Families
Children deserve joyful, playful learning experiences this summer and beyond. This toolkit is meant to help guide how play and physical activity should be included as part of children’s daily lives.
Tools for Families:
April 23, 2021
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Recess Advocacy: Educators and Administrators
Educators and Administrators
Play provides opportunities for children to reduce stress, explore feelings, and form relationships with peers. For more than a year, children remained socially distanced from their peers and adjusted to a new way of schooling. As we shift from remote learning back to in-person school, the importance of play and recess must be at the forefront of the conversation around reopening schools and helping children adjust to a changed educational environment.
Tools for Educators:
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Recess Advocacy Toolkit: Get the Toolkit
In addition to the individual topic-based PDFs above, the complete Recess Advocacy Toolkit is available to read or download as a PDF below.
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Recess Advocacy Toolkit: Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
The creation of this toolkit was made possible by The Grable Foundation and Remake Learning Tomorrow Grants.
Special thanks to the following organizations for their contributions and guidance in the creation of this toolkit. Their work on the Recess Advocacy Team has been instrumental in creating this toolkit and in the ongoing advocacy efforts. Each organization brings to the table their own expertise and perspective:
- Action for Healthy Kids
- Allegheny County Health Department
- A+ Schools
- ATL Parent Like a Boss (Parent LAB)
- Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC
- Department of Health and Physical Activity, University of Pittsburgh
- Let’s Move Pittsburgh
- Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy
- Women for a Healthy Environment
Questions & Feedback
For questions or suggestions, please contact recess@tryingtogether.org.
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Recess Advocacy Toolkit: Families quote
“I hope we learn the lessons from this year and add more time for recess and play. Health and wellness matters. Our children need childhoods. I truly believe more play will benefit all kids.”
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Recess Advocacy Toolkit: Educators & Administrators quote
“Personally, I have witnessed over the years that students who have quality play/recess experiences generally exhibit better self esteem. Also, students who play together learn to negotiate and communicate with one another more reasonably.”
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About the Recess Advocacy Toolkit
The Recess Advocacy Toolkit is designed to be a resource for educators and families on the importance of recess and play for the healthy social-emotional growth of children and includes:
- information on different types of play;
- research to inform educators and administrators on the benefits of recess;
- testimonials and tips from Physical Education teachers; and
- template emails and social media posts for digital advocacy.
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March 31, 2021
Strategic Roadmap 2018 – 2022
In 2017, LaPiana Consulting guided the Board of Directors and staff through a strategic planning process to reflect on the organization’s history and growth. We considered the initial problem we sought to solve, progress we had made, and what more needed to be done; refined our mission; and articulated a vision statement to serve as our “northstar”. Finally, we identified four goals that would drive our work forward.
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Midway Report
Never has there been a better example for why Trying Together embarked on real-time strategic planning, than these past couple years. As the organization is acutely aware of how quickly the world is changing and the importance of having charted a long-term direction with the flexibility to respond rapidly, Trying Together now finds itself at the midway point of this journey.
Since these strategic goals are being prioritized through 2022, Trying Together has highlighted within this midway report its success in meeting these, and others that require continued perseverance and reconsideration.
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March 29, 2021
Parenting Together Pathway
The Parenting Together Pathway is a video-based learning series to provide high-quality information on early childhood development to parents and caregivers in Allegheny County and surrounding areas.
