If you have any experience working in an Elementary School classroom, then you know how dreaded the words "inside recess" can be. These words are especially painful if you haven't been able to take your class outside for the last 3 weeks because it's been too cold, and then you get a record breaking blizzard that dumps 3 feet of snow on your playground and it feels like you'll be stuck inside until May.... Well that was us today... Stuck inside again...
If your students are anything like mine, that precious time they have outside during a long school day is so incredibly needed. A breath of fresh air and the ability to run and play and yell is just what they need in the middle of their day. I often find that when we are stuck indoors we have a lot more tears and a lot more problem behavior. So today, in an effort to make inside recess a little more fun, with the help of my SPECTACULAR staff, we brought the outside in... thats right folks... call us crazy... but we filled up bowls of snow and brought them inside so the kids could play. At first I was nervous about the kiddos reactions, would they hate the cold, would they make a huge mess?? Well much to my surprise they LOVED it! We actually sat as an entire class for about 30 minutes and played with the snow!! During this time we allowed students to really take the lead and explore. We were also able to incorporate a lot of teachable moments, by creating opportunities for students to generalize already mastered skills from their ABA programs(this is also part of our Natural Environment Teaching process which I will elaborate on at another time).
I am so glad we tried this today! We had such an awesome experience and the kiddos amazed me with how well they were able to handle their excitement and not make a giant mess. When it comes to my students I am always so analytical when trying something new.. I will often over think it or obsess over whether or not they will be able to 'handle it'... I have found that it's good to take risks... sometimes its a huge disaster, and we learn from that, but other times (and actually most of the time) my kiddos rise to the occasion and make me so incredibly proud. It's the little things :)
Check out the pictures below to see how creative some of the kiddos got with this sensory snow-filled recess!
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| So Much Snow!!! |
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| Showing the kiddos that it's ok to touch it! |
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| Big Bowl of Snow |
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| Some of my friends wanted to loose the bowl... so we did!! |
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| We 'painted' our snow using food coloring, water and a spray bottle! |
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| A "Snow Puppy" :) |
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| Snow Ice Cream... Yummm |
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| Some of the students also experimented with transferring the colors in the snow to their paper towels. |
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| One clever kiddo used a cookie cutter to make snow cars! |
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| Finished Snow Car |
After we finished with our snow I let the students carry their bowls (with help from an adult) outside, where we dumped our snow into the piles on the play ground!
Looking forward to see how many of them ask to play with snow tomorrow!
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