LEGO Education and Learning Care group has partnered up, giving 90 schools in Utah and Florida LEGO DUPLO products, in an effort to increase hands-on learning for young children.
During the week of Dec. 3, these partnered schools will host a LEGO DUPLO Family Night, where families with children aged 3-4, both current and prospective students, can explore the LEGO DUPLO sets. The Family Night will include activities engaging the preschoolers and their parents to stimulate imagination and problem solving.
“Early education begins with capturing a child’s interest,” Susan Canizares, chief academic officer, Learning Care Group, said in a press release. “Throughout our portfolio of brands, we encourage opportunities for exploration, hands-on active learning, and self-expression. Partnering with LEGO Education provides us with an engaging way to begin developing our children’s problem-solving and critical-thinking skills.”
The program will in Utah and Fla. will implement the LEGO DUPLO product. This product will ignite young children's creativity and imagination, by providing hands-on learning helping to develop fine-motor skills, an understanding of the world around them, math and literacy skills along with social and emotional understanding.
“Being LEGO smart in preschool is having the ability to explore, express, and share ideas and make sense of the world through hands-on learning.” Stephan Turnipseed, LEGO Education North America president, said in a press release. “Our collaboration with the Learning Care Group provides the opportunity for LEGO Education to enhance preschool learning through engaging, age-appropriate tools based on the power of the brick.”
LEGO DUPLO includes such sets as animals, community vehicles, community services, construction centers, early structures, community workers, early simple machines, push train sets, tech machines, tubes experiments sets, letters sets, brick runner sets, farm, special elements, transportation center sets and much more.
Pamela Radell, senior segment coordinator for Preschool and Elementary for LEGO Education in North America, said more focus is being placed on how primary education will create and develop future citizens, especially with the government program Race to the Top, in providing funds for early childhood education.
'Though LEGO Education has provided hands-on solutions for many years, the changing educational landscape led us to look deeper into what pre-K educators really need to produce successful students,' Radell said. 'Our partnership with the Learning Care Group allows us to do just that. Time and time again we are told how important hands-on education is, especially for this younger age group.'
Radell stated Learning Care Group's knowledge and understanding of classroom settings will help LEGO Education offer better products and curriculum offerings.
'The ability to tune fine motor skills while learning in an experiment, test, rethink environment has proven greatly successful,' she went on to say. 'Through our partnership with Learning Care Group, LEGO Education is working hard to provide the right hands-on learning tools for producing the next generation of creative problem solvers.
LEGO Education began in 1980 to be a hands-on resource for both teachers and students. Their goal is to provide students with the tools they need to be successful. This includes creative thinking, problem solving through interactive and engaging experiences. For more information, please visit www.legoeducation.us.
Learning Care Group is run out of in Novi, Mich. They operate more than 900 schools (corporate and franchise) across 36 states, including the District of Columbia as well as internationally. They serve more than 100,000 children world-wide. Learning Care Group is behind such brands as Childtime Learning Centers, Tutor Time Child Care/Learning Centers, The Children's Courtyard, Montessori unlimited and La Petite Academy. For more information, please visit www.learningcaregroup.com.