[0:00] Victoria Zablocki

Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Naturally Teaching Elementary Podcast. We're back today with another fantastic interview for you. This one makes my heart smile.

I got the opportunity to chat with a close friend all about gamifying learning, one of my favorite ways to teach children. Allie Elliott is on today to share with us the benefits of gamifying learning, examples of different games for learning, where to get inspiration to create your own games for teaching, classroom management tips, how games can create community amongst your kids and so much more. She gives us so many examples of ways to gamify learning.

You'll be walking away with multiple things you could try today. But before we get started, I just wanted to share some of Allie's experiences with you. Allie Elliott is a lifelong resident of Michigan and earned a degree in biology from Central Michigan University.

After graduating, she joined the Chippewa Nature Center, combining her love of science with her passion for working with people. She began her career as an educator, supporting local classrooms and teaching outdoor lessons through project and play-based approaches. Since 2021, she has served as the assistant camp director and interpretive naturalist at the Chippewa Nature Center.

Allie works to inspire, learn, and grow with the thousands of visitors she interacts with every year. In her free time, Allie enjoys spending time with her husband Trent, daughter Mae, and two Bernese Mountain dogs, Winston and Tullulah. She loves to hike and can be found curled up with a good book in her hammock after camp is over. So, with that information, let's get started with this fantastic interview.

Teaching elementary-aged children is a rewarding experience, but as educators and parents, finding the time and resources to create engaging lessons can be a challenge. That's where this podcast comes in.

Welcome to Naturally Teaching Elementary. I'm Victoria Zablocki, a certified elementary teacher turned outdoor educator. With over a decade of experience coaching teachers on effective teaching methods, I'm passionate about teaching the whole child with authentic and place-based experiences in school and home settings.

Join me as we explore strategies for teaching with practical teaching tips, insightful interviews, picture book reviews, and more. So let's grow together.

[2:09] Victoria Zablocki

All right, everybody. Welcome back to the Naturally Teaching Elementary Science Podcast. I am super excited today to bring you one of my buddies from the Nature Center, and I'm going to have her talk about gamification today. But first, I'm going to let her tell you about herself and how she got into outdoor ed and gamification. So go ahead and take it away, Allie.

[2:30] Allie Elliott

Hi, everyone. My name is Allie Elliott. I am a naturalist at the Chippewa Nature Center. I have a degree in biology from Central Michigan University, and how I found my way into teaching outdoors and doing gamification is, I was looking for a place to combine my love of people, especially students and my passion for biology, and the Nature Center just brings those two perfectly together.

I was lucky enough to be able to start as an educator, so teaching school-age children who would come on field trips, homeschool kiddos, folks of those natures, just different science standards and different science topics, and the best way to get them involved is through gamifying things.

I have a background in marketing and promotions with minor league baseball as well, and I think that kind of tied into my love of just having fun and keeping things active.

[3:25] Victoria Zablocki

So you mentioned gamification as did I. There are a bunch of different definitions for gamification, but could you share with us what you think of when you think of gamifying learning?

[3:36] Allie Elliott

Yeah, of course. I think of active learning when I think of gamifying. I know that game word people think points, rules, things like that, but really it can just be play.

Anything that invites children to be active with the topic, the lesson, the experience that we're trying to recreate, that is gamifying to me.

[3:58] Victoria Zablocki

Perfect and succinct. I agree. It's not necessarily just like we were talking about, like Simon Says. There is the opportunity for play, and I love how you use “invitation to play”.

So you have experience in outdoor education, and that may not seem like it's an automatic transfer to like public schooling, but why should teachers consider gamifying learning? Because it does have its place in like public education and homeschooling. Why should they even consider gamifying learning?

[4:29] Allie Elliott

Oh, absolutely. OK, I didn't talk about this at the top, but I also get to go into local elementary schools and teach teachers how to teach outdoors. So this question is like really near and dear to my heart because yeah, we should be gamifying learning in public spaces, public schools.

It is a great way to invite a lot of different learners into the fold. So I know sometimes we might have those kiddos that you want to say have “bad behavior”, when really they're just bored or they need to move their bodies and in a different way, they need that big body play, that actionable thing to do. Games invite those learners to come and they're really, really successful.

On the flip side, it also invites the kids who might be a little bit shyer, who might be really good at doing those worksheets and reading those lines. They are still successful with the games. I love it because it invites all of your students to learn, and I think that would be really, really successful for public school teachers.

