One reason why I like meeting other teachers and visiting different places is that I see lots of different ideas. This one is so simple. It was undertaken during the “Mulle” Walk in the International Skogsmulle event when we visited an outdoor I Ur och Skur Kindergarten in Sweden. If you teach young children, try it! This was a mixed group of 4-5yr olds.

First of all everyone needs to find a stick before the activity begins. As you can see, children will all choose a variety of different sizes. Remember if your outdoor space has no woodland, then it’s possible to bring in a bag to school.


The children take turns to put a stick down on the cloth. The challenge is to make the line of sticks increase in size.

This is deceptively challenging. Some sticks were exactly the same length but different widths. This can lead to quite a bit of decision making by the group as to the order of sticks.

This child also commented that curved sticks when straightened, become longer. So again this means more discussions and collective agreement is needed. Encourage the children to make the decisions about criteria rather than prompting.

This activity is absorbing, even for the children as spectators when waiting to place their stick. It’s really satisfying seeing the line of sticks develop.

It’s activities like this that make me so passionate about taking learning outside. Simple ideas that use gathered materials which naturally generate focused discussion that leads to a deeper understanding of concepts. No wonder outdoor learning is “sticky”!


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