Monday, October 8, 2012

Indoor recess and free time - not the same thing

We have had a lot of indoor recess over the past few weeks due to the rainy weather.  Here are some pictures to show you what that looks like in our classroom.  I am experimenting with taking pictures with my tablet, so please excuse the lack of clarity in many of the shots.















Some of these activities are also done during 10 minutes of free time each day.  Ten minutes a day is a lot of instruction time to give up each day.  Think about it; that is almost an hour a week!  How do I justify that? 
I justify it by making sure that during those 10 minutes each day, Mrs. Duhamel and I spend the time working with someone who needs a little something extra.  If you send in a note that your child did not understand their homework or something on a test, we will probably go over that information during free time.  It is not meant as a punishment, but as an opportunity to provide extra instruction on a confusing topic.  If someone has a difficult time keeping up with class work, they will be given that time to work on it. Again, this is not to punish someone for working slowly, but to give them a little extra time to catch up. 
Over the course of the school year, all of your children will have worked with the teachers at some point during free time.  Please understand that free time is not an extra recess, but rather an additional learning time during which some children receive one-on-one or small group instruction. I like to think of this time as a chance to give students something extra, not a chance to take something away from them.

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