So then you don't have to worry about those behaviors and you can just have fun and make those connections with those students while also hitting your standards.

[5:35] Victoria Zablocki

That's a good point. I didn't even think about the fact that the gamification might indicate that we're not hitting standards, but truthfully, that big body movement can help you hit those standards even better because they're having an experience that allows them to live some of the phenomenon that they're actually studying, which is fantastic.

So real quick, when we were talking before, you mentioned that you have a few different types of gamification that you use in your teaching. Can you share with us your categories, quote unquote, and an example for each of those?

[6:07] Allie Elliott

Yeah, absolutely. I kind of have two big buckets. So I have games that are experience-focused.

So that is something that's happening in the natural world that I want my students to be able to experience for themselves. So one example of that might be a gathering food game, where they have to go through different, I have a story that I read along with it. They have to go through the different months, different trials and tribulations, gathering food, remembering where their food is, and really act out the year of a life of an animal.

Also, hibernation is really, really easy, where they have to go out, come back and sleep, go out, come back and sleep, see if they've made it through the winter. And then also data mining. You can run a little experiment with your captive audience and see what type of data they get out.

So one that I was thinking about was migration. It's a really simple game that it's kind of like sharks and minnows. If you've ever played that, the group has to run from one end to the other. With some sort of obstacle or perhaps like someone who's it in the middle to tag. And as more and more obstacles or more and more predators come along the playing field, less and less birds migrate.

[7:20] Victoria Zablocki

That's great. I hadn't really thought about kind of categorizing them into those two spots, but you can definitely use their bodies to be able to create a study, right? Your migration is essentially like a small study put together by human bodies, but they can act like migration, right? Like the birds migrating. That's wonderful.

So you gave us some great examples so far, but can you share with us your top three concepts that you've gamified and what those activities look like?

[7:47] Allie Elliott

Absolutely. So when I was thinking about this question, I was trying to think of things that a teacher in a public school setting doesn't have a lot of time, maybe not a lot of resources could do. So my number one, if you are trying to gamify things is to have your backpack games.

And these are games that don't take any... I say backpack, but they really just live in the back of my brain. I don't need a backpack for them.

These are games that don't take any props, and you can honestly change the topic to fit whatever you need. So think of your Red light, Green lights, your Simon Says, your Rock, Paper, Scissors. Those games most every child knows how to play.

If not, it's a super quick instruction. But Red light, Green light, the one I often use a lot for that is when I talk about the water cycle. I can do gas, liquid, solids, talking about states of matter.

I can talk about different examples of the water cycle too. So I can do like a water vapor, which is the same as air, water vapor, a river, and then ice. And the gas obviously moves the fastest, that's the running. The water is you're walking, and then you're solid or your ice is standing still. That is a great game that kids eat up.

Simon Says is easy, Rock, Paper, Scissors. That one I love because you can do life cycles. So I'll often do the frog. They start off as an egg, the egg battles the egg. Then once the person who wins, they transition to a tadpole. They can only battle tadpoles. The person who loses stays an egg. Tadpole v. Tadpole, the winner goes to a frog. The frog can only beat a frog.

If that tadpole loses, they turn back to an egg, which isn't accurate, but it's a lot of fun. And it just keeps the game going and going and going, and they just learn how it shifts basically, which is kind of cool.

Another one that I love, especially for older kids, that I made is my fungus reproduction game. Now I know that's probably like, “Allie, how did you make a game out of fungus reproduction?” But it's similar to, if you Google Chicken in a Hen House, you have a large area and your students are running around, and you shout different words, and they have to create different, almost like figures.

But so, spore reproduction, I have them spread away from each other because spores spread. Budding reproduction, they have to find another person to put their feet together because it just like buds up. On the log, basically, it looks like there's a whole bunch of little mushrooms, those are all buds. And then a sexual reproduction, but I'm missing the word, but they have to make like a little T and then have a little bud in between their feet. So that's a three person figure.

It gets them running, it gets them thinking about different ways that reproduction happens, but it's also not like a weird conversation either, because sometimes you can get into that territory.

Another one is transitions. I find that transitions are hard for kiddos, especially if you're moving from one area to another, and gamifying those transitions can help keep your group together and keep them on task.

One time that I did this, we were talking about birds, and I knew my group was so incredibly squirrely. They were six years old. This was with summer camp. Six years old, talking with birds. It was a rainy day.

I knew I just had everything against me. And I had my teen volunteers, so helpers that came to camp. You could use a para or set this up beforehand.

