School learning takes place in a very meaningful way in the world, beyond the school walls. After all, it is outside school grounds that real life and the most diverse situations and relationships come about. These are called “places of non-formal education”. This is why at be.Living we consider educational field trips very important. These trips allow children to experience and give new meaning to the knowledge acquired in the school environment.
Due to the pandemic, we were unable to offer educational filed trips for the children for a while. And resuming them at the end of last year was a major and special achievement for everyone.
“Field trips are relevant for the academic curriculum and for the children, because they are very special moments to trigger the discussion on any subjects, complement and deepen research or complete reports. Visiting a park, a museum or the Biological Institute, for example, gives us the chance to guide the children through the construction of a project, provide them with cultural repertoire and, above all, help them understand that what they learn at school has value and makes sense for the world and in life”, Camila Maia, Early Childhood Education coordinator at be.Living, explains.
Ms. Maia states that the children demonstrated to miss the field trips as am opportunity to learn. “On the bus, on our way to the trips, some of the older children, who had already had this experience, remarked: ‘Wow! I thought moment like this would never happen again!’. So, besides enhancing the educational curriculum and strengthening the learning experience, it was a joy for them to be able to go out together again!”.
In the second semester of 2021, the Kindergarten students went on different trips that complemented their classes. Those researching vaccines and food that benefit the immune system visited the São Paulo Municipal Market, where they were able to buy some of these food items, as well as learn about the beautiful historical building located downtown. The classes investigating insects visited the Biological Institute. Other groups went to Ibirapuera Park to develop different proposals: collect elements from nature to make art at school, look for insects, investigate plant scents and textures.
“These are all places of non-formal education, where children acquire worldwide repertoire. Street are also a very powerful space for non-formal education. This year, we took the kids for a walk around the school block, looking for signs for People with Disabilities. And they carried out a deep work on accessibility and the disabled, which started back with the Tokyo Paralympics and reached another level of understanding with this field trip”, Ms. Maia says. The coordinator believes that any place can be a space of education for children. “Children have their eyes open to the world, their critical sense is under construction and everything we present to them as a reference of a human being and life repertoire will incorporate into their knowledge-building process”.
