Many people are becoming more concerned about children’s lack of social skills and ability to play. Often, we hear people say things like “It wasn’t like this in our day. Children knew how to play; we played street games; the roads were safe; and we didn’t have computers. Children don’t seem to know how to play anymore.”
Over my years in schools as a teacher, parent and education consultant, I have heard a common cry from teachers, lunchtime supervisors and parents: “Help,” they say, “what can we do about playtimes and behaviour?”
Playtime can be a tricky time. Sometimes all our energy goes into sorting out our inside learning environment and we forget about the outside. What I have seen over the years of working in education and with schools, is that frequently playtimes and playgrounds need re energising.
As a whole school team, we need to reflect on whether behaviour we observe in the playground is bad behaviour – or just bored behaviour. The right environment can make a huge difference: I have seen many a concrete jungle be transformed into a thriving, creative, active and engaging play space with just a bit of thought, teamwork and imagination. And with that, unwanted behaviours reduced in the playground which can also have a positive effect on learning.
So how do can we improve our school playtimes?
Top tip number one: Create playground activity zones.
Don’t know where to start. A great idea is to conduct an audit of your playground space and current resources, if you need a done for you playtime audit checkout our: Playtime Audit
Then decide how you can best utilise and use the space you have and make playtimes a more exciting and vibrant time for your children.
It’s great to collate a whole school pupil voice of what activity zones the children would like. If you are unsure, you could use some of the activities below to help. Having different activity zones means we are meeting the needs of all children.
Getting the voice of the lunch time staff, playground supervisors, and teachers, the adults who know the space and the children the best in the playground is also important. They are an invaluable resource in supporting our children and have a wealth of wisdom they can share from being in the playground and what they see and experience every day.
Once you have decided on your activities, simply divide your playground into the different activity zones and provide the appropriate resources.
Here are some ideas for zoned activity areas:
- Imaginative play zone
- Traditional playground games zone
- “Friendship stop” zone
- Quiet zone
- Craze of the week (one type of equipment is used every day of the week)
- Construction / small world play equipment
- Ball games – football, netball, basketball
- Parachute games
- Performing arts – Music and dance zone
- Painted games – hopscotch, etc7
- Nature zone (you may have a wooded area in the school or a garden)
Top tip number two : Imaginative play playground equipment
Playgrounds tend to be full of sports equipment at playtimes, and there can be many children who don’t enjoy playing sports games. We often talk about meeting the needs of all our children and do this well inside, but we may forget when in the playground.
Some other options for playground equipment are :
- Road track set
- Giant plastic playing cards or giant snakes and ladders
- Giant plastic X and O’s
- Colouring in books
- Dressing up boxes
- Tower and cube set – like polydron, however huge!
- Lego and big build blocks
- Small world play
- Bubbles
- Sensory play equipment
- Construction play – like plastic crates, smooth off cuts of wood, (like unused decking) plastic pipes – you may be able to source these for free from local companies.
Equipment like this can help younger children who are transitioning to a bigger playground with older children, but older children also love to play with these activities.
Top tip number three: Craze of the week.
The craze of the week is a successful lunchtime strategy. As you know children love learning new crazes, from card swapping to marbles, elastics, yo-yo’s and clapping games. The “craze” is changed after one week for another new and exciting activity.
How to organise craze of the week:
First talk with the children about activities they would love to have in the playground. Choose and buy enough equipment for that craze. Crazes can be things such as skipping ropes, French skipping ropes, bean bags, plastic stilts, space hoppers, ankle skips, shuttleball, hoops, lolo ball, cats cradle, etc.
There is so much equipment for children to choose from, that you could go through our Equipment Shopping list with your children to get ideas and decide on the most popular activities. You will need roughly 10 to 15 of each supply, depending on the size of your school.
A great way to keep equipment for not getting lost, safe and in one place, so it can easily be used, put away and accessed again later is to create labelled playground craze activity boxes. There are some great storage containers around.
Then create “Craze of the Week” signage so that children know what the Craze is that week.
Every Monday morning, the week’s craze is introduced is introduced either in assembly, or by the class teachers in class, or prefects could go around the classes and let the children know.
Top Tip number four: Quiet Zone
Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?
Are there children in your school who don’t enjoy running around at playtimes? That would rather sit in quiet contemplation, maybe in a quiet area of the playground – a garden, or more solitary space? Who would prefer to read a book, colour in, or play a quiet game or activity?
If you have answered yes to any of the above, then it’s time to create a quiet space and offer the choice of quieter games and activities.
Educationally, it is important that we offer children a breadth of experience and playtime is no exception. We can provide children a range of games and activity zones that cater for all our children’s varying needs:
Some Ideas:
- Teach all children the quiet games from 101 Playground Games in their PE lessons
- Create a quiet zoned activity area with picnic tables, rugs and mats when the weather permits.
- Organise “Quiet games activity boxes” for the quiet zoned area. These may include: cat’s cradle, wooden dominoes, Jenga, giant noughts and crosses, pick up sticks, tiddlywinks, board games, Lego, cards, colouring in, bricks, and more.
- Create a secret garden or quiet space away from the busy playground. If you have access to a green area or garden, then this is perfect.
- Develop a gardening club; many children like to connect with nature at playtime.
Bringing lots of activities out in the playground can really re energise a whole school both children and staff included.
In this blog I have covered a few of the ideas and suggestion on how to improve your playground, but there are so many ideas and not enough space to write about them.
If you would like to learn more, please refer to our website www.theresehoyle.com and you might like to purchase our 101 Playground Games and 101 Wet Playtime Games books or email me at therese@positiveplaytimes.com
This article: How to improve school playtimes – Therese Hoyle was recently featured in Teachers Matter Magazine, New Zealand.
