We have been busy here at Learning ZoneXpress developing all new nutrition education tools and resources to help teach and promote healthy choices. We invite you to check out all of the brand new and best-selling products in our flyer to gear up for National Nutrition Month in March.

We have a reward to help incent folks to stay healthy – receive a FREE 2012 Foodscapes Calendar with any purchase!  Use code 1003 to redeem. While Supplies Last!

Nutrition team after unpacking MiPlato and other Spanish products from LZX

LZX Project Manager, Linnea Duffus and I recently traveled to Chile to visit EPES. EPES is an acronym for Educacion Popular en Salud which can be translated into Popular Education for Health. It is a program that focuses on empowering shantytown women to make changes in domestic violence, tobacco control, breast cancer, HIV awareness, and more recently, nutrition education.

A good friend of mine from Owatonna, Karen Anderson, founded this program 29 years ago and is the driving force behind its success. Her passion and resilience are unmatched, and her ability to address the root of the problem and work from the bottom up is what makes EPES unlike any other organization. A great example I can share is when families in the shantytowns were experiencing a high volume of rat bites in their homes. Karen and her team didn’t just treat the rat bites. They found out exactly whythe rats were present and eliminated them all together. This is the business model for EPES: Get to the root of the problem and take action from there.

Myself and Linnea in front of a MyPlate (MiPlato) mural in Chile.

Another example is the work they completed leading up to our trip to Chile in November. The program spent 6 months evaluating eating habits in a shantytown of Santiago, Chile. The long term plan is to develop a training model for people in the community to be nutrition promoters. LZX was able to donate and bring a number of items in our Spanish product line to be used to train these nutrition promoters in Santiago.

I have never seen a program moresuccessful. EPES training impacts future generations. EPES recruits, trains, and teaches poor women to be leaders. I have had the honor of being part of this incredible organization for 15 years now, and I am thrilled to announce that EPES is now our official South American distributor for Spanish LZX materials.

Chilean First Lady, Cecilia Morel, admires our poster of her U.S. counterpart, Michelle Obama

As Karen put it, “In poor communities, women are shakers and movers. They take care of everyone. Over the past 30 years hundreds of women have been empowered to find their leadership skills thanks to EPES encouragement, training and challenge. These women have role modeled for their daughters and granddaughters a new generation of leaders for advocacy for the marginalized and poor.”

What an incredible vision and mission! We are so thrilled to support EPES as it continues to change the lives of Chilean women. We take away so many great memories and empowering stories from our trip this year. We forged bonds that will help us communicate, collaborate, and go forward. Our discussions for fundraising and exciting ideas for celebrating EPES’ 30th anniversary next year have us energized for 2012.

In March of next year, there will be eventful concerts here in the U.S., and in November of 2012, we will celebrate with a week-long event in Chile. Come join us!

Here’s the scoop:

Made famous for her role as Elaine on Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is onto her next endeavor, and she is taking Learning ZoneXpress with her! Her new show “Veep” on HBO is set to premiere sometime in 2012, and a few of our products will be making an appearance right along with her. According to the Washington Post, they were spotted filming last Tuesday in Maryland. In the meantime, LZX has been asked to release some of their products to be included in the set. In one of the first episodes, Julia Louis-Dreyfus will be visiting a third grade classroom where the kids are learning French. Be on the lookout for the premiere and see if you can spot the products below on TV.  The products you’ll see are the International France Foods Poster, France Food Market Bulletin Board Kit, and Mini French Color Cards!

See if you can spot them before we do!

National Strategic Partners consist of companies/organizations that are national in scope and reach and also fulfill the following requirements:

• They must have a health mandate consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the mission of USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP).
• They will promote nutrition content in the context of the entirety of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
• They will specifically disseminate CNPP’s Dietary Guidelines messages in innovative ways.
• They will participate in CNPP sessions to develop and execute a joint strategic nutrition promotion plan annually.

We have always worked well with these group so it was an easy decision.

USDA MyPlate Fun in September

In September, the USDA MyPlate partnership will be focusing on actively promoting fruits and vegetables and making them half our MyPlate. Each partner will celebrate in a different way. We will do our best to get out the word on MyPlate events and specials via the blog, Facebook and Twitter. Our special day is coming up later in the month – but for our insiders we wanted to share a super sneak preview of our MyPlate specials web site…

Let us know what you think!

Hey Kids! Join the Food Heroes on their quest for better nutrition. Play the Word Find and learn fun facts about the foods that will help make you a super smart eater. Show your lightning fast matching skills by pairing colorful food pictures with the Match Two game. Create amazingly colorful works of art using just the tip of your finger with the Coloring Book.

Sold at Apple iTunes App Store, anyone can download this game directly to their iPad. Keep the kids in your life busy and learning about healthy eating for hours – only $1.99.

Math in Design Curriculum by Debbie Larson

A big round of applause is in order for FACS teacher and Learning ZoneXpress curriculum author Deborah Larson. She has recently been named 2011 Minnesota Family and Consumer Sciences Teacher of the Year! Read the article here. Debbie is passionate about promoting FACS as a viable course through creating and implementing a unique approach to teaching important life skills by injecting math concepts into her curriculum. Recipe conversion, nutrient analysis and grocery cost comparisons are just a few of the practical ways she ties math into “foods” courses, while measurement and geometry are logically explained through clothing construction and interior design.  

Interested in how you can incorporate math concepts into your Family and Consumer Sciences classes? Check out both of Debbie’s books: Math In Foods and Math In Design (available soon) from Learning ZoneXpress.

Math In Foods Curriculum by Debbie Larson

School Specialty featured our LANA Kit in their booth at the National Association of the Education of Young Children conference in Anaheim, CA a few weeks ago. They are one of our distributors and are working with us to spread the word about the importance of preschool nutrition education programs.

• Glimpse how we do what we do – exclusive videos on the making of a Foodscape™ character and scene 
• Give us your feedback – send us your product ideas and reviews.
• See when we’re at conferences and trade shows so that you can visit us (and receive a booth bonus!) 
• Receive special Facebook-only deals! For example, our graphic designers created these adorable printable gift tags using our Foodscapes characters! Once we receive 100 fans, we will make these available for you to print directly to your own printer labels and adhere to presents! (Available on our Facebook page only.) 
• And so much more!

So please check us out, like us and help spread the word: http://www.facebook.com/learningzonexpress