So, I'm a teacher who believes in recess. I refrain from using recess as a punishment, I think kids need to get out there and do something. But there seems to be a subculture of kiddos that try to avoid recess. I've had excuses such as my clothes are new and my great-grandmother doesn't want me to go out. Any good ones?
This is definitely the best reason! Granted, I make the kids go to recess at least one or two of the three times so they get some running around / social interaction, but if there's something that they could help with, I definitely don't turn them down!
I hated recess and usually stayed inside to help my teacher. If she didn't need help that day, I pleaded sick. There are few things I would NOT have said or done to get out of recess. As a teacher, I hated recess duty and would trade with almost anybody and do almost anything else. I could never deal with the cold and still can't. I'm also severely allergic to wasps, and it seemed as if there were always swarms of wasps on the playground. As a child, I would occasionally let a wasp sting me just so I could go back inside; it was worth the nurse, the medication, and sometimes the phone call home so Mom could take me to the ER if the sting was bad enough. Anything was better than the playground. ANYTHING. There really ought to be a place where little kids who hate the cold and would give anything just to be let alone and allowed to sit and read in peace could go, instead of that playground.
We do have a few options for our kids who don't want to go outside. Every morning recess, there is a rotation of students who play games in the gym. The library is open for any students with work to do or a book to read. The grade 7 and 8 teachers have set up a rotation so that at least one recess a day there's a room open for kids to do homework or work on assignments.
When I was in 4th grade, I (among others) was bullied at recess. There was a portion of the yard that was shielded from the yard duty's view, and my 4th grade class had created a kind of "fight club" where they would form a ring and make kids fight each other. I wish I was making this up. I was "forced" to fight once and got out of it by pulling off the other girl's shoe and throwing it in the bushes and running away. If there had been another option for recess that year, I would have taken it. No adult at my school ever found out about the fighting as far as I know... I'm not saying your students are forming a mini fight club out there...but if you have a certain group of students who don't want to go out and play, it might be worth checking in to see if they might be being bullied and need help or another option.
Truthfully, other than kids who stay in with health issues (asthma, etc...), I haven't heard of any kids who have ever ASKED to stay in for recess. We have a lot of indoor recess during the winter and my kiddos are just itching to get out!
Count me in the hated recess as a kid club. I took a book out with me. Apparently a PTO mom told my mom I was always alone on the playground and didn't have any friends. It about broke my mom's heart she told me many years later. I did have friends; I just hated recess time. I wanted to spend that time reading.
I played when I got home, but no one bothered me when I read at school. It was heaven. Must admit that I hate being cold, and I hated it then, too. Please remember that little girls word dresses and skirts back then, not the jeans of today. Not much to keep the wind off your legs - hated it! Oh, the memories. :lol:
We have a designated reading area with benches and everything. Oddly enough, and as a bookworm this does, bug me, our recess aids hate our second graders reading in the designated reading area instead of playing.
I was at a catholic school and we had the choice of skirts or the ugliest pants you ever saw :lol: I wore the pants in younger grades! Skirts as I got older.
A few of my kids don't like going out for recess, especially when it's cold. I have one who asks me questions like "If I misbehave, will I lose recess?", with a hopeful smile on his face.
Wow! I practically have to kick my kids out of my classroom sometimes - they always want to stick around to read, do IXL practice, or have a conversation with me. Granted, we don't ever have indoor recess, so I'm sure that plays into it somewhat.
I can remember getting bundled up in snow suits and going out to play in the snow at recess in elementary -- we loved it!!! Some kids had these little roll-up sleds and we would go sledding. I wonder if kids are still allowed to do this? Of course, there has to be snow for it to be fun -- just plain cold is no fun! When it got really bad out (and it had to be really, really bad), they would keep us all in the cafeteria and play us filmstrips -- yes, filmstrips, the kind that would beep when it was time to advance the slide. I'm dating myself a bit here, but actually they were already so old by the time we were watching them, it was already kind of hilarious. I remember one series in particular that was about a hamster family that was posed in a doll house for all these different holiday "films." Looking back on it, I am amazed that these things kept us entertained in comparison to what kids today are used to!
I hated recess. I didn't have a lot of friends and think about how bad I must have gotten on the duty teacher's nerves because I hung around them a lot. :haha:
Too funny, ms.irene. I can totally relate to the snow suits (in the days of wool coats) and the film strips. They were sooooo boring to me. Did you ever see the one about suburban development that went, "And they all grew up in ticky tacky houses"? Well, those of us watching lived in the postwar developments of Long Island, so I am now rather insulted that they played that one. A lot.
