As we begin a new school year, most of us are preoccupied with setting up our classrooms and dealing with the countless small details that precede the first day of school next Thursday.
While all of these things are important, my first article summary of the year (How Free Play Supports Attention in Elementary School) is a reminder that our primary responsibility as elementary teachers is to honor and respect childhood.
Today, kids are often rushed to grow up. Their days are over structured, scheduled, and supervised. Opportunities for exploration, imagination, wonder, and simple play are less common. Yet these experiences are not distractions from learning—they are essential components of healthy child development.
At Trinity, we have the responsibility of creating a school environment where children can still be children. This means providing opportunities for movement, curiosity, conversation, creativity, unstructured play, and yes, even a little running in the halls. It means recognizing that academic success and child development are not competing priorities but are interwoven.
The article below highlights the powerful impact that free play and outdoor breaks have on student attention, engagement, and overall well-being. Its message is both simple and profound: when we give children opportunities to move, explore, imagine, and recharge, they return to learning more focused, more engaged, and more ready to succeed.
As we welcome our students back, let’s remember that some of the most important learning happens when children are given the time and space to experience the joys of childhood. By protecting those moments, we not only support academic achievement—we help nurture healthier, happier, and more well-rounded young people.
Joe
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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 more 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, 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 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, 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 just to play. For example, simply giving students an empty cardboard box without any directions can be more educationally 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?
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.
Let’s talk about teacher wellness. 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.
