I had to share this idea before it left my mind. I was visiting a fourth grade classroom today (Mrs. Smith, no really, that's her name!) when I discovered one of my favorite toddler toys, the Fisher Price Rock-a-Stack, sitting at the front of the room. "What's up with this?" I inquired. "This is the Recess-o-Meter*," Mrs. Smith replied and sure enough, I noticed that she had printed "Recess-o-Meter" on the bottom of the Rock-a-Stack. She went on to explain that recess was 15 minutes long and there were five donut shaped rings; each ring represents three minutes of recess. The "Recess-o-Meter" served as a reminder of how much recess the students had lost or regained due to behavior in the classroom.
This approach is very similar to writing RECESS on the chalkboard, where each letter represents a portion of recess. I must say, I found it very creative and a bit amusing to reuse an old favorite in this way!
*Author's note: I have mixed feelings about taking away recess as a punishment. I have used this method myself a time or two in the past and if I was teaching elementary school again I might resort to using it again. When I attended elementary school, we had three 20 minute recesses a day. When I taught in St. Louis, my third graders had 15 minutes of recess a day.
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