“We don’t have time!”
I hear it from teachers all the time. Not because teachers don’t believe in movement and what it can do for their students. They do. It is because their schedules are already packed and every new thing seems to push something else off the table.
So when Cheryl and Vicky, two kindergarten teachers at Westhampton Day School, sat down to plan the first two weeks of school with the Play Powered Launch Kit, they did what any good teacher would do. They got out their planners and started hunting for what had to go.
Here is what they told me:
“When we started planning the first two weeks of school, we looked to see which activities we would need to adjust, shorten, or even eliminate to make room for the Launch Kit games and primes. We quickly learned that even though we were adding 20 minutes of new physical activity each day, we didn’t have to adjust what we usually taught!”
They didn’t cut anything.
So where did the time come from?
It came from the places time usually leaks out of any kindergarten day. Those in-between moments like lining up, settling in, getting ready, and getting everyone back on task after they drifted.
In their words:
“The students were able to transition between activities, get ready for an activity, and stay on task better, which saved us a ton of time.”
And this is the part I want every administrator to hear:
“While twenty minutes seemed like a lot at first, broken up and incorporated into our day, it doesn’t disrupt our flow, and it saves us time with behavior redirection.”
Twenty minutes sounds like a big block, but it isn’t. It’s a prime here, a game there, woven into moments that were already happening. When we get children moving, we are leaning into something they innately crave. But when we hold them back, we are fighting against a biological need.
Planning looks different now
What struck me most was how they described planning today, a few weeks in:
“Now as we are planning the new weeks, we are not worried about making time for the Launch games and primes. They just seamlessly fit in and make everything smoother!”
They’ve stopped treating movement as something to fit in and made it part of how the day runs.
An honest note
Every classroom is different, and I am not going to promise that your schedule will work out exactly like theirs. What I can tell you is that two experienced teachers went in fully expecting to make sacrifices and the thing they kept coming back to was the time they got back.
We are following Cheryl and Vicky’s classrooms through their first year with the Launch Kit. You can read the rest of their story on the Success Stories page.
Want to try it in your classroom? The Play Powered Launch Kit gives you games, primes and a simple plan to get started.
Learn what other teachers say about it here.
Get the Toddler Edition here.
Get the Preschool Edition here.
Get the Elementary Edition here.
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