At Love Outdoor Learning, we’ve found that outdoor learning can nurture essential social intelligence skills, even in a space as familiar as the school playground. Just like self-management, social intelligence—our ability to interact with others, communicate effectively, and understand the perspectives of those around us—can be developed through outdoor activities. The playground, with its accessible and safe environment, offers the perfect opportunity for learners to build these skills while having fun.
Let’s explore how specific activities, tailored to the playground, can help develop key aspects of social intelligence in a practical and engaging way.
Collaboration: Working Together Toward a Shared Goal
Collaboration is a cornerstone of social intelligence. It helps learners understand how to share ideas, divide responsibilities, and work together to achieve a common goal. The playground, with its open space and available resources, provides a great setting for collaborative problem-solving.
Creating an outdoor obstacle course can be a lot of fun. It is a great physical education activity but also helps support learners in working together using playground equipment and any natural materials they can find. They’ll need to collaborate to design the course and support each other as they navigate through it.
It is an activity that is not reliant on having a kit, it could be as simple as using chalk or loose materials. The children should work in groups to design and create an obstacle course. Once completed, teams take turns navigating the course, helping each other through each obstacle.
This activity encourages learners to collaborate in planning and execution. It requires clear communication, teamwork, and problem-solving to ensure the course is navigable. This is the part that children can struggle with, so remind them that while they are building an obstacle course you are in fact looking for metaskills.
Communication: Speaking and Listening to Understand Others
Effective communication is vital to social intelligence. Learners need to practice expressing their ideas clearly and listening to others. The playground offers a natural setting to practice both verbal and non-verbal communication.
We focus a lot on talking and listening in schools, but why not set the challenge to line up in a specific order (e.g., by height or birthday) without speaking. They must rely on gestures, facial expressions, and other forms of non-verbal communication to complete the task. It sounds so simple but can be tricky.
This activity helps learners explore non-verbal communication and highlights how body language can be as important as words. It fosters patience and attentive listening. And, it requires no resources which means it can be practised ahead of taking classes in after breaks etc.
Empathy: Understanding and Supporting Others
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, a crucial element of social intelligence. Outdoor learning activities that encourage care for others—both people and nature—provide learners with opportunities to practice empathy.
In this activity, learners search for and collect natural items that benefit the environment, such as litter that needs cleaning up or identifying plants that need extra care. Simply, divide learners into small teams and give them a list of tasks that support the environment (e.g., picking up litter, watering plants, or identifying areas for improvement).
Once complete, we can discuss how this impacts their playground. It links strongly to Learning for Sustainability and highlights how their individual actions can impact more than just their class.
This activity promotes empathy for the environment and others by showing learners the impact of small, thoughtful actions. But more than this, it fosters teamwork and compassion as learners work toward improving their shared space.
Conflict Resolution: Navigating Disagreements Constructively
Conflict is a natural part of social interaction, but the key is learning how to handle disagreements positively. The playground offers a space for learners to work through differences, often during group tasks or games.
Learners are tasked with solving a physical puzzle, such as arranging a set of large blocks in a specific pattern or building something with limited materials. I often find building the tallest free standing stick tower to be a great challenge. As they work together, disagreements may arise about the best way to proceed, giving them an opportunity to practice resolving conflicts.
Again, it is incredible simple (because, let’s be honest, complex lessons with lots of resources are more likely to put you off than get you outdoors). This lesson is great though as despite being simple, it helps learners practice conflict resolution and compromise when working toward a shared goal. The hands-on nature of the puzzle helps them focus on both the task and the social dynamics of teamwork.
Leadership: Taking Responsibility and Guiding Others
Leadership is an important aspect of social intelligence. Outdoor learning activities that allow learners to take charge or guide their peers help build confidence and the ability to lead with empathy.
In this leadership variation of Simon Says, one learner takes the role of “Simon” and gives instructions to the group, but the twist is that they must also watch out for those who are struggling and offer help.
- Choose one learner to be “Simon.” They give instructions like in the traditional game, but they must also notice if anyone is struggling and offer help.
- Encourage “Simon” to use both verbal and non-verbal cues to ensure everyone can participate.
- Rotate roles so everyone gets a chance to lead.
This activity fosters leadership by encouraging learners to think not just about giving commands, but also about the well-being of their peers. You can select the “Simon”, which means you can choose those who are natural leaders and those who need some support. It helps develop awareness and compassion in a leadership role.
Outdoor learning in the playground offers endless opportunities for building social intelligence. Through collaboration, communication, empathy, conflict resolution, and leadership, learners develop the skills they need to connect with others and navigate social situations in everyday life.
At Love Outdoor Learning, we see how playground-based activities can spark growth in social intelligence—helping learners build stronger relationships, communicate more effectively, and become thoughtful, empathetic individuals. These small, structured experiences make a big difference, shaping social skills in ways that will last a lifetime.
