Six Tips for Making Recess More Fun

Here are six tips to help any grown-up make recess safe, healthy and a lot more fun. Feel free to share these with other parents and staff members at your child's school.

Tip #1: Teach everyone the rock-paper-scissors game. Nine times out of 10, playground conflicts are completely inconsequential and with rock-paper-scissors as an agreed-upon tool for problem-solving, you will be amazed by how much more smoothly things can go. One of the key things about making it work is to have everyone use it to solve all types of disagreements. Use it at home, encourage other families to use it at home and encourage the teachers to use it in the classroom. Also known as RoShamBo – the simple rules of rock-paper-scissors can be found online.

Tip #2 : Map the playground.  Take a good look at your play area and observe the current patterns of play: What games are the kids playing?  What parts of the schoolyard are they using?  How do students make the transitions from cafeteria to schoolyard and back inside? Where do kids who aren’t participating stand? What are the adults doing?  Once you have a sense of what’s going on, imagine what you’d like to see. Take a piece of paper and draw a rough sketch of your schoolyard divided into five or six different areas for different games. Select a location for checking out equipment as children flow from the cafeteria to the yard. Once you have a plan for the yard, share it with anyone who will listen – classroom teachers, other parents, yard monitors, the kids themselves. Think about using cones to designate areas where kids can play basketball and soccer. You can use cones and sidewalk chalk to start, but once kids start to adopt the patterns of play, talk with your principal and custodian or facilities staff about painting lines for four square.  The ultimate idea is to give the kids a chance to own the area and their activity – for jump ropers to own the jump rope area, for the kick ballers to own their area – once kids have a sense of ownership, they tend to take much better care of the games.

Tip #3: Teach the rules of the games.  One thing that often surprises grown-ups is the extent to which kids don’t know the rules of various games.  Sometimes it can be even more confusing because the kids pretend to know the rules.  Establish an area for the Game of the Week and set it up so that the kids focus on one game for a whole week – whether it’s four square, kickball or Red Light-Green Light for the younger kids.  It’s sometimes easier to work with smaller groups to teach the rules to games, but take the time to make sure that the kids know how to play safely and that there is agreement about school rules. You can find rules to some great games on our website here.

Tip #4: Encourage high 5’s and "nice job."  When teaching kids the rules to any game, make sure to add that saying “Good job” and giving out high 5’s to both one’s teammates and the loyal opposition during transitions is just one of the rules.  Like the Buddhist concept of intentionality, it does not matter if the kids initially “mean” it.  Going through the motions with the right intention creates an environment that is much more conducive to playing happily together, learning and generally getting along. 

Tip #5: Put the kids in charge.  At Playworks, we run a recess program called Junior Coaches in which the oldest students distribute and collect equipment, turn ropes for jumping rope, encourage high 5’s,  resolve conflicts, and help split kids into teams. The junior coaches also can take on bigger jobs, such as organizing intramural tournaments and running the Game of the Week – especially helpful if you can’t be at the school to volunteer every day. You can give similar responsibilities to existing student leadership groups – conflict managers or student government groups if they exist. In our program, we also try to include some children who have a history of negative recess behavior. There’s a lot of natural leadership there, and it’s much easier if they’re on your side.

Tip #6: Play yourself. Get in a game and encourage other adults to do the same. There is no better way to engage kids who don’t usually participate. Children behave better and feel safer when there are grown-ups playing with them.  We know it’s obvious, but when you’re playing with kids you should model good sporting behavior. Play hard, have fun, be supportive, and win or lose graciously.

Ultimately, we believe that the most effective way to make sure that recess is a constructive part of the school day is to place a trained adult on your playground. All of our coaches have experience in working with children and are trained in methods they can use to create a structured, safe, and inclusive playground environment. 

Find out more about at Play in Your City.