Peter played with puzzling puzzles and put the pieces of the puzzle in proper order! Now that was quite a puzzling tongue twister, wasn’t it? Puzzles have always been a classic free-play activity for kids. Puzzles come in a variety of types, patterns, and shapes, with different levels of difficulties.

Puzzles keep the children engaged in some sort of ‘mental workout’ which wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. When children are presented with a challenging puzzle, their left brain and right brain are at work together. The left brain prompts logic and the right brain demonstrates creativity, which are essential skills required while solving a puzzle.

Here are a few things that children learn through puzzle play:

Spatial skills: When kids solve a puzzle, they are told to look at each piece carefully to be able to place them correctly, to ultimately form ‘the bigger picture’. Adults use words like turn, flip, and rotate to indicate positioning of the jumbled pieces. Children start using their imaginative skills to figure what the ‘picture’ would look like, if a particular piece was joint to the other. Spatial awareness develops as the child is now becomes aware of how different objects relate to each other and how moving one object affects the other.

Problem-solving skills: Every piece of the puzzle is important. Piece by piece forms a complete picture. The first step to solving a puzzle is to unjumble the pieces and sort them in order. This gives children the chance to learn problem solving. They learn that it is more effective to break down the complexity of the task and deal with it in an organized manner.

Improves memory: Puzzles are great brain boosting activities. The mind is alert and most active in trying to make connections, remembering patters, and matching colors. Attempting to figure-out the puzzle in the first attempt might take a longer time. However, as the child tries over and over again, he gains confidence. At later stages, solving the same puzzle may seem like a cakewalk.

Develops persistence: Cracking the puzzle is like a eureka moment! The joy and confidence of the preschooler is unmatched. However, the process is quite frustrating at times. Children encounter many hurdles and go through an emotional roller coaster in an attempt to solving the puzzle. In the process, children learn to deal with their emotions and be persistent until they get it right.

Highlights Presents Hidden Pictures Puzzle Town App (3+ years)

To give puzzle play a new dimension and make screen time FUN for kids, Highlights introduced the ‘Hidden Pictures Puzzle Town App’ for children. The app soon become a favorite amongst the early learners and went-on to win a Platinum Award for the Best Mobile Game of 2017.

The app creates excitement amongst puzzlers and rewards them on every milestone achieved. It’s invigorating for your little ones to unlock an animated character and collect points on their way to manifest a personalized ‘puzzle town’.

Hidden Pictures Puzzle Town consists of the following:

• 50 puzzles
• Weekly 5 new puzzles
• 5 different kinds of puzzles, including Highlights’ famous Hidden Pictures scenes
• Adorable characters and accessories to enhance play and personalization
• Additional bonus mini games that help earn more collectibles

Highlights’ puzzle gameplay aims to transform your children into the ‘best versions of themselves’.

• Hidden pictures within the puzzle promote vocabulary building
• Multiple attempts encourage letter recognition and critical thinking
• Finding their way through the ‘mazes’ help strengthen problem-solving and fine motor skills
• Matching and pairing activities build pre-math skills through visual memory
• Identifying an object within the puzzled picture, develops cognitive skills and improves memory
• Intensity of puzzle increases through adaptive learning technology, as the child becomes more confident

From emotional skills, to cognitive development, and self-esteem, puzzles seem to have obvious benefits on learners. Solving puzzles in the least possible time encourages healthy competition amongst children. Continuous improvement happens when children attempt and re-attempt the same puzzle multiple times.

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Play is a powerful activity for young learns. Yes, you read that correctly! Studies suggest that the best learning happens when children are encouraged to play. A play-based learning environment fosters freedom, creativity, and encourages interactions through hands-on activities. There is a beauty in unstructured play, where the students are free to choose their own activity based on their level of interest.

Learning while playing helps children develop numerous skills. Children interact with others while playing and this helps them to develop their social skills, as they become more confident in conversing with peers in the classroom.

Even if it looks like your kids are having a fun time at play, there is a positive transformation happening within them. Play has a major impact in bringing out the best in children in the following ways:

• Fosters socio-emotional development
• Think creatively
• Discover new things while playing
• Develop critical thinking
• Use problem-solving techniques
• Increases physical activity
• Chance to expand vocabulary

Learning through play never stops! Be it the early learners, elementary graders, or even high schoolers, learning through play and trial-and-error method doesn’t go out of fashion. Play activities prepare children to be ready for the outside world, as these champions are now already experienced at taking risks and finding ways to solve challenging problems.

LEGO® Education encourages playful learning

For over 37 years, LEGO® Education has worked on making ’learning through play’ a part of every classroom. By collaborating with educators, LEGO® Education provides various solutions that make learning fun and impactful.

Combining the core concepts from Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths (STEM), LEGO® Education curates hands-on, child-friendly kits that are like prized possessions.

