Chubbuck elementary school piloting program to encourage independent play

POCATELLO – A Pocatello elementary school is piloting a program that aims to put students in charge of how they play.

At the beginning of this year, Ellis Elementary School launched a once-a-week after-school play club, which essentially provides kids with an hour-long, unstructured recess. The club takes place on Mondays, which are an early release day for Pocatello/Chubbuck School District 25, and is open to third, fourth and fifth graders, and is supervised by two staff members and two parents.

“The idea is to give the kids loosely structured opportunities to play. The adults that are there … are more lifeguards, just helping the kids stay safe. … We try to let the kids come up with what they’re doing and let them be the creative ones,” said Janelle Romriell, a parent of a child attending Ellis.

Romriell decided to approach the administration at Ellis after she became familiar with the Let Grow movement, which advocates for greater childhood independence. One of its programs is called the Let Grow Play Club.

“The idea is to give kids an opportunity to have unstructured playtime. As a society, we have gotten over-protected in the real world and under-protected in the digital world, and so we need to help that pendulum swing back,” Romriell said.

After requesting and going over Let Grow’s play club materials, Romriell met with Principal Scott Eldredge in April and pitched the program to him.

“I loved it, right off the bat,” Eldredge said. “I’m a huge believer in recess, and I’m a huge believer in my kids playing. My kids run around my neighborhood … and they’re up in the mountains, up in the hills. … We know where they’re at, but they’re playing with friends. They’re solving problems, and they’re building those social skills along the way to navigate some of the challenges that they run into.”

The school then undertook the process of acquiring district approval and subsequently advertised the play club to parents. A few weeks after the start of this school year, the play club met for the first time.

Initially, it didn’t go how Romriell expected.

“I just expected them to go right into playing hard and having fun, but they would kind of walk around and not hardly (play), because they haven’t been used to so much freedom,” Romriell said.

The hour of time to play stands in contrast to the amount afforded during school hours, which is around 45 minutes, broken up into 15-minute increments throughout the day for kindergartners through third graders, and 25 minutes, with 10 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at lunch, for fourth and fifth graders.

“They wanted the adults to tell them what they could do, and so this newfound freedom was very uncomfortable for them,” Romriell said.

The first play club had around 10 kids participating, but it has grown to between 25 to 30 kids most recently. And Romriell has seen more change than just the number of students attending.

“It took a few weeks for them to understand ‘we’re in charge.’ It was a really beautiful thing, and it’s really interesting to see. Some kids are more comfortable than others. A few just want to hang around me. They’re very uncomfortable interacting with the other kids, but they keep coming every week, and they’ll still start integrating with the other kids,” Romriell said.

Romriell said that overtime, the kids who were more comfortable with self-directed play have helped less comfortable kids and new kids adjust to the play club.

Eldredge said that the play club is going to go on break temporarily while the weather gets cold, and they plan to bring it back in the spring, and then, “see if we can grow it, and if we can get 20% to 25% of our population participating in it on a regular basis, we would be thrilled.”

Romriell hopes that not just more kids, but more schools in the area will start their own play clubs, and give kids an outlet to play independently.

“What do our kids have available to them after school? … We live in a culture where we’ve decided it’s not safe for them to play outside, or that just isn’t an option, and so they’re stuck inside. … We’re doing our kids such a disservice, and so if we can have this go to other schools, think about what this gives our community. … An opportunity to be in a safe place where they can develop socially,” Romriell said.