Birdsong Pause

Sit down outside with the child. Say we are listening for birds. Then stop talking.

Two minutes is the target and most groups manage forty seconds at first, which is fine. What builds is the association between being outdoors and being calm, which is the thing that makes every later outdoor lesson possible.

We run this at the same time every day, just after the mid morning snack, and the routine does more work than the activity. Within three weeks the children start sitting down on their own when they reach the spot.

The sheet includes the timing, the position, and the one signal to use when a bird is heard, which is a finger pointed up rather than a word. Silence is the whole point and adults break it constantly without noticing.