LEGO® Education Early Years wins Gold and Silver Awards

LEGO® Education Early Years has scooped Gold and Silver in the prestigious Practical Pre-School Awards 2012.

Our LEGO® DUPLO® Wild Animals Set has achieved the Gold Award and our Community Services Set was also given the Silver Award in the results which have just been announced.

Here’s what the testers said about our Wild Animals Set:
“These were very attractive to our two-to-three year olds; they had to use the picture for guidance but we found that this was not really big enough to see each animal area properly. The set helped to increase the children’s knowledge and understanding of animals and their habitats. We liked the fact it came with its sturdy tub and lid. The children really enjoyed it in some imaginative ways.”

And this is what they said about the Community Services Set:
“The children thoroughly enjoyed using this and because it is such a large set, they could play together in groups. The set linked in well with numerous areas of learning. The people and vehicles enhanced the LEGO®, encouraging imaginative role play. It is easily packed away into the storage box.”

Independent reviews are very important to LEGO Education as they help us to continually improve our products and we are delighted with these awards.

To see more about the awards and the reviews you can access them via the digital catalogue on the Practical Pre-School magazine website. 

To find out more about LEGO Education’s range of Early Years products, visit our website.

Animal magic

How can you turn your standard bricks into a wild animal sanctuary? By the addition of our Wild Animals Set reviewed in this month’s Teach Nursery magazine.

Here’s what Teach Nursery had to say:

“This set of brightly coloured chunky pieces from LEGO® were great for stimulating talk about wild animals, especially as the creatures came in pairs of mother and baby, which allowed a certain amount of matching and sorting. There were some lovely appealing characters – we particularly liked the killer whales and the crocodiles – but the lack of additional building pieces limited the play somewhat, so we felt that this is best viewed as an ‘add-on’ set to be used with existing collections of LEGO® DUPLO®. We also felt that this might be an expensive item for smaller settings on limited budgets, but felt that for lovers of DUPLO who wanted to increase their existing resources, this would be a lovely edition.”

Here are some great ideas for using the Wild Animals Set:

• Maths
  • Counting – ask the children to count how many animals have orange on them? How many live in the water? How many on land?
  • Sorting – ask the children to sort the animals by:
    • Size
    • Colour
    • Type
    • Where the animals come from
• Language – ask the children to name the animals and describe them and then tell stories about them
• Creativity – ask the children to draw or paint the animals or create environments for them; either from DUPLO bricks or from other material that you have in your nursery.

For more ideas take a look at the LEGO Education website.

Education Resource Awards – Wild Animals Set shortlisted

The LEGO® Education Wild Animals Set was shortlisted for Best Early Years Resource-non ICT at the Education Resource Awards. On display at the Education Show, this set links well into Knowledge and Understanding of the World with a variety of animals from different habitats.

On Friday the 16^th March, part of our LEGO Education team, including two of our LEGO trainers John Pinkney and Chris Carver, attended the awards show held at the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham.

Like the Oscars for the Education world, it was an extravagant event with a three course meal and a funny Lucy Porter (comedian) as host for the night. Unfortunately the Wild Animals Set didn’t make the judges cut but we were honoured to be considered.

With over 250 entries, the judging panel of 25 educational professionals considered all aspects of the entries for two days. Judges made decisions on which products ‘make a practical impact on learning and the day-to-day work of the teachers in the classroom‘.

The judges felt our resource ‘represented a really valuable learning resource for early years settings’. Also, they noted ‘it is very good quality and judges particularly liked the realistic representation of the animals and their moving parts‘.

LEGO Education shortlisted for Education Resource Awards

We’re delighted to have been shortlisted for this year’s Education Resource Awards in the Best Early Years Resource or Equipment – non ICT category for our Wild Animals Set.

Organised by the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) and Brilliant Marketing Solutions Ltd., the ERAs highlight the quality and diversity of educational products and resources, excellent educational establishments and the most inspiring members of the teaching profession.

The winners will be announced at a gala event later this week at The National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham on the second evening of The Education Show 2012 (Friday 16 March 2012) – we’ll keep you posted!