Recess is ideal for students to accumulate recommended physical activity minutes and work on social-emotional learning skills. However, many students fail to meet national physical activity guidelines, and recess is often withheld from students for a myriad of reasons, including behavioral issues. Helping students build social-emotional skills and…

The purpose of this article is to promote a deeper, more complex understanding of the challenge that "recess time" poses to elementary school educators and to thereby understand the practices in which they are currently engaging. Because teachers are expected to shepherd students through a vast array of learning standards while remaining…

Less than one-third of children and adolescents in the United States are meeting the recommendation from the "2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans" to get 60 minutes or more of physical activity each day. Schools can help students meet this national recommendation because close to 60 million children and adolescents attend…

Old habits die hard, particularly when they are part of the unexamined norms of schooling. In "Why Are We Still Doing That?," the best-selling authors of "Total Participation Techniques" lead a teacher-positive, empathetic inquiry into 16 common educational practices that can undermine student learning: (1) Round robin reading;…

Play is one of the essential components in proper development of first-grade students. Since the adoption by various states of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), two outcomes have developed: (a) increased instructional time and (b) decreased public school recess periods across school districts. Given the complex nature of daily instructional…

When educators take play out of schools, children learn to separate play from learning. In reality, children access learning "through" play. Despite research efforts to promote the academic, physical, and cognitive importance of play in the lives of children, some school systems have reduced or eliminated playtime for young children. In…

NASPE recommends children ages 5-12 accumulate at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity each day of the week. With the growing occurrence of obesity in the United States, it is clear that too many of America's youth are not meeting the recommended amount of daily physical activity. Given that America's youth are having…

Physical education is traditionally thought of as the primary means of providing physical activity in the school environment. However, only 17 to 22 percent of elementary schools offer daily physical education with a cumulative duration of about 85 to 98 minutes per week. Based on pedometer counts of weekday physical activity, lunch recess and…

Many of our greatest joys in life are related to our learning, but, unfortunately, most of that learning takes place outside of school. Educators can put more joy into the experience of going to school and get more joy out of working inside school by focusing on several essentials. Help students find pleasure in learning by giving them the freedom…

Nearly half of youths between the ages of 12 and 21 are not vigorously active on a regular basis. In order to meet national health objectives for youths, schools need to promote opportunities for physical activity. Physical educators are qualified to develop a comprehensive physical activity program that engages both students and staff and that…

In this companion to "Opening Doors", Friedman and Webb provide more helpful, hand-on tips for bringing SEM to life in your school. Readers learn, step-by-step, how to create a schedule that includes a weekly E-Slot for enrichment learning experiences as well as ideas for injecting interest-based experiences into the E-Slot, regular curriculum,…

Because sensorimotor and environmental factors have a profound effect on children's learning, every teacher should know how to weave strategies from occupational therapy (OT) into their everyday instruction. This is the guidebook K-3 teachers need to "think like an OT"--and form effective partnerships with OTs in their schools--so all students can…

This book provides a collection of easy-to-implement ideas and creative strategies designed to help teachers manage indoor recess by developing temporary playrooms. Chapter 1 helps teachers make a good assessment of the present situation. Chapter 2 encourages teachers to take heart, no matter how frustrated they may have been in the past, and…

Based upon the principle that all children have a right to play and to experience the benefits of recess, this book assists elementary school teachers and parents in offering children in preschool through Grade 6 appropriate recess games and activities and provides a variety of readings that support the need for recess activities. The book is…

In this article, the author discusses the importance of having a daily classroom agenda, and provides some tips for developing and implementing an effective agenda. An agenda is simply a detailed list of all the things students must do and what teachers hope to accomplish on a particular school day. It should include lesson plans, special classes…