Play time taken seriously at Edgerton recess

There’s nothing quite like recess.

Edgerton Elementary Principal Jen Stein and Edgerton technology teacher Sean Kelly used the analogy of a huge party that you may not always want to go to, but have to, so how can it be planned and organized to offer enough options where everyone finds something to enjoy while minimizing conflict?

“Recess, it’s a thing we all have to participate in, but it’s not really for some people, a natural ‘hey go out with 100 people and enjoy this,’ right?” Stein said.

This year, Edgerton is revising its approach to recess and looking at how to improve the experience for a multitude of students — introverts, extroverts, athletes and non-athletes alike — and how to navigate the playground and reduce behavioral issues.

“For us we would just see enough behavior issues on the playground, or right after the playground, and just thought well, what are we doing differently?” Stein said.

One way is setting boundaries.

Last Tuesday, about 150 third- and fourth-graders were in the tail end of recess. Right outside an exit was pavement where students were engaged in jump rope. Nearby, others were playing four square and basketball. Beyond the pavement, students were swinging into the air while across from them, children were climbing, crawling and jumping on a playground structure. Farthest away from the school were students kicking soccer balls, tossing footballs and chasing each other in a game called “sharks and minnows.” She said the jump ropes and balls are new additions, where before students had to bring their own.

Stein said it is a different scene from last year, when other than using the swing set and playground structure, students wandered around the pavement area, and the fields were a disorganized flurry of children running through others’ games and balls flying around — including the roof.

“I think that’s why we start taking more and more things away from kids and giving them less responsibility because it’s a matter of managing it all,” Stein said, and that is not what she wanted to do.

A recess committee is looking to add even more options on the playground such as art and music stations or designate areas to play with toys and will a hold fun run during the school day in October to raise money. In the long term, the school is looking at installing a walking path.

“If I can make it a more positive experience out here and a more regulating time where kids aren’t upset and fighting my number one goal was to decrease the number of behavior referrals I get,” Stein said.

Ensuring children are stepping out on the proverbial “level playing field” meant organizing the expansive field behind the school. Kelly took the lead on the project.

Stein pointed out a laminated diagram posted by building exits that breaks up the field into designated areas for free play, soccer and football, to name a few.

“I think having spaces where you know what you can do in those spaces gives choice and hopefully a more liberating experience for them,” Stein said.

Paraeducator Paula Symmes, who was out monitoring the playground, is in her ninth year at the school and said having a layout has helped both students and staff supervise and manage recess.

“Having spaces allows for us to have the kids go to a certain area, rather than before, a lot of times, we had two or three games going on at the same time, in the same space,” Symmes said.

Once boundaries are set, students need to learn the rules and expectations in navigating within them so they can learn how to cooperate, cope and socialize on their own out on the playground.

This is why Edgerton started the school year bringing students out on the playground, going over the rules of different games and teaching different skills such as cooperation and being respectful of each other. The plan is to periodically teach new games once the snow hits, or re-teach as needed.

“The P.E., library, music, and technology teachers, for the first couple weeks of school, would take every kid out here and teach them, ‘OK, this area is for four square, let’s teach you how to play four square,” Kelly said.

Edgerton library media specialist Shila Schreiner added, “Basically, we’re teaching them how to do recess ­— our expectations on the playground in regard to one another and equipment.”

Stein noted, “It’s not about controlling what they do. It’s about providing them a structure.”

And what expectations and rules are at Edgerton may be different at home, with friends, or at a student’s previous school. Sometimes it’s the case where a student who is very athletic, or has played a game a certain way, may become domineering, according to Stein.

“So now we’re like, it doesn’t matter what you did at your other school, or how you play with your friends, this is how we play it at Edgerton,” Stein said. “You just need to teach them what it looks like at school because if I don’t teach it to them I can’t expect them to do it.”

When first-graders file onto the playground last Tuesday, Kelly and Schreiner started a game of foursquare, teaching them how to hit the ball to each other and rotate.

Later on, a first-grader approached Schreiner with an issue of a classmate throwing rocks.

“And how did you handle that?” Schreiner asked, kneeling beside the student.

“All I was doing was sitting there,” the student said.

“But what did you say to him?” Schreiner asked.

“I said ‘will you please stop throwing rocks at me?’” the student said.

“You handled that perfectly. If he does it again let me know and I’ll take care of it, and if not, you did the right thing and I appreciate it; go play,” Schreiner said, patting the student’s arm then she ran off to play with a friend.

Schreiner, Kelly and Stein agreed tackling recess to reduce behavioral incidents is a work in progress.

“The teachers are just really dedicated to doing more — taking care of the whole child and knowing that it’s important for kids to feel like they belong and feel good at school,” Stein said. “I think this is really an ambitious and awesome thing that they’re taking on.”

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.