Borderline abusive staff (not teachers) who scream at the kids and blow whistles in their faces (in addition to somewhat appropriate use of the whistle for kids at a distance or for rounding them up).
General chaos with a lot of kids just walking around looking for something to do.

I remember recess being fun. Doesn't seem that way to me at my child's school (and I go very often).

More productive of what?

Interesting thread. Wish there was some way to make recess less chaotic and more 'productive'.

The boys and girls were exchanging verbal jabs and breaking pencils that belonged to one another, with girls starting the pencil breaking for the past few weeks now.

The boy involved did not fight back and neither did his friends hit back since all of them are taught NOT to hit girls. Fortunately some of the remainder of the group of boys did get the attention of one of the para educators.

The principal is " handling the matter" although as the parent of one of the other boys, I do not know specifics. The principal did ask all of the boys and girls who witnessed the event their own accounts.

Anonymous wrote:OP, what did you end up doing?

So it was kind of interesting to talk to DD about this: first I said could she firmly ask the boy to stop (since ignoring didn't seem to be working) and she said she couldn't do that because they weren't allowed to talk to the fourth graders. Then I said to tell an aide...she replied something to the effect that the aide would not take her seriously and the aides don't like to be bothered with stuff like that (that is her perception, not necessarily the "truth").

In the end though the boy seems to have found other things to do because she now insists it isn't a problem. I think she would tell me if it were. One thing I think was contributing to the problems...which I was reluctant to mention because I don't want to stereotype...but one of her friends has a brother in fourth grade who bugs them sometimes (and of course being siblings the first grade sister may antagonize him)...I think this is a friend of the brother. The brother has autism and I think this boy might too (if it's who I think it is he does have autism...I'm just not totally sure it is the boy I'm thinking of, which is why I said "might"). The brother is nice but sometimes not developmentally typical for his age...and therefore can sometimes engage with younger kids in a way that makes them uncomfortable...I think maybe this could be contributing to the boy that was bothering DD. But at least according to her it is fine now.

I still don't love putting kids of such different developmental levels in recess together...but not enough to complain about it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chaos is right -at our MoCo elementary school today, a rift between a group of girls and boys ended up with a group of girls punching and kicking one boy.

This is crazy because my 4th grade DS knows to not ever, ever hit a girl. That would be a tough situation because I'm not sure that he'd defend himself against punches from another girl.

Was there more to the story though? Was the boy tormenting the girls?

What about hitting boys?

He knows that we don't want him fighting, but that if he hits someone in self-defense, we'd support him. If we ever found out he started a fight, he'd be in huge trouble!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chaos is right -at our MoCo elementary school today, a rift between a group of girls and boys ended up with a group of girls punching and kicking one boy.

This is crazy because my 4th grade DS knows to not ever, ever hit a girl. That would be a tough situation because I'm not sure that he'd defend himself against punches from another girl.

Was there more to the story though? Was the boy tormenting the girls?

What about hitting boys?

Anonymous wrote:Chaos is right -at our MoCo elementary school today, a rift between a group of girls and boys ended up with a group of girls punching and kicking one boy.

This is crazy because my 4th grade DS knows to not ever, ever hit a girl. That would be a tough situation because I'm not sure that he'd defend himself against punches from another girl.

Was there more to the story though? Was the boy tormenting the girls?

OP, what did you end up doing?

PP, what is your school going to do? Did the principal take any action to prevent this from happening again?

(not the OP, but also find recess to be ridiculously chaotic)