Education. com Announces 2010 A+ Award Winners
Forty educational, safe, and fun toys earn top marks from leading website for parents.
Redwood City, CA (Vocus) February 17, 2010
Education. com (http://www. education. com/), a leading web destination for parents of school-aged children, today announced its 2010 list of A+ Award winners (http://www. education. com/awards/a-plus/). For the third year, Education. com commissioned a team of teachers, parents, curriculum specialists, members of its editorial staff, and kids to put hundreds of toys through their paces to find those that possess the unique combination of being exceptionally educational, safe and fun.
“Today more than ever, people want the biggest bang for their buck when they’re shopping for the children in their lives,” said Education. com Editor-in-Chief Danielle Wood. “In today’s economy, it makes sense to invest in the best products available, but it can be difficult to find products that are truly satisfying to both kids and the adults who love them. Parents want products that support kids’ development and are safe. Kids want toys that are fun the first day they get them, and stay fun as they use them over time. A+ Award winners encompass all of this – they inspire imagination, creativity, and a healthy amount of competitive spirit. They have repeat play value and they’re interesting enough to grow with the child as his or her abilities improve. To make it on this list, our panel of adult experts and kids has to be really impressed and inspired. Some of the toys on the list support reading or other curriculum-based concepts, while others work on whole-child developmental areas like sharing or physical fitness, but they all promote learning. And kids will probably never realize it because they’ll be focused on the fun.”
Education. com’s A+ Awards are unique to other seal of approval programs in that there is no charge for companies to be considered for the award, nor is there any fee for winners who use the A+ Award winner seal to promote their products. Wood explains, “The only way to influence your way on to this list is to create a really outstanding product. We don’t accept payment, read pitches, or involve our marketing or advertising teams in the selection process. We go through a pretty grueling process to find the products we think are worth considering. Then we take those products out of their packages, use them, and ask our selection panel to rate them based on very specific criteria. About 50 products make the list each year and hundreds that we’ve evaluated don’t.”
The A+ Award winners are organized on Education. com by grade level. This year’s winners as well as all previous winners can be viewed by visiting http://www. education. com/awards/a-plus/ (http://www. education. com/awards/a-plus/).
About Education. com: More than two million parents a month come to Education. com to get the information they need to support their children’s unique educational and developmental needs, and to find ideas for how to make learning more fun. From kindergarten readiness to college prep, Education. com is the leading destination for involved parents. Often called “The WebMD of education,” the company has teamed up with leading universities, nonprofits, and research organizations to offer highly credible parenting, developmental, and educational information. The site also offers printable activities, community resources, access to best-of-breed educational services, and SchoolFinder – a tool that gives parents comprehensive data on the nation’s 125,000 public, private and charter schools. Education. com was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Redwood City, CA. The company is backed by leading venture capital firms, Azure Capital Partners, TeleSoft Partners, and California Technology Ventures. For more information, please visit www. education. com.
Media Contact:
Kat Eden
Education. com
650.366.3380 X2218
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