Edgewood Kindergarteners Head Outdoors

With arms spread wide, a class of kindergarteners felt a light fall breeze tickle their faces and dance through their hair — in the latest example of in-person learning during the ongoing pandemic.

“I can feel the wind!” one student called out. ​“These flowers smell like fruit punch!” another student said aloud.

Students’ senses were put to the test Monday at Edgewood Creative Thinking Through STEAM Magnet School.

The outdoor lesson represented both a continuation of a style of teaching at Edgewood School that predated the pandemic, as well as an example of how New Haven Public Schools teachers are finding safe and innovative ways to keep in-person classes going even as Covid continues.

Children under the age of 12 remain ineligible to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, though the Pfzier/BioNTech is in the process of seeking federal approval for its vaccine to be given to children ages 5 to 11.

A class of roughly 20 kindergarteners Monday practiced using their senses during an outdoor lesson about the weather. The class utilized one of Edgewood’s newest outdoor learning areas, now home to two picnic tables and next to the school’s flower and fruit garden.

Edgewood kindergarten teacher Michelle Paulishen has perfected her outdoor teaching strategy over the years — a method of teaching that has become all the more relevant during the ongoing pandemic. She encourages her students to interact with nature; keep their worksheets handy; and have fun.

Paulishen prepared the class with a pre-lesson about weather and senses before going outdoors Monday. Before heading outside the class read the children’s book ​“My 5 Senses” by Aliki Brandenberg. This gave the students a refresher on what their five senses are and what using them looks like.

With clip board and pencils in hand, the students began with writing their names at the top of their papers, then moved down a chart of how they use their senses outdoors. ​“Use your eyes. What do you guys see that tells you about the weather?” Paulishen asked.

The students’ eyes left their papers and wandered.

Responses called out: ​“The sun.” ​“The clouds.” ​“Bees.”

In the blank chart spaces the students began drawing bumble bees, fluffy clouds, and a smiling sun with dozens of rays. Next the students moved on to what they could hear outdoors.

During the lesson, Edgewood Avenue road work echoed about a block away from the picnic table area where the students worked. ​“If you’re really quiet you might be able to hear over the construction,” Paulishen said.

Paulishen crouched close to a path of wild plants with her hand cuffed around her ear. ​“Listen with me guys. I hear something that’s making noise in the grass.” The class closed their eyes with hands cuffed over their ears. ​“It’s crickets!” one student answered after listening closely to the chirping of the bug.

Several students began drawing ​“bugs with big legs” in the ​“hearing” box on their work sheets. Others attempted to write the work ​“cricket” in the box.

As they moved down to the touch sense the students got up from their seats to close their eyes and extend their arms out and feel the weather. ​“The wind is blowing my paper all around,” said kindergartner Logan.

Paulishen sounded out the word W‑I-N‑D as the class wrote in the ​“touch” worksheet box. Others drew curled lines to resemble the motion of blowing air and leaves of nearby bushes.

For the fourth and final sense box the students sniffed the plants surrounding the picnic area along with the growing tomatoes and peppers in the habitat garden. The students lowered their masks to sniff the flowers describing their smells as ​“soap” and ​“strawberries.”

Six-year-old London took a big whiff of a bush of red marigolds and then used her pencil to draw them in her worksheets ​“smell” box.

Paulishen described outdoor lessons as a win-win. ​“They don’t see outdoors as school work,” she said. ​“It incorporates the lesson and social, emotional learning in one.”

The only sense the class didn’t use outdoors Monday was taste.

Starting in October, Paulishen and her class will graph the weather everyday using their senses. Instead of just teaching about weather for one marking period, Paulishen teaches about weather and climate for the entire school year to keep the students interested in outdoor learning.

She also plans to do guided reading lessons outside and math lessons with chalk on the playground, like she has in the past.

When planning to teach outside, Paulishen also prepares a back up indoor plan in case the weather is bad.

Paulishen has been a teacher for 19 years. She has taught for NHPS for 14 of those years, and has taught kindergarteners for 10 of those years.

“There’s no excuse to not do reading and writing outdoors. All they have to do is walk over to a plant or watch a car go by and it ignites their imagination,” she said. 

While teaching outside Paulishen said she notices that some students who are more quiet and nervous in the classroom worry less when outdoors and ask more questions.

When Paulishen begins teaching her class about different types of clouds she plans to bring them to Edgewood Park for most lessons. One will include lying in the field area and studying the clouds together.

“Outdoor learning allows for more authentic mini lessons to happen and the time flies when we’re outside,” she said.

Paulishen spent the first three weeks of the school year teaching her students about the safe areas to stay in when outdoors. She plans to refresh students about these perimeters after school-breaks.

On Monday the kindergartners used one of Edgewood’s four outdoor learning classroom spaces. All four were created last fall as apart of the school’s outdoor exploration goal.

Principal Perrone: ​“We Knew We Had To Be Outside”

“Our outdoor exploration goal was developed by the school community before Covid. But now Covid has become our motivator,” Principal Nicholas Perrone said Monday.

“They’ve been cooped up and scared because of the virus for so long, we knew we had to be outside,” Perrone added.

Perrone has tasked the school administration with providing support to teachers of all grade levels to help them get comfortable with teaching outdoors. Creating lesson plans for an outdoor lesson is different than teaching indoors, Perrone said.

“Outdoors comes with so many unplanned teachable moments, like a butterfly pollinating in front of you or neighborhood homelessness,” he said.

Edgewood classes often utilize Edgewood Park across the street for outdoor lessons as well. Perrone said he plans to partner more with the Friends of Edgewood Park group to offer students tours and cleanups during the school day. On Monday several classes walked back and forth to the park for mask breaks, walking trips, and recess time.

Edgewood has established a partnership with Common Ground School, which offers student help with building and enhancing Edgewood outdoor areas.

Common Ground helped to create two of the outdoor spaces at Edgewood last fall. The spaces used to be a ​“dilapidated” alley way used for staff parking.

Now the area is home to the school’s outdoor cafe, where starting this school year students of all grades have been alternating outdoor lunch periods. The space is rainbow themed with picnic tables and benches for students to eat lunch and at other times read, take mask breaks, use their computers, and have outdoor lessons.

The school is working on getting approval for building a performance pavilion on its blacktop area for outdoor music and art-related school displays.

Additionally the school is working on a fifth outdoor learning space in the school’s alley entrance on Yale Avenue. This space will soon become a musical outdoor maker space with help from Common Ground students.

“There’s more to think about outdoors for the teachers and students. So when we go outside we have to be intentional,” Perrone said.

Perrone said the school has purchased and received donations of new kids-size hats, coats, and gloves from Old Navy for the winter season to continue outdoor learning when possible.

“We’re taking all the barriers away from getting classrooms outside,” he said. ​“We want to allow true learning.”