Scatter a whole bunch of Easter eggs. And we went on a hunt looking for bird eggs. Now, that's not like a traditional game, but it's that invitation to play.

They collected and they stayed with me, and they moved, which was spectacular. So for the rest of the camp group, I had to go out and hide eggs so that I could get my kids to move, which looking back was a lot of work, but it made their day fun. They were talking about how many eggs, so counting was part of that.

They talked about the differences between the eggs, because I started with plastic Easter eggs, moved to more realistic eggs, they could compare and contrast. They talked about what type of birds might be laying these eggs, and could we find them in the woods. It was really great for, like I said, that transition piece, but also inquisitive conversation that they came up with themselves. I didn't really have to probe them too much, which was cool.

So some different types of games that teachers can do. Scavenger Hunts, I made a quick scavenger hunt on Canva, the free edition, of course, which was really, really great.

Obstacle courses, they take a lot of setup for some folks, but they're really, really cool. They're great for those big body and for migration, especially. I love a good running game.

Tag-based games or having to traverse some sort of field is a lot of fun. I also love feeling games, so those sensory games where they're touching, noticing, color matching is a great way. You can get those color chips from Home Depot or Lowe's because we're balling on a budget. And then just different finding games. Like I said, there's lots of different ideas out there.

[12:56] Victoria Zablocki

That's awesome. There's so much gold in that. Thank you for all those examples.

It gets me really fired up. I love to gamify, so listening to you talk is just, it's so exciting to me. So this sounds awesome.

However, if you've never done this before, it's hard to know where to get the inspiration to gamify learning. So where do you personally get your ideas and your inspiration for gamifying this learning?

[13:21] Allie Elliott

Absolutely. I take a lot of my inspiration from my students themselves. Before I go into a classroom to teach with a group, I often ask the teacher, what activities do they like the best?

Which ones do they respond the best to? Are there any skills you want us to work on? Because gamifying things can also help them practice life skills, which is really cool.

I teach sixth graders. The way their structure is, is they're still in an elementary school. So they still get recess. They play. All the good stuff. They need that big body movement. So I know when I go in to teach a lesson for them, I have to have something big body, or I will lose them for the rest of my hour. We just have to get those wiggles out.

For example, my kindergartners that I also teach, because I do the spectrum, they need to practice those fine focus skills. So we do a lot of scavenger hunts with them, a lot of sensory-based gamifying activities, things like that. So I try to just look at what they need to be successful.

[14:20] Victoria Zablocki

That's great. I was just thinking, you were talking about camp and public schools. Do you feel like there's much of a difference between the learning during camp?

I know that there's a lot of energy, but do you feel like there's much difference, or really all of the kids both in summer camp and public school settings could really truly benefit from similar activities and energy styles?

[14:44] Allie Elliott

Ooh, that's a really good question. I do. I think the one difference between teaching in a public school system versus summer camp is at summer camp, I don't have standards that I'm trying to meet.

We have objectives, we have themes. They are still learning, but there's not that governmental hierarchy thing looking down over me. I'm allowed to be a little more freeform with it.

That being said, I think the activities that I do at summer camp and the activities that I do in public school systems, they can be one and the same. I should be able to switch them back and forth. The energy is all good, the connecting is all good, the learning is all good.

It's just kind of making sure you're hitting your standards versus playing in the woods.

[15:34] Victoria Zablocki

Because that's what we do at the Nature Center, right? We play in the woods and we frolic through the meadows.

[15:38] Allie Elliott

Exactly.

[15:41] Victoria Zablocki

So you gave us some ideas, three concepts that could be gamified. You gave us lots of examples, but if somebody is brand new to this, what are a couple of things that they could do to help their classroom management? Because I feel like a lot of teachers will listen to you and be like, “Oh yeah, that sounds great. But how do I manage all of that energy?”

Do you have a couple of tips and tricks on how you can successfully keep the energy going, but also keep them reined in so they're safe?

[16:08] Allie Elliott

Yeah, absolutely. At the top of every lesson, every time I'm with a group of students, I set my expectations and I hold those expectations. So I have four rules during naturalist time is what I call it.

I ask them to point to the leader. It's me. I know what we're doing. I know where we're going. I know how to keep us safe. Number two, “what do we do with our bodies when we're on the trail or in whatever space we're going to?” We keep each other safe. We keep our bodies together. We need to be able to see everyone.

