Read the article and view these products in action here.

The awards program recognizes entrepreneurs who demonstrate excellence and extraordinary success in such areas as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. These business leaders were selected from a strong pool of nominations by a panel of independent judges. Award winners will be announced at a special gala on June 14, 2012, at the Marriott City Center in Minneapolis.

The Upper Midwest region includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. We were excited to hear that 17 of the 26 finalists are from Minnesota. Our winters may be rough, but we sure do have a lot of talent!

We’d like to extend a big Congratulations to all of the finalists! The full list can be seen here.

Listen to her interview about making nutrition fun for kids here!

Inspired by the award winning documentary, “PLANET B-BOY,” “BATTLE OF THE YEAR” is a multicultural sports film set in the world of International Break Dancing.  After a decade of defeat and lost respect for the United States b-boy crew, a hip-hop mogul turns to his down-and-out former crewmate to train and coach an all-star team of U.S. B-Boys to compete at the Battle of the Year (BOTY) World Championships. The coach must overcome his inner demons, while the b-boy standouts struggle amongst themselves and with their new coach’s unorthodox training methods.

It won’t open until next summer but it sounds great for kids and we know they’ve got great (healthy) taste!

We have a sneak preview of the items that you might see. I think it’s fun to think up story lines based on their choices.

As the news program points out…

LANA stands for Learning About Nutrition through Activities. The program was developed by the University of Minnesota for caregivers, whether at home or in a child care setting.

Learning ZoneXpress has picked up on the research developed by the University of Minnesota to create a fun line of nutrition education products for the classroom and childcare center that promote healthy eating and a love of fruits and vegetables. It starts with LANA the Iguana – a puppet that introduces fun and adventure learning about new foods. We’ve heard from teachers that engaging kids with this new approach has been successful and builds an appetite for healthy foods that continues as they get older.

You can check out a couple of our LANA activities for free on our FreeMyPlate website – and of course we have a strong range of LANA products available on our web site.

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!

Disney just contacted us about using posters in an upoming production. The show is “Lab Rats,” produced by It’s A Laugh Productions, Inc. for the Disney Channel XD. We’re not sure when it will air – we’ll try to let folks know – but we can give you a sneak preview of the Learning ZonXpress products they are using:

Portion Size poster
USDA My Plate poster
Fat Facts poster
Portion Distortion poster
Periodic Table of Nutrition poster
Think Outside the Cereal Box poster
10 Ways to Drink Water poster
Portion Puzzle poster set
Color Power poster
50 Ways/ Physical Activity poster
My Pyramid/Food Plate poster
Food Groups poster set

You might be surprised how often we get these requests. About once a month, we are contacted by a movie or tv program to get a release from us. We are pretty easy going about having our posters on screen, our main requirement being that the show is not x-rated! From there, its hurry up and wait – it can be up to a year before we actually get to see the posters hanging on a tv or movie set wall. Most recently, we saw several of our posters in the cafeteria of the show Glee.

For Disney’s Ant Farm, the requested Learning ZoneXpress posters are Color Power and 50 Ways: Physical Activity Poster. We hope you join us in watching for these when the show airs – kind of a “Where’s Waldo” effect - ”Where’s the LZE Poster?”.

Color Power Poster on Disney Set

50 Ways Physical Activity Poster soon to be seen on Disney's Ant Farm

The CBS Early Show – Healthwatch recently interviewed Dr. James Painter from Eastern Illinois University. He created two documentaries showcasing portion size and fast food. As a nutritional expert, he brings tons of credibility to the notion that everyone CAN eat fast food and still lose weight! Follow the actions of these two graduate students as they eat their way through a month of fast food. The results are surprising! Brought to you by Learning ZoneXpress, these 2 DVDs are well worth the view! Check out the videos and CBS interview here.

Well maybe we’re GLEEKS, but you can’t blame us! Hollywood came knocking and ordered our nutrition posters for their Fox Broadcasting GLEE set. (Afterall, every school should have them!) And now you can see them on Episode 16 titled ”Home” which aired April 27th. 

Watch the episode and see if you can spy them for yourself!