Rainy Days

What do rainy days mean for an elementary school?
I am not complaining about the rain, because we REALLY need it. My yard is saying, "THANK YOU" because it needed it so much. But rain really changes an elementary school.
The first change is the sound. Usually when students come into the school each day, you hear a very excited mumbling of young people coming into the building. You hear students saying hello to their teachers and friends and are hustling to get to class to start the day. When it rains, all you hear is the squeaking of shoes on the shiny tile floor. It does not matter how hard you try to not squeak, all you get is the squeak. We try to tell the students to not squeak their shoes when they walk, but it is very difficult not to squeak. Tennis shoes, boots, even flip-flops all squeak when you have rainy days. I have to admit, when I am here all by myself in the morning on rainy days, I enjoy making the squeaking sound with my shoes. It is pretty fun.
The second big change is the amount of students who come in through carpool. When it rains, parents don't want their children standing outside at the bus stop so we always have lots of cars in the carpool line. I saw that first-hand this week because it just happened to be my week for carpool duty. Nothing starts a day off better than a white Oxford shirt soaked on both arms!!!
The final difference is that the students do not get recess. As a teacher, this is a BIG change! Students in the elementary school NEED recess! Teachers in the elementary school NEED recess! When it rains, they just can not get that physical break from instruction that they need. Even though it is only 15-20 minutes, it does really help to give the students and the teachers the break to recharge and get back into the right frame of mind for learning. As a principal, the rain helped me to see just how amazingly flexible and creative my teachers are at maximizing instructional time and making it fun. I saw plenty of classes that normally would be outside for recess playing math games and having reading or writing workshops. The students and teachers were engaged and actively learning during that time. You could tell it was normally a recess time because some kids and even some teachers had their shoes off or were laying on the floor, but boy were they learning!!!