How do you take recess during a day of distance learning? By breaking down recess into its component parts, and figuring out how to do each.
A day’s worth of Zoom calls and online worksheets can take its toll on anyone, including adults, let alone wiggly first-graders and world-weary teens. On-campus recess offered students a chance to run around, chat, and hang out with their friends. If you think about recess in that way—as a chance to chat, and as a chance to run around—you can get close to recess in spirit, if not in reality.
I have two boys, one in middle school and one entering third grade. In our state of California, our district has gone back to school, entirely by distance learning. Here’s what we’re considering as recess options as we go back to school.