Coding Express by LEGO® Education

Children uncover the boxes to discover a new world of coding, at the age where other kids are only having tea parties with their dolls. One such example is LEGO® Education’s Coding Express (2+ years). Children not only find it amazing to play with blocks and build their own ‘train’, but are overjoyed when they can make the train move, stop, and change directions. Without even realizing the child is learning pre-coding concepts and using his cognitive capabilities to the fullest. Now isn’t that brilliant!

STEAM Park by LEGO® Education

Spending time at an ‘amusement park’ is such a fun thing to do for kids! However, building their own ‘amusement park’ sounds way cooler. The STEAM Park is therefore designed to playfully engage the 3+ year olds to become architects of their own imagination and collaborate with their classmates to construct a dynamic theme park. Using a special selection of LEGO® DUPLO® bricks, children love recreating the scene of a ‘theme park’ with lots of moving rides, fun games, and interesting characters. This definitely seems like the most legit way to head-start your little one’s journey and allow them to later connect the dots when they actually study about concepts like motion, gears, and measurement, in higher grades

WeDo 2.0 Core Set by LEGO® Education

What is space research? What are the core elements of Earth? Why do objects remain in resting position, unless an external force is applied to them? We are sure your fourth graders must be very keen on knowing aspects of earth, physics, space science, and engineering.

Giving them a ready answer to these questions may limit the child’s knowledge. It is actually more beneficial to let students conduct their own investigations and present findings themselves, before providing them a theoretical reasoning.

That’s where the WeDo 2.0 Core Set by LEGO® Education comes handy. The kit is designed for hands-on STEM solutions that combine LEGO bricks, classroom adaptable software, engaging projects to promote discovery-based learning.

Each of the invigorating activities keeps the students glued to the tasks and develops capable 21st century skills like; programming, prototyping, analyzing and interpretation.

Caution Parents! Your kids might just get addicted to the play way of learning and wouldn’t mind spending hours on delving into thought-provoking activities.

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Reading is not something that happens overnight. Children are not born readers but they need to be steered in the right direction by an adult to be able to develop this wonderful skill. Every child is gifted differently and their learning styles may not be the same. Therefore, it is unfair to compare your child with another preschooler of the same age.

Learning to speak happens quite naturally amongst children, as they start by picking up words from conversations being spoken by adults around them. The child starts by learning to speak his own mother-tongue, as it is spoken most at home. This seems rather simple, doesn’t it?

However, learning to read is different from being able to speak in a particular language. Though the child may speak ‘English’ quite well, he may not know how to read the words or connect his vocal speech to the word characters in a book.

The four stages of language development are; Listening, Speaking, Reading, and lastly Writing. Reading is at stage ‘three’, that is after the child has learnt to listen & speak. Reading is a slightly complex process affected by a number of factors. Reading literacy requires practice, proper instructions, and the development is a gradual process occurring in different stages.

Ever wondered what are the various stages of learning to read?

Explore the magnificent world of ‘books’ and help your little kiddos embark on their reading journeys by taking notes on the following phased approach.

The Emergent pre-reader (between age 6 months to 6 years)

This stage is all about discovery. Children are still exploring the world around them and trying to make connections. They are constantly observing words on sign-boards, television shows, in their classrooms, and on their handheld tabs. The letters seem familiar to them, as they have studied their ABCs in classrooms. While exploring, they discover that when letters are combined together, they form words. Previous knowledge about phonics helps them identify the ‘letter sound’ and apply a technique called blending to join the letter sounds into a word.

Children start by recognizing and naming things by the shape of it. They know what an apple looks like and they can identify a bat, and a cupboard. Instructional worksheets with simple CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words are presented to the child at this stage. The worksheet has simple three letter words with corresponding pictures of the objects. The child observes the word and finds a meaningful connection to the picture right next to it.

There is something called as ‘sight words’ that are commonly used in English language. Some examples of sight words are; ‘at’, ‘the’, ‘them’ and ‘they’. These words don’t follow the phonics rules and must be learnt as it is. It is beneficia to have a ‘sight wall’ in classrooms and your home where the child will be exposed to these words over & over again. This helps the child memorize the ‘sight words’ easily, making them more prepared for reading.

Many parents owe the success of their child’s reading capabilities to Kutubee. This app, makes reading fun for the emergent readers by making available a vast library of e-books. The illustrations, colors, and animated characters not only make the story come to life, but also present the sentence in easily legible format for the young child to practice reading.

The Novice reader (between age 6 years to 7 years)

These early bird readers are familiarizing themselves with printed words and sounds. They no longer require an ‘image’ to associate the words. Meaningful connections are formed basis the vocabulary stored in their memory. At this stage, the child begins to read stories with little or no help from an adult. They apply phonetic rules to four – five letter printed words and learn to pronounce them correctly.

