What is PEP? The Playground Enhancement Project™ is a proven intervention for 'jump-starting' cooperative game play during recess.(1) PEP channels childrens' abundant energy into positive experiences and skill-building for success in school and beyond.

How does it work? PEP provides field-tested and research-based curriculum resources that caring staff and volunteers use to directly teach and model cooperative games, game-playing skills and game etiquette. The PEP Games Handbook and the PEP Can provide game leaders and students with on-the-spot guidance for choosing and playing games successfully. No one need be an expert. School-wide implementation of PEP reaps broad and sustainable benefits, but even one adult can start making a positive difference by taking PEP to students 1-2 times per week. School counselors will find PEP compatible with efforts to help students alter patterns of social isolation and bullying.

How does PEP benefit students.

1) Social-emotional safety / Improved climate
Research shows PEP decreases incidents of students acting to harm/humiliate others.(1) PEP helps school staff and volunteers attend to the intangible aspects of recess - the social-emotional needs of students and how they are playing together. PEP helps students achieve a sense of 'belonging' among their peers.

2) Physical health / reduction of obesity
Children who feel safer on the playground or while playing games are free to engage in more aerobic movement and skill-building. Students like the PEP Games. They play them repeatedly and teach them to others. When surveyed, 33% of students in grades 1-5 of a school of about 225 students chose a PEP game as their favorite. (1)

3) Cognitive development / learning
Engaging in physical activities stimulates the brain.(25) Active, cooperative game play requires team and individual decision-making, planning, and negotiation that helps children to develop their abilities to remember, conceptualize and communicate. Returning to the classroom after satisfactory play, ready to focus and learn is another benefit of harmonious play, along with spending less time and energy dealing with complaints and conflicts among students after recess.

We have forgotten many age-appropriate games that were part of children's culture a century ago. Games, in general, provide a predictable structure for children to interact with their peers and have fun. Games have long been recognized as a natural way for children to learn and practice a wide spectrum of life skills:
.. .· physical - balance / coordination / movement patterns
.. .· mental - planning / ethical decision-making / negotiation
.. .· emotional - empathy / impulse control / expression

But all games are not the same in their effect on children. Children are not miniature adults. Most children under the age of twelve are not developmentally ready to play culturally-popular, highly competitive sports games successfully, fairly, or on their own.(16) Students who are intimidated or frustrated with competitive games need more options. They need cooperative games that match their developmental needs and capacities.

"The principle difficulty with competitive games is that they prevent players from developing a true sense of 'connectedness' with each other. All human beings experience a need to belong.... Feeling a part of a group is the first step in active participation."-Weinstein/Goodman, Playfair(26)

Cooperative, age-appropriate playground games have been shown to make a difference on school playgrounds.(17) While cooperative games often include elements of individual or team competition, the focus is on cooperative efforts to meet game challenges rather than eliminating or dominating other players in order to win at all costs. Cooperative games are inclusive. Children with all skill levels can comfortably join in, exert themselves and have fun while learning cooperative life skills.

"We live in an increasingly complex and sometimes frightening world in which the quality and harmony of our lives is becoming more and more dependent on our ability to be cooperative and empathic. In searching for a better tomorrow, the learning and refinement of cooperative interaction is perhaps the most important and valuable lesson of all." -Orlick/Pittman, Children in Sports(27)

The 45+ cooperative games in the PEP Games Handbook span a century, and have been tested for fun and workability by many students on many playgrounds over the course of 12 years.