Tech, STEM and Common Core
Power 2015 Prize Winners

Last year’s Eddy Award winners seemed to reflect a hankering for classic learning tools. Among the voters’ favorites were manipulatives for kindergarteners, a felt board set of a well-loved children’s story, and the simple dice games from TENZI. This year’s winners reflect the big influence Common Core, tech and STEM are having on learning products, even the ones for our youngest students. Selected by votes cast by attendees at EDexpo in Atlanta, here are the Eddy Award winners, recognizing the industry’s best new products.

First Prize –
Touchtronic Numbers

This 3D tactile math resource for kids ages 3 and up interacts with an iPad to introduce numbers, counting, matching and simple sums. The set includes purple numbers 0 through 9, and six equation symbols in orange. The supporting apps with games and activities are free and available from the iTunes store. Touchtronic Numbers comes in a handy storage bag.

juniorlearning.com

Second Prize – Create A Maze
Learning Resources

To help develop engineering and critical thinking skills, kids age kindergarten and up can build a maze using the curvy, colorful pieces of this set. Then, they can map a path through them by tilting the board and guiding the ball around the obstacles and into the goal. Endless combinations of designs provide multiple levels of play. Create A Maze features the board and base, 17 maze pieces, four balls and 10 activity cards. From 1 to 4 players, ages kindergarten and up.

learningresources.com

Third Prize – Common Core
Exploring Nonfiction Cards
Edupress

With sets for grades 2 through 6, full-color Exploring Nonfiction Cards were a favorite among the teachers attending EDexpo, who posted comments like these: “They’re the perfect length for text structure demos and they’re super interesting,” and “These cards are not only visually stunning, they are also chock full of engaging content. I plan to use them in K-12 workshops since the content is universally appealing.”

Each pack includes 24 8- by 10-inch cards featuring grade-level, core-aligned, nonfiction readings. On the back of each card are questions, writing prompts and vocabulary activities. The teachers guide offers tips on teaching text structures, and how to use the cards individually, in small groups and in whole-class instruction.

edupress.com

article by Tina Manzer, photos by Kate Awtrey