Often children are presented with ‘short stories’ with simple sentences. The words that describe the main character ‘pink pig’ or ‘big bad wolf’ are repeated through the story to drill the context clearly.

KutuBee makes the job of the teacher/parents easy by recording the audio of children while they practice reading. In this way, the adult can correct the child wherever needed and give him guidance to read words with more fluency.

The Transitional reader (between 7 years to 9 years)

During this phase children get to read easy chapters from school text books and novels with increasingly greater level of fluency. The sentence is broken down by the child and read in parts, if it is too long for them to read. The child re-reads the paragraph to make meaning out of the printed matter.

Usually the font used in these stories are still large and the words are evenly spaced out. The chapters are short and limited to 3 to 4 pages.

Kutubee has a good collection of stories for the transitional reader. Books about fantasy, adventure and those which have a moral are more interesting for the children to read.

The Fluent reader (between 9 years to 15 years)

The fourth stage is when children finally have the confidence to read and are on a journey to expand their vocabulary and gain knowledge from reading. This is when they start focusing on studies through textbooks, read newspaper to stay updated with current affairs, and refer to articles on the ‘web’ to research on various topics. Learners gain new ideas, undergo various experiences, and are building strong attitudes.

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Reading is a lifelong journey that needs constant support from a variety of sources such as parents, teachers and friends. But these are not the only sources that one needs to rely on when instilling a love of reading your child. In recent years, the rise of companies offering services for a fee has risen due to the immense reliance on technology as well as the ease of interaction with it.

Many parents have therefore turned to service providers who can reliably provide them with a tool or resources that parents are able to use on a frequent basis. One such tool is Highlights. What is Highlights you might ask? Happy to oblige.

Highlights is a book and magazine vendor that provides engaging material that stimulates creativity and curiosity in children up to 12 years of age. Deliveries of all material are made monthly so that you have a never-ending supply of engaging material for your children. Let’s have a look at what magazines Highlights stock.

Highlights Magazine

Each monthly issue of this magazine enables generations of kids (aged 6-12 years) grow into their best self by being curious, creative, caring and confident. This magazine also brings out the vivid imagination in children, expands their world view and outlook and keeps their mind active and challenged in each issue.

Hello Magazine

The Hello magazine is targeted at little babies and toddlers who just want to be entertained. The best part is that the pages are able to be wiped clean in an instant so that you will have a clean book every time.

Now, let us look at the book clubs that are provided by Highlights. In all these book clubs, you will receive materials and support themed around a particular topic like preschool. This will ensure that your child can continue to build upon the specific skills and values taught in each book club.

Early Learners

These subscription boxes come with grade specific reading materials and activities that will keep each child active and engaged until the next monthly issue arrives. Each subscription box comes with fun activities that do not stress the child out. Tools like a double-sided wipe clean practice board are also included to facilitate learning. The box also contains rewards for wonderful progress, like stickers and a progress poster to keep the children happy and motivated.

Hidden Pictures Lovers

For the children who love investigating text and photos for really small details, we have got just the right tool for you! The Hidden Pictures magazine will enable children to be captivated by pages of poems and mazes, along with other hidden-object activities. This touches upon much of the skills that children will need later on in school such as reading and creative thinking.

Puzzle Fans

Each issue contains puzzles, secret codes, word games along with number and logic activities to boost the brain power of your child. These activities focus on the writing, reading and math skills together with other skills to develop your little puzzle solver!

Top Secret Adventurers

For the adventurous, this book club is themed around a big mystery that your child must solve in order to complete the mission. They will get to crack the code, dig for clues and then follow these clues to glory and beyond. All while being safely at home!

Highlights also have digital tools and resources to complement the physical tools that your children interact with. These include a mobile app to explore the concept of shapes, a critical concept which needs to be understood well for maths.

Highlights has a very comprehensive offering of products that will satisfy your child’s craving for challenging and fun material to read and interact with.

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The Carolina Kits 3D Flex program comprises of individual student kits that enable each student to embark on a year-long Chemistry or Biology lab program. Teachers are equally well supported, with a copy of all student material plus tailored material for teachers included in every instructor kit – this material also includes all digital resources needed for teachers to conduct a guided lab experiment online

Each lab experiment and its learning outcomes is delivered by hands-on investigation, teacher demonstrations through an online format, as well as digital student investigations to supplement their physical learning. Students also receive all their necessary materials and tools in a handy storage box for easy packing and portability – perfect for those living room science experiments that need to disappear in a flash!

This program is very versatile and assures students and teachers that they will be receiving authentic lab experiments that replicates the very feeling of tinkering with science. Be it at home, in class or online, each experiment is guaranteed instructional consistency – ensuring that each student is able to achieve the same outcomes irrespective of location.

