• Write a letter of apology to the person who has been wronged and discuss with teacher the importance of apologizing.
•  
• Write a letter to parents/guardians explaining why behavior is inappropriate or disruptive and stating what student will try to do to change behavior
• Take away privilege of choice for class or individual activity when choice is built into activity
• Do make up work during free choice time
• Have students sit away from the group to do class work and have them “earn” their way back into the group activities
• Have student work with teacher to develop a plan for behavior change tied to incremental privileges
• Create a behavior charts with students that identifies a target behavior and agreed upon reinforcements and rewards for chronic behavior issue
• Confined to a certain area outside.
• Cannot play certain games but can play with other equipment or games.

From Melinda Bossenmeyer who created Peaceful Playgrounds:

The core issue is that administering or withdrawing physical activity as punishment is inappropriate and constitutes an unsound education practice, according to the National Association of Sport and Physical Education. For more on their advisory and to download the position statement go to:
http://www.aahperd.org/naspe/standards/ upload/Physical-Activity-as-Punishment-to-Board-12-10.pdf

from:  http://raepica.typepad.com/ my_weblog/2010/03/ withholding-recess-is-a-no-no.html

Want to find out more?  Here are more resources!

Bringing Peace to the Playground

In 1973, an idea struck Los Angeles educator Melinda Bossenmeyer after years of being a teacher and a principal within the Riverside County Department of Education.

"I noticed that some kids didn't have many of the skills necessary in peaceably solving problems on the playground," she says. Also, "Kids learn to play different games different ways, so they are often playing games on the playground with different sets of rules."

"Sometimes," she adds, "there really weren't enough games going on typically, California schools will have two or three hundred kids on the playground."

As a result, she said, differences on how a game is played or how to determine who is next in line develop into arguments and altercations.

That led Bossenmeyer to come up with the Peaceful Playgrounds program, which she now markets to schools all over the world.

In the Redlands school district, Lugonia and Kingsbury elementary schools have implemented the program, according to primary grade teachers, quite successfully.

Last year Kingsbury refurbished its primary grade playground and blacktop, painting new game outlines for activities such as foursquare, dodge ball and hopscotch.

Teachers have been taking time out before recess at the beginning of the school year to teach their classes how to play a new game every day until they've gone through each one more than 20 such games are available at Kingsbury's upper playground.

More than 100 activities are suggested with the Peaceful Playgrounds kit.

"We realized that a lot of kids don't come to school knowing how to play hopscotch or foursquare," says Kingsbury first-grade teacher Patty Flanagan. "When it comes to hopscotch or dodge ball and foursquare, a lot of first-, second- and third-graders don't know how to play those games."

Flanagan cites frequent television viewing and video game-playing as one factor in children's limited experience with what many consider common schoolyard games. In addition, she say "in some neighborhoods it's not safe to go out and play ball on driveways or sidewalks."

"We noticed that when we told them to go out for recess, all they would do is run around and chase each other."

"We used to make up games," says Kingsbury third-grader Jacob McLemore.

Now that he's been taught the real rules of some of the same games, he says "I think we were playing the same games, but I don't remember."

.

Staff Writer
Redlands Daily Facts - Redlands CA