Safe Return to Play & Recess Guidelines

  1. Updates

Playworks is helping schools continue to reimagine recess.

For the past 24 years, Playworks has partnered with elementary schools to help kids stay active and build valuable social-emotional skills through play. As schools prepare re-opening plans, we want to help provide resources for implementing both in-school and virtual play or recess experiences. We developed Recess Guidelines to include options for what recess could look like based on CDC and state guidelines as of July 2020. We know states, districts, and individual schools are developing many plans for reopening, and no matter what variation of online or in-person experiences they offer next school year, Playworks is here to help.

View the Recess Guidelines


COVID-19 is changing the way we move, interact, and play on or off the playground.

As we move toward a new school year that will be impacted by COVID-19, we need to approach play differently. This game guide will help with transitioning to safe and healthy play and is appropriate for adaptations of the school experience for kids. It uses the Playworks SEL Game Guide and The Aspen Institute’s Return to Play Guidelines to break down the return to play into three phases by using a stoplight system to define risk categories. The recommendations below will help you understand how games can safely be integrated as kids, teachers, and school staff go back to school.

Risk categories are assigned relative to other ways of participating in that game or activity, based on the public health and scientific understandings of COVID-19 and how it can be transmitted as of July 2020. Activities are segmented into three types of risk posed both to participants and others.

 

Download the Safe Return to Play Guide

 

For more information about Playworks or any of our programs please contact info@playworks.org.

More Updates


June 20, 2024

Games to Play this Summer ›

Summertime is here!  The first few weeks of summer bring fun and excitement and the return of free time and fun, seasonal activities. But as the summer stretches on, it…

Kids playing jumprope
Kids playing jumprope

June 11, 2024

Playworks New England and Hasbro Team Up to Celebrate the Inaugural International Day of Play in Rhode Island on June 11 ›

Pawtucket, R.I. – The United Nations has declared June 11 as the inaugural International Day of Play. To celebrate, Playworks New England and Hasbro, Inc. will formally launch a new…

May 29, 2024

2024 International Day of Play ›

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted June 11 as the International Day of Play. This global celebration was established to champion and protect children’s right to play. On this…