No matter what lesson mode the student is in, both synchronous and asynchronous, these lab kits are able to deliver the same outcomes across learning modes, ensuring that there is flexibility in learning. Ultimately, flexibility is important when teaching a student a new concept.

The Carolina Kits 3D Flex program strives to provide consistent and unique lab experiences for all students. This ensures that these kits can be deployed in a school environment alongside a curriculum to enhance the knowledge of science uniformly across individual classes and grade levels.

The biology program focuses on 4 main topics that are the core foundations of the program. In the topic From Molecules to Organisms, various sub-topics like food and nutrient analysis and biofuels are covered.

Next, the Ecosystems topic explores how small actions can affect a large ecosystem and covers sub-topics ranging from group behavior and social insects to oil spill remediation.

The third topic, Heredity, focuses on how humans, plants, and animals are formed and covers sub-topics like chromosome simulation.

The last and final topic in the biology program is the Biological Evolution module that deals with the combined role that genetics and biology play in our lives. This module thus covers topics like natural selection and genetic kinship.

Likewise, the chemistry program also has 4 main topics that enhance the understanding of content. This is done through a variety of sub-topics that present targeted information and require students to extract the relevant information needed for mastery of the concept.

In summary, the Carolina Kits 3D Flex program is a robust tool that can enhance the pursuit of science knowledge in a world dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The program ensures that each student receives instructional consistency across various environments while having fun and learning about science in a safe manner.

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Introducing a modern revolution to classrooms, schools are keeping up with the trend of combining the power of technology with the teaching expertise of educators to introduce to children new ways of learning. Though whiteboards and markers are powerful tools, its scope is limited. The explanation by a teacher with the help of drawings on a whiteboard is restrained to the drawing capabilities of the teacher and physical constrains of the writing board.

When technology is integrated into classrooms, the opportunities are limitless. One can only imagine the depth and creativity that can be added to a subject to make the student thorough with the lessons. Moreover, audio-visual teaching aids have proven to be a clear winner, as the retention power of the child increases by watching videos, sound, pictures, and graphs, on a particular topic.

The use of technology also encourages the student to proactively take-up assignments and add their touch of creativity to it. Using their personal handheld tabs, students are often more actively engaged in project work when technology is integrated in school for the learning process.

The TechnoKids Computer Curriculum is a step in this direction. TechnoKids is specially designed to engage children in computer activities in sync with the K-12 school curriculum objectives. The platform focuses on project-based learning and makes available computerized lesson plans along with other resources for students. Each of the TechnoKids project kit includes a curriculum planning guide, a student workbook and handbooks, besides the integration of software into the classrooms which can be used by unlimited number of teachers & students.

Advantages of integrating TechnoKids lessons into the teaching curriculum:

Focusing on teamwork:

Project-planning requires teamwork and learning to work in a team at an early age, gives the child a good start to getting used to what it would be like in a professional office set-up. Collaborating with peers in the class to complete a ‘project’ gives an opportunity to the child to hone various skills. Sharing ideas requires good communication and the child learns to put across his point-of-view through group assignments. Some children naturally take up the role of a leader. The hidden leadership skill of the student is recognized and he may be assigned more responsible duties to further strengthen the leadership quality. Also being a good team player requires listening skills.

Adding creativity to lessons:

Technology-based projects widen the scope of the students in showcasing their talent. The ‘topic’ of research can be presented creatively without any constraints or restrictions. Original ideas to solutions are encouraged and out-of-the-box thinking is promoted in classrooms. Learners can apply their computer skills to subjects such as ‘Geography’ by showing impressive animations and 3-D models to create a magnificent visual display in class.

Making the curriculum relevant to the outside world:

Integrating technology to the entire teaching-learning process is extremely relevant in today’s tech-savvy world. Children who are trained in school to adopt software and use presentation platforms to display their homework, are more prepared for the outside world. No matter what profession they choose in the future, technology is going to play a vital role. Engineers, marketers, and doctors are all making use of technology to run their work. Hence the transition from education to workplace will be comparatively smoother for students who are familiar with new-age gadgets & platforms.

Supporting well-tested teaching methods:

Limiting the knowledge of the child to textbooks alone and testing them on their memory to recreate the answers on paper is a primitive method of learning. The modern education system offers ample opportunity to the students to not just limit their understanding to ‘workbooks’ but delve further by exploring the web. Students are encouraged to watch videos, stream documentaries, conduct research and further expand their knowledge on the subject. Schools hold debates, discussions, and group presentations to create a healthy competitive environment in class to test the child’s participative skills along with knowledge of the topic.

The integration of technology can make learning interesting for teachers and empower students to gain confidence thereby armouring themselves to face the challenges of a digitally connected world.

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