The Listening Walk: A Built-In Outdoor Classroom Learning Activity
When you think about outdoor learning activities, by default we think about sand, mud play, chalking, and other hands-on activities. But the practice of active listening, especially in a nature setting, can be a powerful teaching tool. The listening walk isn’t a new concept and is one that any teacher can try in a number of settings, and it’s great for all ages, from toddlers all the way up to seniors in high school.
In an outdoor classroom, a listening walk can happen anywhere within the outdoor learning environment: on a bike path, across one (or several) sensory pathways, through tunnels, and around an outdoor classroom’s water features. It’s great to start with familiar places because children can listen and hear things they may not have noticed before.
Teachers know that children find it difficult to stay silent, which is key to the listening walk activity. The length of the walk and the time to remain silent should be up to each teacher and depends heavily on the age(s) of children participating, but there’s no hard or fast rule for this exercise. The ultimate goal is to get children to remain silent, actively listen, and focus on every sound that they hear around them.
When children really listen to background sounds, they’ll realize how much they can notice when they pay attention. A listening walk is also a great way for children to pay attention to what’s happening right now, within the moment.
One way to kick off the listening walk activity for Pre-K students is to read The Listening Walk by Paul Showers, a story about a young girl and her father who take a quiet walk and identify the sounds around them. For older children, asking them to choose to participate is a great way to get their buy-in and hold them accountable to the request to remain silent for the duration of the activity.
Once the listening walk concludes, you can gather and talk about the listening walk experience.
Questions you can ask:
What sounds did you hear close by? Far away?
Which sounds were soft? Which ones were loud?
Were the sounds made by people, animals or machines? Or was it the wind?
What new sounds did you notice today that you hadn’t noticed before?
Did you think it was hard to stay quiet? Why or why not?
You can also direct children to journal or draw pictures about the sounds they heard during the listening walk, which can be done on paper, with chalk, or even sketched with their fingers in the dirt. Sharing their experiences and observations has social benefits and builds connections between students when they find similarities with their peers. It also reveals differences when they hear what other students discovered that they may have missed themselves.
Learning outside, even with an activity as simple as intentional listening, makes an impression far beyond what sitting at a desk inside can provide.