Early Skill Development may be the key to a successful future!
Since our inception, we have been dedicated to making learning fun and engaging for children. At the same time we’ve also strived to provide parents and educators with the right resources and tools to raise responsible thinkers and doers.
The future is nearer than we think and the window of opportunity to ensure your child is prepared for tomorrow is extremely small. Most think tanks believe the key skills of the future will not be technical knowledge because universal access to information and automation have almost made those skills commonplace. They firmly believe that human skills or life skills are what will ensure success in the world of tomorrow. What are these skills? Simply put, they are skills that are unique (at least for now) to humans; skills that help us innovate, adapt and collaborate. So, key skills would be critical thinking, problem solving, analytical skills, communication and emotional intelligence (especially empathy)!
Keeping this in mind we’ve focused on providing a host of these essential 21st century skills in combination with curriculum linked maths concepts. Our games like Galaxy Raiders, Xing, Dino Quest, Crafty Puggles etc. not only help kids learn and practice basic maths but also improve their life skills and moral values.
However, just developing skills for personal success would be a myopic approach for any responsible parent or educator. It is important, now more than ever, to raise our kids to be compassionate towards all living things and our environment too! Given humanity’s largesse over the last century it is extremely crucial that we develop sustainability skills in this current generation so that we may never again put our planet in peril.
The United Nations has set this agenda in a structured manner through a series of common goals that humanity must achieve by 2030. The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs not only tell us what needs to be done to protect and preserve our home but also what steps need to be taken to educate the next generation to become responsible and empathetic. We’ve used this as a blueprint along with 21st Century Skill development to shape our entire educational framework for early education.
Earlier this year, we launched Lord Of The Bins, a family card game about waste management and segregation at source. The feedback was overwhelming. Whenever we had kids play it there was a sense of wonder when they could trade their cards for colourful gems! Nidhi Gokhale, parent to 9 year old Aaryan, probably summarised it the best – “My husband and I wanted the entire family to adopt eco-friendly practices but we never managed to convince the kids as to why it was necessary. With this game, suddenly they think trash is fun and now segregation is a fun activity. Now, they search for things to do like beach cleanups or tree planting drives and pressure us to join them. It’s amazing!”
This is the biggest learning for us as a brand over the last 3 years — if you give kids a reason to enjoy learning, their curiosity and desire to do it has absolutely no bounds. Make learning fun and they will achieve the impossible!
With this philosophy we’ve come up with another unique product line to be launched in July. Our Amazing Oceans, is a 4-in-1 activity kit, aiming to introduce kids as young as 5 to an incredible experience about the lifeline of our planet. The ocean is a magnificent place and we know so little about it. We aim to introduce kids to this mysterious world, explain why it is important to our survival, discover the creatures within and learn some amazing never-heard-before facts.
Our Amazing Oceans will have a 12 page Illustrated Book, a 96 piece Activity Puzzle, 32 Curiosity Cards, 12 Wonder Cards, 1 Magic GlassTM and FREE access to over 100+ hours of online activities and games. The goal is to pique their curiosity and probably encourage their inner explorer, scientist, environmentalist or scuba diver within them!
We spoke with Sajid Chougle, co-founder and Creative Director at Luma World, about this new launch. Here are some snippets of this conversation.
Why are we focusing on Sustainable Development and Early Education?
We have always focussed on kindling the curiosity of the kids and giving them the ways and means to explore more to satiate their knowledge. Caring for the environment, caring for nature, emotional intelligence etc. are some of the necessary attributes for developing 21st century skills. Early education sets a strong base for learning. Can help in building curiosity, forming interests.
As per United Nations, ‘Early childhood education in its best form gives opportunities for children to learn through playing’. It brings their ideas to life, builds relationships and broadens their world. It sets in motion a positive cycle of learning throughout a child’s life.
What is the goal with launching this product line?
We want to – Make lifelong learners, curious thinkers and teach Moral values.
The knowledge children get from ourgames go beyond the syllabus and also help develop the Emotional Quotient. It has been proven through research that children who develop high emotional intelligence become more successful in life. Also playing games with your children helps you connect emotionally with them. According to us, raising a responsible, empathetic and curious child should be a universal parenting goal! So, we design everything to help parents achieve that!
What would you learn from Our Amazing Oceans?
Our goal, through Our Amazing Oceans, is to provide kids with interesting information about the oceans and its conservation.
We want kids around the world to be fascinated by our oceans, discover more about its living wonders and understand the threats it faces. We want their curiosity to drive them to participate in environmental conservation.
Our amazing Oceans would help kids,
- Learn about ocean zones and their features
- Learn about life in the different zones
- Learn about conserving our oceans
- UN SDG 14 - Life Below Water
- Activity based learning
- Data Interpretation
- Critical Thinking, Problem Solving & Visual Reasoning
- Understanding Risk & Reward
- Social Learning → caring for the environment
Also there is a unique legacy element in the game that we call Grow with the GameTM. It’s something that we’ve consciously decided to add into almost all our products starting with Our Amazing Oceans. We want all products – whether games, activities, books or flashcards to be expandable to “grow along with the child” and unlock additional levels as the child acquires new abilities and skills. This not only keeps the product relevant over a longer period providing more value to our stakeholders but also ensures that every learner is continuously challenged to develop the best version of themselves!
Additional elements like stickers allow the kids to expand their creativity by using them in their own unique ways. Adding to that, we have over 100 additional hours of learning resources for those who want to go beyond the game and expand their knowledge and understanding about the oceans.
What next after Our Amazing Oceans?
Our commitment to Sustainable Development Goals is for the long term and we wish to create leaders of tomorrow that are empathetic and responsible towards nature. We think that for creating this empathy, the first step has to be to create curiosity about the different aspects of nature. To create this curiosity, we will be taking up different SDGs In the coming months through our offerings.
Some of the SDGs that we would be working on in our new offerings are,
- Life on Land (SDG 15)
- Climate Action (SDG 13)
- Sustainable Cities (SDG 11)
Just like Our Amazing Oceans, these new offerings would also create curiosity through activity puzzles, curiosity cards, wonder cards, activity books and much more.
We would also be taking up some unique topics that are often ignored in the curriculum like,
- The Secret Life of Microbes
- How Big is Space?
- Why is History Important?
Our Amazing Oceans is expected to launch in July. Get regular updates about the launch and exclusive discounts for pre-orders here.
