Win a $20,000 Playground Makeover for your child’s school!

School children live for recess.  Everyday when I pick my little guy up from school I ask him how his day was.  Almost without fail he responds with what he did or didn’t get to do during playtime.  We live in San Antonio, Texas where it is HOT so the kids don’t always get to go outside to play, but he lets me know what he did for playtime in the classroom.  Big Brother is only in Pre-k this year so it’s not like he has a whole lot of recess time in the 3 hours he’s at school, but I know that when he moves into the older grades his recess time will really not increase that much, if at all.

When I was in elementary school we had a 15 minute recess in the morning, a 30 minute recess after lunch (a total of an hour break), and P.E. every day.  Recent studies show that as many as 40% of schools have reduced recess time in order to spend more time preparing for standardized tests.   Now, in many schools children only get -1- 15 minute playtime after lunch.

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Does anyone else see the madness of that?  We take away a child’s ability to exercise their legs and imagination while at the same time expecting to sit still and focus for 6 hours.  Inadequate playtime has the ability to affect behavior and concentration in the classroom and also leads to inadequate playskills like turn-taking, negotiating, and resolving conflicts. In short, by reducing recess time in favor of studying for standardized tests we are actually decreasing the average child’s ability to perform well on those tests.

Danimals is trying to do their part to change some of that.  In their Rally for Recess promotion, Danimals, is giving 5 lucky schools a $20,000 playground makeover!  Each day they are also instantly giving away 1 recess related prize.  Participation is very simple.  You can purchase specially marked Danimals products or send for a free code by mail.  Then you to to RallyForRecess.com create an account (it will ask for your school), and enter your codes!  The schools with the most points on Feb. 8, 2012 win!  easy, peasy!

Our children LOVE Danimals Smoothies and have been drinking them for years.  I can feel great about giving them to my kids as snacks because there is no high fructose corn syrup and no artificial colors or flavors.

Disclosure:  I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Danimals and received a gift card to facilitate my review and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.