With spring and summer well and truly on the way, you might be tempted
to move some of your tutoring sessions outside. While sometimes considered
to be a distraction not worth bothering with, there’s also plenty
of good reasons for take young minds into the great outdoors.
Here’s five reasons to get you started:
1. Fidgety tutees may cope better with the greater degree of freedom which
comes with being outside. Particularly after a whole day at school, some
students may find it hard to sit still for a hour’s tutoring session,
so take them outside and let them stretch out on the grass or stand up
and recite poetry to the sun.
2. Contact and interaction with nature can be a fantastic creative stimulus
for tutoring sessions, which require it. Bring literature or poetry with
a nature focus to life and let your students feel the sun and breeze on
their skin, helping them to better engage with the words ad emotions in the text.
3. Reluctant tutees may gain a new lease of life in the great outdoors,
where it’s easier for learning and fun to meet. Try playing a simple
game like catch while trying to remember French vocab, geographical terminology
or scientific facts.
4. Health gains an automatic boost when you take learning outside, whether
it’s through being active, breathing more deeply or simply gaining
some mood boosting vitamin-D. Being outside can re-energise lethargic
tutees and help to reawaken their interest in learning at a time when
they’re ready to switch off.
5. Certain subjects can gain a real boost from being outside, particularly
with Geography, Biology or an area of a subject that directly relates
to what’s outside. If you’re struggling to justify a whole
lesson outside or are concerned that focus may decline, then nip into
the garden for an energising starter activity, or go to examine a plant,
the weather or something else relevant to the lesson.
