How Free Play Supports Attention in Elementary School

As an elementary school teacher, I’m always looking for things to engage my students. A couple of years ago, I came across a research article referring to Finnish schools allowing students to go outside for 15 minutes every day after every 45-minute period of instruction. I was intrigued. I decided to include this as one of my goals for my yearly teacher evaluation. Although I didn’t do this every day after every 45-minute period of time, I was able to integrate some outside breaks throughout the week.

The breaks were only five to 10 minutes long, and my intention was to ensure that the time outside was never structured, apart from a few guiding principles. Rule one: No teacher instruction. I didn’t want to give my students any direction other than how to be safe outside. Rule two: I encouraged them not to organize anything. Rule three: Just simply take a break. The results of this seemingly simple target surprised me.

First of all, my students’ attention span increased significantly. While this wasn’t a formal research project, trust me when I say that after 23 years of experience, I was shocked to realize how taking kids outside for a short period of time frequently can help support their focus in the classroom.

Why Outside Time Works

Because classrooms today have such structured plans, students get less and less time for self-exploration and choice. When we go outside for about 10 minutes, on average, my students can choose how they want to spend that time. Some of them simply walk back and forth on a sidewalk path in our school. I always have a handful of students who are very curious about the dirt patch underneath the pear tree. Some students hang on a low-lying branch.

Other students run back and forth in the field. At one point in the fall, I even witnessed one student sitting down and meditating with their fingers facing the sky.

When we come back inside, their attention span is longer, they participate more, they ask more questions, and there’s less need for them to ask to leave the room to use the restroom or go and get a drink. It’s almost like this break helps them to focus on the learning that we’re doing in school.

Free Play Promotes General Wellness

Other than the clear impact this method has on focus and academic achievement, there’s an element of student well-being with this. Leaving the four walls of the classroom to breathe in some fresh air and take a break contributes to students’ whole child development.

Decades ago, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood developer Fred Rogers described the seven fundamentals of learning and growing, and they are still relevant today. On his show, he often said that students need time to just play. For example, simply giving students an empty cardboard box without any directions is really more important than giving them a prepackaged project where they follow the directions. During free play, students have time to use their imagination. As a result, they are able to build their creativity, confidence, cooperation, and problem-solving skills.

What About Academic Rigor?

There are many restrictions on teachers with regard to the time they should spend teaching reading and math. However, there are many unavoidable interruptions to this time constraint. For example, school assemblies or including those for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, field days, and field trips require hours of time away from the expectation of academic rigor.

In all honesty, it takes time to have conversations, tie shoes, and deal with lost teeth. It takes time to pass out papers and for kids to organize their desks. While these things don’t happen every day, in the span of a week, I believe that every teacher should be granted 10 to 20 minutes a day of simple outside time breaks, especially if it means that students are more effective with the time that they have. It doesn’t make any sense to grind out these minutes if it means that kids aren’t really producing work in an effective way. If they’re tired, their head is down on their desk, or they can’t sit still anymore, they aren’t learning. Take your students outside.

Let’s talk about teacher wellness. What does it take for a teacher to feel well at school, as they work in full classrooms to manage learning targets and make hundreds of instructional decisions each day? I’d argue that outside time is also good for the teacher. After a refreshing break, the teacher comes back into the classroom, feels reenergized, and can get to work with their students.

All schools can recognize this as a basic need. Just going outside and getting fresh air allows people to reconnect with the world and reconnect with their own ability. I find it energizing as well. Short breaks help me, as a teacher, to recharge and get back to the expectation of rigor in the classroom.

Ways to Engage with the Outdoors

Our school places a strong emphasis on agriculture, so we have access to fields, pollinator gardens, raised-bed gardens, tilled crops, trees, and a greenhouse. These options took us years to establish, but that doesn’t have to be the case for every school. Consider these outdoor enrichment opportunities:

• Give students outside exploratory time that is not on the playground.

• Install raised garden beds in available space at your school.
• Allow students to bring books or workbooks outside to work on the grass.
• Ask students to simply observe the outdoors and be ready to share what they notice.

Small additions to your outdoor space can have a big impact on when you take kids outside during the school day.