Two Choice Times?



 

The old overhead projector makes a great light table.




My goal was to try two choice times a day for a week. Research has shown that students benefit from 50 minutes of choice time in the morning and the afternoon. During that time I also supported my kids play with paper airplanes and snails by providing some books and supplies on each topic. I also put out the water play bin everyday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I supported the paper airplane group by ensuring that they had lots of paper and card stock. I took out books from the library on aircraft and how to drawing books on transportation. We brought the airplanes outside and measured how far their planes could fly. They did start playing a tag type game with the planes. Today they had a group discussion about how to ensure they stopped running in the class; I’m not sure what they discussed but they continued to play the game without running.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I supported the snail group by reading a few snail groups to the class, and providing lots of containers for creating snail homes. I made sure we had lots of snails and allowed the students to tend to the tank themselves. I think the biggest support I gave was by making sure I didn’t step on any snails on the floor. 

 

 

 

I also put out the water bin at every inside choice time. It contained measuring cups and spoons. On Wednesday I added some dish soap. It was mainly the girls who played with it; they spent a lot of time pouring the water from different heights. They also started drinking it on Thursday – yuck.



I did the two choice times each day. We started with a short planning discussion and then 50 minutes of play. After clean-up we had another discussion about what was learnt. One Tuesday, we started the day with choice time. The other days we had it after recess. Three times we had it outside. The total time for each choice time ended up being about 75 – 90 minutes depending on how long clean up took and how eager the students were to share.



Since January we have been having one outside playtime and one choice time. The outside time would be between 15 – 45 minutes depending on the weather, how well the students were playing and if there were other activities that I wanted to get too, most of this time I brought no toys or items for play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

When I planned to do this week I was hoping to see some grand play episodes.  While the students did further their play I didn’t see was much variety of play.  The kids that played paper airplanes continued to play paper airplanes. 

EDIT - Looking back I can now see that their paper airplanes did become the grand play episode that I was looking for.  It was just different than what I had hoped for. 

How will this change my practice?

·         I’m thinking of changing choice time to exploration time.  It’s mostly just a name change but I think that it will alter my thinking about it.  During my current exploration time students are given the choice of math or literacy workstations. 



·         I don’t think that I truly thought of my outside time as a time for play until this week.  I generally thought of it as a time for exercise.  Now I can see that during this week I actually gave them three play times a day not just two.  No wonder I felt as though I couldn’t get anything done. I will definitely keep having a daily outside time.

·         I can see how behind the scenes I have to be – setting things up, putting things away, listening to problems, watching students show me something interesting…..  I can see that this is not always the best time to have art or small group work.

·         I don’t think that I will be having Talking Tables (a language program) during choice time any more.  I will have it during workstations, writing or some other time of the day.  I don’t want their play to be interrupted.