WHAT IS AN OUTDOOR CLASSROOM?

An outdoor classroom area provides a unique learning experience for children that is a change of scenery and pace from the indoor classroom and allows for children to engage in sensory play with outdoor natural materials. A successful outdoor classroom contains lots of moveable objects that children can manipulate and use for construction projects. Examples of natural moveable objects include sand, water, twigs, branches, logs and small tree stumps, pebbles, rocks and fallen leaves.
 
Prefabricated items such as buckets, spades, pieces of PVC pipe and fabric can also be used for children to use in their creative play. The idea is to provide the necessary tools for children to create objects formed in their imagination and to help them learn about the world around them.
 
Our Trinity Preschool Outdoor Classroom is located directly south of the Trinity Preschool building and is fenced in with a chain link fence and privacy strips. The classroom has an entrance/exit gate opening onto the parking lot area and is a very short distance from the Preschool classroom entrance. Our outdoor classroom is split into different zones to encourage different forms of play similar to the diagram HERE.  If you have items or materials you would like to donate to our outdoor classroom, please contact Pastor Ashley: Ashley@tbcsherwoodpark.ca
 

All of the items below may be built from treated wood and left unstained, or may be built from untreated wood and finished with a stain of your choice. 

 

  1. Small Garden Bridge: We envision a small footbridge and railing that the children can cross and use in various methods of play.   An example and tutorial can be found HERE
  2. Outdoor Mud Kitchen: We would love to have two outdoor play kitchens constructed of wood for children to play with. Examples and tutorials are plentiful on the internet and we are not partial to only one example or design.   A helpful example and tutorial can be found HERE.  
  3. Outdoor Easel: We already have the Plexiglass for this project. We require the frame to be built for it.  helpful example and tutorial for this project can be found HERE.  
  4. Children's Picnic Tables: We would love to have one or two small child-sized picnic tables for children to use for various play learning activities. An example and tutorial can be found HERE.  
  5. Outdoor Sensory Tables: Playing with natural materials such as sand can be facilitated well in an outdoor sensory table. We are looking for two tables.  An example and tutorial can be found HERE.
  6. Donations:  We are also accepting donations of items that will be helpful and useful in our outdoor classroom such as stainless steel pots and pans (No Teflon coating please!), buckets, spades, landscape fabric, one or two wooden cable spools, and tree stumps of different heights and sizes.   Feel free to drop off your donations at the church office Monday-Friday (9 a.m. - 12 noon).
  7. Rocks and Patio Stones: We are looking for rocks of various sizes and patio stones.
If you would like to donate a pre-existing structure that fits the items above, we ask that you contact Pastor Ashley. (ashley@tbcsherwoodpark.ca)