To make recess periods effective, schools should:

• Have enough trained adults on hand to enforce and prevent aggressive, bullying behavior.

• Work with police departments and community agencies to address safety concerns about children playing in school playgrounds in high-crime areas.

• Provide space, facilities, equipment and supplies that can make active participation in physical activity during recess appealing to children.

• Have staff encour…

A child’s attention span begins to wane after forty minutes of intense instruction. “Recess provides children a chance to refocus,” according to study’s author, Catherine L. Ramstetter, a doctoral candidate at the University of Cincinnati.

A comprehensive review of published literature on recess throughout the United States showed that recess breaks as short as 10 minutes improve children’s learning efficiency and the teacher’s aptitude during …

Summer is officially over but summer heat remains in some areas. Here's a quick recap on some of the articles on the topic resulting in children receiving burns on playground mats.

Four year old NYC child hospitalized for 7 days with burn from playground. Parent sues city. City sues parent. Channel 2 news NYC.

Playground dangers. Rubber mats cause burns. Channel 2 News. NYC. "The black rubber mats at Van Vorhees playground in Cobble H…

APPLETON - Recess used to be just sliding and swinging at Johnston Elementary School in Appleton. Now a program to get more kids involved has them adding hopscotch, four-square, and jump rope to the mix.

Parents at the school wanted to find a way to make better use of the playground, so they turned to Peaceful Playgrounds and received grants from the Appleton Education Foundation and the Johnston PTA to pay the $4,000 for the stencils, rules book…

Photo Leah-Anne Thomps

After school let kids play. Young kids shouldn't struggle with homework for academic purposes. Research suggests that kids better off playing than doing homework in early years.

The Sydney Morning Herald ran an interesting article on homework on Monday. The article points out something that teachers have know for a long time, "there is no evidence that homework benefits achievement during the early school years.…

Nick Veasey/Getty Images

For some time, researchers have known that exercise changes the structure of the brain and affects thinking.

Ten years ago scientists at the Salk Institute in California published the groundbreaking finding that exercise stimulates the creation of new brain cells. But fundamental questions remain, like whether exercise must be strenuous to be beneficial. Should it be aerobic? What about weight lifting? And are the cognit…

I often get phone calls requesting grant information on funding school playground structures. Here's a new grant that I've discovered. It requires matching funds but this may be just the push that many schools need to make a new playground structure a reality.

Children, Youth, and Families at Risk Sustainable Community Projects

The Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), USDA announces the Children, Youth, …

The Milford News reports that a concerned parent's quick action lead to recess reinstatement. St. Amand school reported a 15-minute recess is being brought back without impacting classroom time.

According to the article, Administrators didn’t notify parents about the kindergarten recess removal because they wanted to keep it “low-profile” until after they tried it, St. Amand has said. Also, until last week faculty had not yet met to review p…

The Research Report called, " Bubbling Over: Soda Consumption and Its Link to Obesity in California" found that 41 percent of children (ages 2 - 11), 62 percent of adolescents (ages 12 - 17) and 24 percent of adults drink at least one soda or other sugar-sweetened beverage every day. Regardless of income or ethnicity, adults who drink one or more sodas or other sugar-sweetened beverages every day are 27 percent more likely to be overwe…

With a few proven strategies we'll show you how to reduce bullying, reduce playground conflicts resulting in happy students and a thankful staff. This webinar will cover how you can have a Peaceful Playground.

Our research indicates that 5 situations contribute to 95% of all problems on typical elementary school playgrounds. In this fast paced webinar we'll share those problem situations and OUR PROVEN STRATEGIES for turning your play…

Talk about "hands-on" learning. School gardens continue to spread across the U.S. and now even preschoolers are getting into the action at University City Childcare Center in St Louis, Missouri.

The garden bed — about 110 feet long and a few feet high — has become the latest "classroom" at the center, a place where children as young as 1 and 2 spend part of their day learning how to grow their own food.

More on Growing Minds.

The Coca-Cola Company and the Coca-Cola Foundation aim to make a greater impact on the communities Coca-Cola serves around the world by being responsive to the citizenship priorities of the communities in which we live and work. The Coca-Cola Company and Foundation are interested in funding organizations in these areas: Water stewardship, Healthy active lifestyles, Community recycling, and Education.
Award amount varies. Eligible applicants mus…

Written by Jim Mendoza - jmendoza@kgmb9.com

The prisoners are steps away from being released. They're building a bridge as much as they are a place for kids to play.

"It makes me feel good about myself, giving back to the community," Ridao said.

The playground project at Kauluwela has been a long time coming. It's been ten years since the school last had playground equipment. Friday, kindergartners saw it for the first time.

M…

The makers of Hidden Valley Salad Dressings are now accepting applications for the 2009-10 Love Your Veggies grant program. The purpose of the program is to help schools execute innovative programs that will increase the access to, and consumption of, fresh fruits and vegetables in the lunchroom.

Ten $10,000 grants will be awarded to elementary schools across the US to support the development of a vegetable program offering fresh produce to be i…

BY KATIE ANDERSON
ken.korczak@pequotlakesecho.com
PineandLakes.com

One of the parking lots at Eagle View Elementary School will serve a much bigger purpose this school year.

The parking lot where school buses drop off and pick up students will now be used for Eagle View's Peaceful Playground program.

Colorfully painted games now adorn the formerly unadorned lot, including a number and alphabet line, four-square and bean bag tosses, and it will ev…

UnitedHealthcare and Youth Service America are offering the UnitedHealth HEROES service-learning grant program for youth-led community education projects in selected U.S. states. These grants of up to $1,000 support teachers, service-learning coordinators, and students in the health professions to implement service-learning projects around childhood obesity and to engage children and youth ages 5 to 25 as volunteers.

Use this grant to fund Peacef…

Did I get enough exercise today? How many calories did I burn? Am I getting good quality sleep? How many steps and miles did I walk today? If these questions seem interesting and you want answers check out a new product called Fitbit Tracker.

View calories, steps and distance on the Fitbit Tracker itself. You can login to the Fitbit website to see even more detailed data and also participate in collaborative fitness goals with friends, family and…

Following the theme of this past week, today we are introducing you to the Second Edition Peaceful Playgrounds Workshop Materials. The materials include
program overview video, workshop training visuals,teacher workshop handouts and facilitator notes. Everything you need for your own on site training for implementing Peaceful Playgrounds.

Hear what a principal has to say about Peaceful Playgrounds.

With our new pricing structure you get the Peaceful Playgrounds Instructional Games DVD's within the Comprehensive Peaceful Playgrounds Program Kit.

Now it is easier than ever to spread the power of the Peaceful Playgrounds Program!

A ground-breaking set of three DVD's and three accompanying Rules Guides is now available, that can be used by teachers and students alike, to easily learn how many exciting and constructive playground games ar…

Complete Playground Blueprints

The blueprints are age appropriate and insure that appropriate game activities are available to all children.

There are 4 Playground Blueprints included:

* Preschool & Kindergarten
* Primary(Grades K-3)
* Upper Elementary (Grades 3-6)
* Field Markings (Grades 1-6)

Each Blueprint lists suggestions for painting, placement, and recommended game markings for your asphalt playground layout. The Field Markin…