Lunch Outdoors

What: A great way to create calm lunchtimes and increase time outdoors is to allow students to eat lunch outside. A class could decide to have an outdoor lunch with their teacher; a class that is supervised by a specific adult/adults could choose to eat as a whole class outside; or there could be a designated outdoor eating space as part of the cafeteria.

How: Lunch outside could happen in a few different ways depending on how schools organize and supervise lunchtime.

• If one teacher assistant or a set of adults is assigned to monitor a class at lunch, after all students have their trays of food or lunch from home, the assistant could lead the class outside to a specific area of the school grounds to eat. When lunchtime is over, students will need to be prompted to clean-up their trays/trash and head back inside to dispose of their waste.
• If a school has multiple teacher assistants monitoring a bunch of classes at lunch together, consider having a designated area outdoors where children can choose to eat lunch if they want to. One teacher assistant can be assigned to the outdoor space (or more if most students choose to eat outdoors) while the other assistants can stay inside to supervise the cafeteria.
• Another option is as a classroom teacher, to eat lunch outside with your own class. Maybe do this on Fridays, or once a month? We all need to eat and you learn amazing things about your students by eating lunch with them.
• Talk to food service staff to coordinate or collaborate on how to make this work, what structures or processes need to be in place, and whether there are days with food that would be easier to manage outside.

Spaces: Some schools have separate outside areas away from the playground which would be great options to choose if playground distractions are a concern. Students could sit in the grass or on a blacktop. Perhaps advocate (get students to write letters to admin) for a set of several picnic tables to be placed just outside the cafeteria doors to function as an outdoor eating space.

When: During designated lunchtime

Who: Individual classroom teachers may have the choice to take their class outside for lunch on their own time. If administration took responsibility for structuring lunchtime to include an outdoor eating option, lunch outdoors could be much more likely to happen, and to happen more frequently. Administration can facilitate setting-up and supervising an outdoor eating space near the cafeteria. In addition, administration can set-up and teach specific routines for how to choose the outdoor option including getting lunch, moving outdoors, cleaning up, returning to the rest of the class. If a class is assigned a specific adult (some schools do this for each class) or set of adults (think kindergarten or Pre- K), then the entire class can eat outside together. Students can bring their own food outdoors and be responsible for cleaning up. Food service staff could help identify ideas and processes to make this work.

Materials: Picnic tables, designated eating area (could be grass or blacktop)

Why: During lunch, students are already out of their regular classrooms and usually on the first floor of schools with easy access to the outdoors. Incorporating options to eat outdoors is an easy way to add outdoor minutes without taking away from academics or changing the schedule. Students will be more relaxed eating outdoors and often make observations about the world around them while they are sitting and eating.