Ah, indoor recess . . . every teacher’s favorite, am I right?
Yeah, no.
First, there’s the noise, and the semi-chaos, and all that
pent-up energy that still isn’t going anywhere (except around and around your classroom
and eardrums). Then, there’s the “recess
shelf,” which varies by classroom and teacher but never seems to have enough of
anything. Not enough games, not enough
pieces (!) for those games, not enough of what my kids want (“Why don’t you
have Legos? My first grade teacher had
Legos!” “Where are the iPads? My last
school had iPads!”), etc.
After more than a dozen years at my current school, my recess
shelves were a mess. I had games. Lots of games. But very few games had all the pieces:
- Battleship had five ships left. Total. To split between two players.
- Chinese Checkers had 7 red marbles, 5 blue, and fewer of all the other colors, and each color is supposed to have 10.
- Ever played Marble Run without the marble? Yeah. Fun times.
- So you’re getting the idea.
So last year, when I packed up the shelf for summer (because we
don’t want those pathetic games getting lost during summer cleaning, do we?), I
vowed to throw most of them away and buy new games. But time was short, and summer loomed, so I
just packed them up until fall.
And then this summer I discovered STEM bins. I found an awesome resource, bought the
materials, and set them up.
I also stopped at two Targets on our trip back from Canada
and bought a total of 36 bags of fake Legos in the Dollar Spot. (I put the Legos into four small plastic bins
– rather than one big bin – because I thought it would be easier for more kids
to play with them. Happily, that turned
out to be a brilliant decision.)
And when I unpacked my classroom and set it up in August, I
did NOT put most of the games back on the recess shelves. I put about 6 games and a few activities on
the shelves but left an entire shelf and a half empty for my new STEM bins and
Legos.
I put those brand new Lego tubs and brand new STEM bins on
the recess shelves with great trepidation.
Because, you know, second graders.
(Does anything still look quite so shiny and new after a week with
second graders? Nope.)
And then I took the brand new STEM bins off the shelf again. I just couldn’t leave them there. Because, you know, second graders.
On the morning of the first day that would be indoor recess,
I sat my new class on the rug and introduced five of the STEM bins. I showed them each bin, demonstrated how to
use the contents if it was even remotely a new idea (index cards, pipe cleaners
and straws, cups . . .), and explained the rules:
- STEM bins MUST be used on desks or tables, NOT on the floor (where the bin might get stepped on and broken).
- All structures must be taken apart at the end of recess and all materials must be returned to the STEM bin.
- Have fun.
The kids were absolutely entranced.
Recess – INDOOR recess – was a dream.
So a few weeks later (we don’t get much rain here, apparently),
I introduced the other five STEM bins.
And a few weeks after that, I introduced the building cards that came in
the resource.
My kids can still read or draw at recess. They can still crawl around on the floor pretending
they’re a family of puppies (or was it kittens?). They can still play the math games that I’ve
introduced during math time, or work on unfinished work in their folder. They still can’t use their Chromebooks. But now they can STEM, and it’s golden.
Thanks to Highlights and Puzzlemania, I have one more pair of
bins to introduce. Highlights offered
KEVA planks this year in their magazine offer for teachers (send home their
advertisement, get parent signatures, redeem those signatures for rewards) and
we had enough responses to get KEVA planks through both Highlights and
Puzzlemania.
The planks arrived this week.
I put them in their bins, and they’re waiting patiently to be introduced
to my class.
I am waiting excitedly to introduce them to my class.
Because, you know, second graders.
