The farm co-op Ocean Spray, best known for cranberries, is partnering with Highlights for Children to educate America’s students on the heritage of the cranberry superfruit. Together, the brands will be offering teachers and parents free, downloadable Highlights-created mini magazines launching November 2021, and April 2022, that bring Highlights’ ‘Fun with a Purpose’ to Ocean Spray’s “Cranberries in the Classroom” program.
The first mini magazine will be made available for free to download this month atwww.oceanspray.com/highlights. The special edition Highlights mini magazines are filled with educational articles, a recipe, jokes, and tongue twisters as well as one of Highlights’ signature Hidden Pictures® puzzles and other puzzles and activities that will spark curiosity and encourage learning.
This month, the theme of the mini magazines will be cranberries, timed to the annual fall cranberry harvest and National Eat a Cranberry Day on Nov. 23. Coming Spring 2022, the theme of the second installment of the partnership for the mini magazine will be sustainability, timed to Earth Day.
“This school year has held unique challenges for children. For some it’s their first time back in classrooms in more than a year; for most, they’re adjusting to yet another new normal,” said Lece Lohr, President of Highlights Consumer Business. “Partnering with Ocean Spray – an organization with as rich a heritage as Highlights’ – is incredibly meaningful for us. It allows us to provide free, engaging reading materials into classrooms in an authentic way. Instead of sending sales materials home, we’re putting reading and learning tools immediately into the hands of more kids.”
Puzzling helps children develop both academic and social-emotional skills, including letter recognition, attention to detail, vocabulary building, persistence, logic, and employs multiple strategies to solve problems. Humor lessens learning anxiety and increases a child’s engagement—particularly valuable for reluctant and non-traditional learners. The cranberry curriculum is designed to be engaging for students to learn as cranberries are native to North America, and Indigenous Americans were the first to realize the benefits of cranberries. The first sauces were made at home long before commercial canning became available.
“Ocean Spray has a long tradition of partnering with other iconic brands whose values are aligned with our own, and who are also committed to supporting families,” said Kim McAllister, Director of Foods Business at Ocean Spray. “Fall harvest is a special time of year, and we’re delighted to celebrate by adding Highlights’ wonderful, educational content to our “Cranberries in the Classroom” curriculum.”
Ocean Spray’s Cranberries in the Classroom offers free educational activities created in collaboration with curriculum and child specialists to teach kids in grades 2-4 about the cranberry plant through language arts, math, science and art.
Both brands are dedicated to education in America and celebrating heritage. Ocean Spray will be soon celebrating 100 years and the 2021 cranberry harvest crop forecast is 6.6 million barrels. That equates to 660 million pounds, 171 billion berries, and would cover 5150 football fields and make a 17-mile-long line of filled tractor trailer trucks.
This year, Highlights celebrates its 75th Anniversary. Founded by child psychologist Dr. Garry Cleveland Myers and his wife and educator Caroline Clark Myers, Highlights for Children magazine was first published in June 1946. Since then, the Highlights brand has grown to a diverse and inclusive collection of products for kids from birth to 12, reaching more than 10 million children across 40-plus countries.