Number three is I have my squirrel call and I go squeak, squeak. And I go, “what do you do when you hear your squirrel call?” And they shout, “come back to you”. And I ask, “what does that look like?” And their bodies are facing me, their eyes are on me, voices off, ears listening.

And then number four, I say, “okay, what's the most important rule?” And they all shout, “we have to have fun.” So I kind of just went through my whole little spiel, but I do. It's just muscle memory at this point.

But at the top, I hit those standards right away, especially the squirrel call. Having some recall is a great tool to bring them back in. Now, if I notice that we're getting way too crazy, I'll wrap up the game and I'll move on to something else.

You have to notice when peak fun happens. Peak fun is what I define as, like, we've all been there. We're having a good time, having a good time. And then in an instant, chaos happens. And you're like, “what?!” It's like a little crazy.

So you have to notice once you're climbing, climbing, climbing, and right before you get to that peak of like being able to handle it, you shut it down and you transition to something else. That takes a long time to figure out. And it's different with each group of kids.

As you grow in your teaching journey, you'll be able to see it earlier. I know there's another co-worker of mine who he can see it from a mile away. He's spectacular at it.

Sometimes I still go over the peak fun cliff and I drop into chaos, which in that case, you know, you just shut it down when you can, bring them back together and have a wrap up about why they did the game. Of course, we want to have fun, but also we're trying to learn and we're trying to hit certain topics and to experience certain phenomenon. So having that wrap up of why did you do this?

What did you learn? An open dialogue is always great, too, to kind of close it all together. So I usually climb, climb, climb, squirrel call, bring it back together with a discussion.

I think that there's just so much gold with gamifying. It is a great community building piece, and it helps a whole bunch of different children bond together. But then also you as a trusted adult, being able to create those relationships with those kiddos. And I think once those relationships are built, the rest of your school year just goes so much easier.

And once you have those relationships and you find out what they like, you can then tailor your teaching style to help them be the most successful students that they can be. Because that's the end goal, right? Is we want everyone to be successful and to learn, which I think is really cool.

I think games are great for celebrating students. Again, it's that community piece. So I guess one example for a game is a Dozen Touches. So you have an egg carton and they go out and they collect things that feel different. One topic I might have would be seeds.

So they're going out and collecting seeds. Whenever a student brings me back something from a game or an activity like that, I celebrate them. Even if it's the same piece of grass I've seen a thousand times, the fact that they were like, “oh, this is cool. This will get Allie really, really excited. She's going to celebrate me.” Those little pieces of celebration throughout your activities, your games really fold your students into learning more, and they end up buying in, which then makes your next game even easier.

You can also celebrate when behaviors that you've seen, when they turn around. So if you notice one kid who might have been having a hard time keeping his hands to himself through the obstacle course, he kept everybody safe, he kept the predator safe. It was spectacular. Really celebrate that. Games give chances to have those authentic experiences to celebrate, to connect, and hopefully reinforce the positive behavior that you want to see later on too.

[20:36] Victoria Zablocki

That's great. And that might be one of the only times in the day that a child gets to be celebrated. So to take that opportunity is a really good point. Thank you. I didn't even think about that. That's why you're here, though.

[20:47] Allie Elliott

Like I said, I brainstormed.

[20:49] Victoria Zablocki

Love it. Real quick, if you're gamifying in a public school, do you need a lot of space to do that? Or is that something that you can do pretty easily, find quick and easy space?

Like, do you need like a giant field or anything? Or is this something that you personally have done on a small space? Like you were talking about budget. We're talking about space budget too, right?

[21:08] Allie Elliott

Yeah, I've done it in a hallway. Hallways are great programming spaces. The only obstacle is typically a chair or some random tables. But usually folks, if you give them a heads up, they'll move them for you. But yeah, you don't need anything crazy. A gym is always nice, but a hallway works just as good.

[21:27] Victoria Zablocki

Perfect. That's very encouraging. Is there anything else that we haven't talked about yet that you feel like you'd like to share about gamifying learning, maybe its benefits, anything you feel like we've missed?

[21:38] Allie Elliott

Gamification also sounds really, really scary at the beginning. But once you just jump into the pool of fun and a little bit crazy, and it's a little bit messy too. Not all games work all the time.

But once you just jump into it and you start to figure out what works for you and works for your students, it is spectacular learning. And it's something that they'll remember forever, which is really, really cool.

[22:05] Victoria Zablocki

I think we're going to wrap it up. Allie, you gave us so many good ideas and I'm really appreciative of your knowledge and your time and your expertise and all of your fun, fun activities. Is there somewhere that people can get a hold of you if they have any questions or if they want to spitball with you some ideas?

