Balancing Extra-Curricular Activities with Classroom Expectations

We can easily balance extra-curricular activities with our expectations in the elementary classroom, in a sport driven society, by making connections between sports and other extra-curricular activities and using them to teach with. For example if you are teaching a math lesson and incorporate a concession stand selling food at a game, the students will more likely be intrigued because it is something they are familiar with.

Students should be able to meet school expectations as long as they have good attendance. As a teacher I think we should really encourage students to come to school as much as they possibly can, and if they must miss for whatever reason then they are still required to do some makeup work or come in before or after school so they can e taught what they missed when they were not present. I think that if the attendance goals are made clear to the students as well as their parents and only small amounts of homework is given, if any, then balancing school expectations and extra-curricular activities should not be an issue.

However, I think teachers must also express the opinion that school comes before extra-curricular activities and if students start doing poorly in school then they should not be spending as much time doing extra-curricular activities. These extra-curricular activities should be thought of more as a reward or privilege and should be taken away if students are not meeting their school expectations so they have more time to practice whatever they are getting behind in or having trouble with.