Jeremy BarnesPrincipalVanderMolen Elementary, Mira Loma, CA
After a week-long Recess Reboot from Playworks, VanderMolen Elementary in Mira Loma, CA shares the positive impact on their recess.
Transcript: Hello! Hello! I’m Jeremy Barnes. I’m the principal at Vandermolen Elementary and this is Alicia Martin. I’m the assistant principal here at Vandermolen. How has Playworks impacted our recess? It’s infused energy and structure and now our students know exactly where to go and they’re engaged. All the students are engaged! They’re all included so when you look out on our playground right now you don’t see big masses of kids doing nothing. No! They’re everywhere in different spots playing the games and they’re following the rules. That is so incredible and what changes have we seen? We have seen organization like nothing else. We have recess openings. We have teachers dropping off kids and those kids are doing chants. Those chants are led by our Junior Coaches that are dynamite! They are loving their new leadership roles, which shows in their faces, in their actions, in their coach voices that they’ve got and then we also have them leading games. Our new supervisors are absolutely loving it! They’re working with the kids and playing recess with the kids instead of just watching and looking just for safety. They’re absolutely a part of what the kids are experiencing during recess, which is great. The other change is we have recess endings, closures, and transitions where they’re chanting “Bananas! Go, go, bananas!” “My little red wagon.” Playworks is awesome! We love it! Thank you!!