[22:21] Allie Elliott

Yeah, anybody can email me. My email is aelliot, E-L-L-I-O-T-T at chippewanaturecenter.org. Or I'm also on LinkedIn. Feel free to send me a message there or we can connect that way too.

[22:37] Victoria Zablocki

Awesome. And I'll make sure to put your information in the show notes. So if anybody wants to check that out, they can just go onto naturallyteaching.com and find this episode and you'll be able to find Allie's contact.

So I want to thank you, Allie, for all your time and your knowledge. I appreciated chatting today.

[22:54] Allie Elliott

Of course, of course. Thanks for having me.

[22:58] Victoria Zablocki

Wasn't that an amazing interview? You can see why Allie is a friend. She's such a positive personality and so full of passion, and not just for learning outdoors through play, but also about people as a whole.

[23:09]

So for my teaching tip today, I wanted to touch a little more on something that Allie mentioned briefly, and that's the time commitment side of gamification. She mentioned having backpack or no prop games in your head that you can just pull out at any time. These games can save your bacon at the drop of a hat because you can pull them out of your head when you need them.

If you're waiting for your students to come back from the bathroom, if you're waiting for a student or two to come back from the resource room, if you're finished early with a lesson you thought would take longer, but you only have five minutes before transitioning to specials, so many scenarios, they can help you in a pinch. But Allie also mentioned some games that take a little more prep and setup. These games are just as valuable and are truly worth the time you put in to acquire materials, as well as the time you put in to set them up.

So to start with acquiring materials, you can go as cheap as you want or as expensive as you want. Cheap tends to take a little more time to acquire, whereas more expensive saves you time, but costs you more of your budget. There are a lot of materials that you can acquire for free by keeping recyclables such as milk jug caps for loose parts that could represent the food that Allie talked about with her food collecting game.

You could keep the milk jugs and put some water in the bottom to use for marking boundaries instead of buying colored cones. You can get as creative as you want as you start to acquire what you need for games, and don't be afraid to ask your team and caregivers to help you out. I've also found a lot of helpful materials at thrift shops and dollar stores.

This will take a little bit of your budget, but could save you time as well. If you'd like to hear more tips for collecting materials for games, go back and listen to episode 28, Outdoor Learning Equipment for Schools and Homeschool Groups. In that episode, I give suggestions for game props that can be used in different ways so that you're getting more bang for your buck. I also share some suggestions on how to store those materials so you're not cluttering up your valuable space.

Something else to consider is when are you going to set up your game? If you work with a team and they're on board with gamifying learning, you could suggest that all of you use the same game and materials so that the time commitment is shared amongst all of you. One of you could set it up in the morning before school or during an early prep period and then all of you could use it throughout the day and the last person to use it could have the kids help collect the materials and bring the props inside.

Also, if you have a parapro, you could ask them to help you out by setting up the game before you head outside. If you're solo or your team isn't into gamification, you could have your materials collected before going outside and then set your game up with the kids as you explain the rules and expectations. This takes a little more practice to master but can be a valuable way of walking through the space and giving your students a more targeted way of understanding what they're supposed to do.

One more thing to note. If you know you're going to be setting up materials outside on a regular or semi-regular basis, it would be good to share that information with your colleagues and administration. Without knowing those materials are out there for a reason, someone may unknowingly pick them up and bring them in in an effort to be helpful. You could choose to leave a sign with your name on it with the materials if you'd like, and that could help with keeping them in place, or you could send an email to the staff. Whatever approach would work best for you.

[26:12]

So that was a lot of information, but I hope it cleared up some questions you may have had about gamifying learning. So I want to thank you for taking time to listen today. I know you're busy and I truly appreciate the time you take to tune in.

If you have any questions, wonderings, or ways that you gamify learning, get ahold of me on Instagram at Naturally.Teaching, or you can email me at Victoria@naturallyteaching.com, and don't forget to check out the show notes for this episode at naturallyteaching.com/episode36, where I'll have all the links that I've talked about, and then also Allie's contact information.

So thanks again for joining us today, and until next time, keep exploring, keep learning, and keep Naturally Teaching.

Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of the Naturally Teaching Elementary Podcast. I hope you found it informative, inspiring, and full of actionable insights to enhance your teaching journey. Connect with me on social media for more updates, science tidbits, and additional resources. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook at Naturally.Teaching.

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