too! My children have been asking for one.
More reading: Ten open-ended play ideas
More reading: What is outdoor play?
Comments
I love that you're having fun in the New York chilly park!
Playing in nature is a natural antidepressant. We've known about this for a long time. The sunlight affects our bodies and brains and according to studies, so does dirt!
we went to the park today to play in dirt and run around in freezing cold..
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