Today we have a special guest post from teacher and reader – Erin! She is sharing some of her super creative interventions for dealing with some particularly challenging recess behavior. Recess can be a tricky time for our kids and Erin thought of some great ideas for minimizing disruptive behaviors during this time:
My class is a special day class of kinder through third grade students. The students have a range of disabilities from intellectual disabilities to autism to traumatic brain injuries. This year one of my students with autism was having a very difficult time on the playground. Recess is 15 minutes and lunch recess is approximately 30 minutes. Both times are much to long for this student but because those are considered mainstreaming times, the district is highly against reducing the times, even with IEP team agreement. The student was constantly throwing rocks, first at birds but then at girls. He should be a baseball player- his aim is SUPER! He would also throw wood chips (probably one of my least favorite things ever, I can’t stand those wood chips!). Finding trash to put in the drinking fountain drain and throwing any ball he could get away from the other students over the fence or on the roof were also favorite activities. My amazing instructional assistant is outside with the student at these times, but it is my responsible to figure out solutions and help her make recess successful. It doesn’t help that it has been near 100 degrees almost every day since school started where we live. One Friday, between the heat and the crazy recesses, I was depressed, exhausted and ready to give up. On days like that, after a soak in a hot bath, I turn to The Autism Helper website for inspiration. Even if my specific problem isn’t addressed, reading through the website always helps my brain turn towards solutions over despair. Sometimes teaching special education is just like the tv show Survivor- I will OUTWIT, OUTPLAY and if nothing else OUTLAST whatever behavior is occurring and The Autism Helper website is my personal item I take to the island for comfort. So here is our current outwit items for recess survival…
- PUT IT IN BUCKET. To satisfy the urge to throw, we created a game out of a giant pretzel container from Costco. Yes, I actually went to Costco and bought the pretzels just for the container! I knew that it needed to have that thunk sound when the item dropped into the bucket to have any effect on the behavior so a big container was required. I drew pictures on index cards of things he likes to pick up and throw and put amounts with the pictures. My aide shows the student a card and he finds the item on the playground, runs back to her and thunks it into the PUT IT IN BUCKET. This worked great for a time and the student still comes back to it some days but even the best games get old.
- RECESS VISUAL SCHEDULE. I know a visual schedule works for the student in the classroom, I don’t know why I didn’t think to make one for the playground. I went around and took pictures of every single playing item our class is allowed to use. Before each recess, the student picks all the items he wants to do. The instructional assistant shows him the first thing, he goes off to do it, then comes back and puts the picture on the finished side. Because we didn’t know how long the list would take him, we made a card that says “Not over pick again” and another card that says “Recess over, line up.” We incorporated the PUT IT IN BUCKET so the student can pick playing the game, what he wants to find and how many of that item he wants to put in the bucket. If the student successfully completes all the items with no hitting, spitting, throwing then he earns 1 m&m (Don’t you love kids that appreciate 1 delicious m&m?). Because recess for most students is free choice time, I love that our student gets to pick all of the items on his chart before going outside. Having times when the students get to pick what happens over us controlling them is vital to their development into successful adults.
While these two solutions haven’t completely solved all of the recess problems, they have made a huge difference and some wonderful unexpected things have occurred as a result of the solutions. One of the older students in general education saw the visual schedule and what our student was doing and asked if he could play too. Now the two boys have become friends, with the older one reminding our student to return to the aide to put it on the finished section and move to the next thing. One day the older student showed us a bag of cookies and told us he brought them to share with our student but only if he completes his tasks. They went off to do the first task and they each had a cookie. Our student put the whole cookie in his mouth at once. The older student looked and me and said, “Next time, I’ll just give him a piece!” I told the older student that he is learning to be a behavioral support specialist and when he grows up he can do this as a job, that he is already TERRIFIC at it. He looked at me in shock and said, “This is someone’s job! We are just playing!” The other unexpected result came from the parents. At parent conferences, I showed them the visual schedule and told them the whole process. They heard that he only gets one m&m and said they had a box of m&ms at their house and the student always grabs handfuls of them so they have to monitor it very carefully. But a few weeks ago he started only taking 1 m&m from the box. They thought he was sick! Turns out, he had just transferred the 1 m&m reward from our recess schedule!
A special thank you to the Autism Helper website for all the inspiration for letting me share!
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8 Responses
Exactly what I needed to see, today of all days!! Recess behaviors are so tough… I hate to take it away because the kiddos need it so bad! Thanks!
Thanks for sharing! Lovely idea.
Those are awesome ideas!! Love, love love!!!!! Love that another student got involved, too!! I can incorporate your ideas with what I do, just bring a jar outside with me. Here’s another idea for your team to try. When I’m on yard duty sometimes I create simple missions for a child to do with the timer on my phone: Run to fence and back. Do 10 jumping jacks. go as slow as you can to the drinking fountain and back. Go circle the basketball hoop and come back, etc. I also will give multi-step directions I call the “obstacle course” but only if there aren’t too many kids on on the play structure (or I do it for PE). Example: Walk up stairs, turn in 1 circle at the top, go down the slide and come back.” If more than one kid plays, I time them each separately.
Love these ideas and know exactly what I’m doing next week with one of my kiddos, actually a few in different schools!!!!
Awesome advice! Love the OUTWIT, OUTPLAY and OUTLAST! We will survive!!
Great idea – thanks for sharing! 🙂
Recess behaviors can be SO tough!
Thank you everyone for the kind words!
-Erin