Recess Temperatures

[SadieKate]

What is a gym? New public elementary schools aren't built with them.

Back in, ahem, the dark ages, only the highschools had gyms.

[Biciclista]

and a related subject:
NYTIMES:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/0...ins-at-school/
Play, Then Eat: Shift May Bring Gains at School
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times SWITCHED Children playing before lunch at Sharon Elementary School in Robbinsville, N.J. “Kids are calmer after they’ve had recess first,” the school’s principal said.

Can something as simple as the timing of recess make a difference in a child’s health and behavior?

Some experts think it can, and now some schools are rescheduling recess — sending students out to play before they sit down for lunch. The switch appears to have led to some surprising changes in both cafeteria and classroom.

Schools that have tried it report that when children play before lunch, there is less food waste and higher consumption of milk, fruit and vegetables. And some teachers say there are fewer behavior problems.

“Kids are calmer after they’ve had recess first,” said Janet Sinkewicz, principal of Sharon Elementary School in Robbinsville, N.J., which made the change last fall. “They feel like they have more time to eat and they don’t have to rush.”

One recent weekday at Sharon, I watched as gaggles of second graders chased one another around the playground and climbed on monkey bars. When the whistle blew, the bustling playground emptied almost instantly, and the children lined up to drop off their coats and mittens and file quietly into the cafeteria for lunch.

“All the wiggles are out,” Ms. Sinkewicz said.

....


“For some reason, kids aren’t losing things outside,” Ms. Sinkewicz said. “The lost-and-found mound has gone down.”

[Crankin]

I worked at an elementary school 95-99. We instituted the exact changes that were talked about in that article.
It made a world of difference.

[Tri Girl]

We luckily have a gym at out school, but during the two hour period of lunch/recess time for the 9 grades at our school, there is inevitably PE class going on at some point in the gym. It's the PE teacher's classroom, and if she's teaching class (which she is), you can't just take the kids in there and let them run around during her class time.

Indoor recess is one thing I DON'T miss now that I'm a librarian (my first year in the library). Of course, they come to my class after being indoors and they are 10 times more squirelly, but that's to be expected.

V- have you noticed the return of Rubik's cubes and yo-yo's? It's hit our school big-time. The kids all love these *new* fun toys. Makes me giggle. They don't know yo-yo's are decades and decades old and the Rubik's cube is 20+ years old.

I've always wondered if the recess first would make sense. I would guess it would!

[Veronica]

Not seeing the Rubik's cubes and yoyos here.

We tried recess first last year. The kids loved playing first, but then they really lollygagged eating their lunches. We're back to eat first.

Veronica

[Cataboo]

I just had this conversation with my sister - her 8 year old has type 1 diabetes and even with the insulin pump, they've been having a heck of a time keeping her blood sugar under control & she's been having heart palpitations for the last month or so... Part of the problem seems to be that they haven't had recess for the last 2 months because of the temperatures (they live in Virginia). So while dealing with a cardiologist and the rest of that, my sister has been asking the teacher... why haven't they had recess because it really hasn't been that cold and I think below freezing is supposed to be the temperatures they cancel recess for...

The teacher told her to talk to the principal, because she couldn't talk about it... and the principal said that it was because about half the student body comes to school without a coat because their families can't afford it, and she wasn't going to watch kids outside at recess freezing to death. So they've decided my niece can walk around the class room for 5 mins every hour so that she can have some more exercise.