Monday, July 20, 2009
Indoor Recess
I am not a fan of indoor recess. Not sure that anyone is. I would like for us to come together as a school and come up with a plan for indoor recess activities. At other schools there were a few options during this time for kids to do. Not everyone in the school got to participate each day, but it got 7-10 kids out of your room. At one school the library was manned and board games were played. There was actually a HUGE rubberemaid container full of games that were played only during indoor recess. The computer lab is also an option. At Nordale they had cable access, we should now, and cartoons were put on for the 30 minutes. How about the gym? I know that sometimes it is booked with K's, but if not maybe we can get a duty to have access to some balls. Last year when we returned from Christmas break it was dark and cold and we were inside for a long time. Let's put our heads together and come up with something.
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I agree that we need to have a different plan for our 30-minute indoor recess time. It would be a good idea to revisit and revise our current options of leaving all of the students in the classrooms while a couple of adults supervise or requiring everyone to walk the halls.
ReplyDeleteI know of another school where each classroom has a certain number of "passes" to the gym (physical activity), library (games & puzzles), computer lab, & commons area (arts & crafts). The rest of the students participate in walk-and-talk in the halls. The students in primary have walk-and-talk punch cards that are stamped after each lap and a full card represents 1 mile (my students were always competing to see how many miles they could walk and who could fill the most cards). Older students volunteer to stamp the punch cards at the "stamping station". I know the students in primary LOVE this.... but I'm not sure that it would be as well received in intermediate.
Hunter has set up recess zones and it is wonderful. During cold weather it is a way of offering kids choices and is a good system to alleviate the need for using classrooms for indoor recess. Zones have included: outdoor, computer lab, ice skating, gym time, library, homework, music, peace (board games), chess club, culture, crime busters ... Walk and talk is a great idea to add, too, Christine. Maybe gardening in the spring and fall. Zones may change from year to year - even from semester to semester depending on staffing. Zones take a limited number of students who must carry and return passes to class. Classroom teachers manage how to rotate kids for zones depending on classroom and student needs. It takes a school/parent/community team approach. We should talk about something like that when school starts.
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas to bring over from Hunter, Heidi. We share the same environment & management issues. Sounds like Hunter has it figured out. Zones + choice makes sense. If Jeff posts a "choose your committee" list at the beginning of the year - my suggestion would be to add - Indoor Recess - brainstorming & instigation (not duty!) to the roster.
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