Part of a successful school day includes providing students with the expected rules, procedures, and routines. All staff members take time at the beginning of every school year to teach, model, and review these rules, procedures, and routines. We also believe it is important to share these with families; this creates an awareness of what we expect from students at school. In addition, it provides families with common language that can be used at home as well. This provides students with the consistency needed to model the positive behaviors that have been taught. At Hillrise, we teach these behaviors by explicitly modeling different areas of the school, such as recess, hallways, bathrooms, and lunchroom. In the coming weeks, I will be sharing these expectations each week with parents so they can be reviewed at home. This week, I've included what we use for the Playground. We appreciate your partnership with this, as it benefits all students and ensures Hillrise is a safe place for everyone.
Topic: Playground
Hillrise Expectations:
● Practice Respect: On the playground, this means using appropriate language.
● Act Responsibly: On the playground, this looks like putting all the equipment away.
● Work Together: On the playground, this means following game rules and lining up when the adult gives the signal.
● Stay Safe: On the playground, this means following equipment rules and getting permission from an adult to go inside.
LEARNING GOAL: “Today we are going to practice respect, acting responsibly, working together and staying safe on the playground."
LEARNING ACTIVATION:
● “Could someone tell us what we are going to learn and practice today?”
● “Why is it important to follow rules on the playground?”
○ This allows for fun and safe play.
○ It is important to include everyone.
○ Take care of our equipment.
INSTRUCTION:
Take students outside and role-play proper use of each playground area.
● Show students a map of the playground, (designate and label proper playing area and off limit areas.)
● Practice lining-up procedures.
● Lead class in a discussion of non-examples for each expectation (discuss examples that you’ve observed, such as not including everyone, using unkind words, etc.).
○ Positive examples:
■ Students keep hands and feet to self.
■ Students allow everyone to play during recess games.
■ Student sees her friend running up the slide. She kindly reminds her to only go down the slide by saying, “Hey, remember to sit when going down the slide.”
■ Student notices a friend sitting on the Buddy Bench and has no one to play with. She kindly walks over to her and invites her to play tag with her friends.
■ When students hear the signal, ALL students take notice and immediately line up in a line
■ Model how to play tag nicely (no grabbing, shoving, etc...)
○ Non-examples:
■ Students are playing on the swings. They begin to twist and a student gets caught in the twisted chain. She ends up with a bruised hand.
■ Student asks to join a game of 4-square-other students say, “No we already started the game so you can’t play.”
■ Students count fast for one person’s turn, then count slow for another person’s turn. (model 1 Mississippi....)
