School Recess: Structured Games and Activities at Recess
by Melinda Bossenmeyer, Ed.D.
Structured recess. Good idea or bad?
Today I received a phone call from a second grade
teacher. She indicated that she had a behavior challenged child (frequent
discipline issues) and was growing pretty frustrated with him. In
response to Jeremy (not his real name), who was hitting kids, pushing kids, and
causing chaos at recess, the school
decided that they would offer structured activities for all second grade kids,
which limited them to a specific area of the playground.
As you might expect, the parents were unhappy about this
change. They felt that all children were being punished for one child's
behavior.
As a principal, I dealt with similar situations often at the
elementary school level. This is the advice that I gave to the teacher
who called for suggestions.
Give the other kids back a normal recess. They have
very few opportunities to interact with other children in an unstructured
environment while at school. Instead, put limitations on the child that
is having the difficulty.
For example, if the child is playing basketball each day and
having trouble, take away basketball from that child only. Say to the
child, "I can see you are having difficulty in basketball each day.
You need to learn how to play basketball in such a way as to be successful and
get along with the other players. I'm sorry but you have lost the
privileged to play basketball tomorrow. On Wednesday (next day after) you
can try playing basketball again. If you have problems then it will be a week
without basketball and you'll have to pick an alternate activity."
Each day, limit the game or games a child can play who is
having difficulty in that game. Typically, I find that while a child may
have difficulty in one game they can play another game just fine, without
incident. If a child has difficulty for a second time, I would say they
have lost the privilege of playing basketball for a week. But all other
games are open. If he is successful, it is helpful to compliment the child on
his success as well.
I once had a child that couldn't play basketball, 4 square,
long ball, or similar games. In other words, he was having difficulty on
the blacktop, period. So I told him, you can only play on the grass for
the next week. That seemed to hit home with the student. He seemed
to melt into the ground in frustration. Sure, we had other incidents, but for
the most part after that the child managed his behavior in such a way that he
could play on the asphalt once again. On occasion he would play on the
grass on his own. Seeing him self-regulate was an eye opener for
me. He had learned a skill that he imposed on himself on occasion. It was
amazing to see.
For the severe behavioral issue, on one occasion in my 29
years as a teacher and principal I had a child that we sent to recess for about
a week completely by himself. Yes, it required an instructional aide to
supervise him; but in the end he hated playing alone. That put him
back on track after five days.
If you are having difficulties with one child, then one of
above strategies should work. If you are having difficulties with a number of
children while at recess, then I would invite you to look at Peaceful
Playgrounds. Put simply, one of the major playground issues is that
children do not have enough to do on the playground. They lack equipment
and a variety of games to keep them engaged in play.
To learn more about how
to have a Peaceful Playground, please sit in on one of our free
online live webinars. We offer a free webinar each week.
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