What happens when 1000 volunteers come together to renovate an ailing elementary school? 

Peaceful Playgrounds Founder, Dr. Melinda Bossenmeyer describes her experience and learning from this unique experience with School Pride, a new NBC reality show which airs each Friday evening.

Transformation with Peaceful Playgrounds

In addition to the playground renovation many other changes occured .  Read this month's  featured article to learn more about the transformation as experienced by students and staff, as the new facility unfolded.   Read on....

Parents in California Can Sue District for not

Physical Education Instructions

Providing Physical Eduction

A California Court of Appeal ruled that parents may sue a school or district that is not providing students the minimum amount of physical education mandated by state law. One small survey showed that more than half the state's schools were not providing the required 200 minutes every 10 days for elementary-school students, or 400 minutes over that period for middle- and high-schoolers. San Francisco Chronicle

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Each year since the inception of the Champions for Healthy Kids program, the General Mills Foundation has awarded 50 grants of $10,000 each to community-based groups like this that develop creative ways to help youth adopt a balanced diet and physically active lifestyle.

Deadline for Applications: December 15, 2010

Application link.

Remember to include Peaceful Playgrounds in your grant application as we were selected as a model program.

Peaceful Playgrounds is a evidence-based Recess and physical activity program for schools and parks. Peaceful Playgrounds allows schools to add 100 permanent games and markings, painted on their playground through stencils provided with the program. Materials included in a comprehensive kit, provide the tools needed to make your playground peaceful. Documented key benefits include: more physically active children, increase in children participating in games, decrease in bullying, as well as decrease in playground conflicts and injuries.

 Great for classroom centers,  movement stations, rainy days, YMCA's, after school  physical activity programming, APE and many other uses.

There are six rug games:  Alphabet Grid, Number Grid, Target, Balance Beams, Hopscotch, and Bean Bag Toss.

Some academic concepts include: Alphabet Grid; letter sounds, letter identification, and spelling.

Number Grid: adding, subtracting, sequencing and number identification.

Watch for January release.