How much rough play at recess?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much rough play at recess is happening in early elementary at your school?

Is it daily? Weekly?
Is it the same kid always or does it vary?

How would you know any of this? Kids are unreliable narrators. I assume teachers aren’t reporting this level of detail. How would you know what happens at recess and by whom?

I say this as a teachers aide who is at recess with 1st graders twice every day. I can’t imagine the kids could report recess activity accurately hours later.

If you are at recess twice a day, what are you seeing?

I was a recess monitor recently helping teachers and I've gotta say kids aren't allowed to do ANYTHING. I follow the lead of teachers and admin, but these are some of the prohibitions:

-Only go down the slide. No climbing up.
-No kicking mulch or picking it up.
-Stay out of the mud.
-Balls only on the blacktop.
-No balls in the mud.
-No swinging on your stomach. You must sit in the swing on your bottom and hold the chains with both hands.
-No screaming.

I mean, what is the point of going to the playground and having recess? Might as well have the kids just sit around outside.

I’m the teacher outside twice a day and this all seems normal and not a high bar to me. We need 20-40 kids to go back inside ready to learn, not covered in mud (and cold later) or with a chipped tooth from the slide. It’s not home where they can go onto their room and change clothes.
I see boys in kindergarten and 1st who start off playing two-finger tag and it devolves to full pushes. I think that’s developmentally normal but need to keep them safe and get them back to two finger tag. They don’t get in trouble, just redirected. I see some boys (and rarely girls) who have their hands all over each other. Full bear hugs, picking each other up. Same thing. It’s normal so they don’t get in trouble but it’s not safe so we say “keep your hands to yourself” type messages a lot.
It’s a constant struggle to let them play but not be too rough. Be physical but not too physical. Some aides let less slide than me. We try our best! We want them to get their wiggles out, too, or we pay for it later. But safety and good habits matter a lot.

And to answer your original questions, it’s daily. Twice a day. It’s generally the same kids all the time. This is a complete non issue with some and a daily issue with the same ones.

[Anonymous]

I monitored recess one year at a large school, often 100 students out and 3 monitors.

It’s fine to have your own kids do rough play at 2 or 3 or 4 kids, but allowing 100 students free range on rough play is a recipe for disaster. Different rules at school than at home. There’s no reason to allow the 35 minutes of play to devolve into tussling in the dirt and running full force at each other. Dealing with torn clothes, bloody noses, crying kids while trying to monitor a ton of kids and make sure all the kids going in a revolving door of bathroom and water breaks is exhausting.

Those of you saying there should be rough play at recess can go volunteer to monitor and keep everyone safe every day. It’s HARD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son played super rough in K-1. He came home with skinned knees and elbows more often than not. He was happy about it, so I thought it was great. There was an occasional kid who went too far, but I think the group handled it pretty well (at least as far as my kid reported).

But your question implies that you are asking about one kid being rough with kids who aren't playing rough? That hasn't been my son's experience too often, and as I said, the group tended to put a stop to it.

Came home with skinned knees and elbows doing what? Mine would fall during chase games, or slip on the playground and get hurt. But nobody was pushing him over or hitting him regularly, at least not to the extent he was getting visibly injured very often.

In K and 1 they weren’t allowed to play sports on the field (it’s a little farther away) so they played football and soccer on the blacktop. It seemed super nuts to me, but I’m glad they were able to play hard, so I would never say something! It was definitely his favorite part of every day, even with the skinned knees!