Placement Experience

Kindergarten 2017 Placement

I have had the great pleasure of being in Stephanie’s classroom for a total of 6 weeks as a student-teacher. Under Stephanie’s guidance, I have learned a great deal about outdoor education. Stephanie has made the kindergarten classroom/environment inclusive and nature-based. The students, as I have documented and witnessed, are truly into the nature-based theme that has occurred in Stephanie’s classroom.

We have gone on field trips to St. Kateri and Hiawatha where the students took part in all-day outdoor activities. There is a lot of exploratory learning that happens on these field trips and every student, from my experience, has expressed that they love the field trips and that they have fun. In addition to this, learning outdoors happens everyday in Stephanie’s classroom. The kids are not quick to back out or complain about the weather either. Stephanie has created an environment in which the students have a will and desire to learn.

Stephanie has quite literally brought the outdoors to inside the classroom as well. With tree stumps as chairs and manipulatives that are made from wood, just about everything inside the classroom is a reflection of the outdoors. It’s almost like we, as a classroom, are in natural elements all of the time. The students, as I have observed, are well behaved and well mannered. The lessons taught about the environment surely have had a great part in this mature attitude that the class has. Furthermore, Stephanie utilizes and teaches the kindergarten curriculum outdoors. She conducts things such as math lessons outdoors where students make patterns with rocks, leaves, and other materials found outside.

This nature-based learning was relatively new to me, although I did have some exposure to it during my undergrad. Nonetheless, I have never seen it done so thoroughly and intentionally in an elementary school or high school. It makes perfect sense, in my eyes, to have a nature-based environment. Stephanie’s classroom is a prime example of the positive effects that such an environment can have on the students.

I am extremely thankful to have had the opportunity to be apart of this set-up. It has truly been eye-opening and inspiring to me as a person who will be entering into my future as an educator in 2018.

Regards, Daniel Scarpino