We all need some playtime.

After working all day or all week, we all want to decompress with some recess. For me, yoga, bouldering, and hiking with my snowboard through knee-deep fluff give me the mental relaxation I need to clear my work-fogged brain. For kids in schools, a game of kickball or tag can make an enormous difference in their learning day.

Caption: Rock, Paper, Scissors decides who goes first for the Game of Switch.

This is the central premise of Playworks’ mission. Playworks is a national non-profit that strives to promote inclusive and active recess that kids need in order to return to the classroom clear headed and ready to learn. It is unfortunate but true that school recess can be the lair of bullies, exclusive games, cliques, or general unsupervised mayhem. Many understaffed or underfunded schools have gone as far as cutting recess down or out entirely due to problems on recess grounds. Playworks sees all of this as an issue that needs correcting, and feels that kids need their recess.

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