In an effort to ensure children become lifelong creative learners, Sesame Workshop and the Lego Foundation have announced two initiatives to promote learning through play.

Later this year, Lego Duplo bricks (pictured) will be added to the Takalani Sesame outreach kits currently used in schools in the South African province of Eastern Cape.

Teachers and caregivers, who distribute the kits, will also be trained about the benefits of learning through play. The purpose of the kits and teacher-training materials is to encourage learning skills such as counting, spatial relationships, working memory, and color-and-shape recognition. They are expected to reach 60,000 children and 6,000 caregivers in the region.

The second initiative, the Play Every Day program, will serve low-resource, urban communities in India, Mexico and South Africa. By holding a series of community events designed to engender a better understanding of current attitudes and behaviors around play, the program will look to shift caregivers’ perceptions about the educational value of play. It will also encourage play that contributes to children’s early development and learnin, and explain how adults and children can play together within the different contexts of the individual countries.