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We are so very excited to finally announce the top 5 entries in our Share Your Invitation to Play contest. These top 5 will go to our contest panel for them to select the final winning entry. Before we announce the top group, we want to thank all of you who gave your time and energy to contributing and to voting in the contest. Thank you for being part of this unique contest bringing forward ideas for play in our community. There were so many incredible ideas generated and shared and your work will continue to inspire others in the future.

We know contests aren’t a perfect way of giving back to the community and we’re excited that we’ve received some great feedback on how to improve giving back again in the future. Giving back for us was, and really is, at the heart of why we did this in the first place. Yes, it helps our business raise awareness, but we truly care about creating better learning environments and wanted to find a special and unique way to give back which is how we came up with Invitation to Play.

We’ve reviewed all the final entries and have had an advisor go over the data to ensure every submission that made it into the top of the contest did so was made fairly with valid email submissions and Facebook ‘Likes’, while also meeting all other contest terms and conditions.

Thank you again for all of the incredible effort and imagination! We’ll announce the winning entry on June 16th, 2015. The winning entry will receive $5000 worth of Natural Pod design support, furniture and toys. In no particular order, here are the top five entries with most combined and valid email and Facebook votes:

Dreams Unlimited – Summerside, P.E.I, Canada
Description: Our invitation to play is with an old light projector and wooden edged transparent coloured blocks. A great multisensory experience, with sound, light, texture and colour. From infant to preschool the children can watch the light shine through the blocks, notice by stacking them they can change colour and the objects that are placed on the projector can be seen on the wall. More objects can be added to experiment with as the children observe.

Natural Pod - Invitation to Play - Contest Entries - Dreams Unlimited
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Voyagers’ Community School – Eatontown, NJ, United States
Description: Children engage with blocks in versatile ways. We decided to attach photos of the children in the classroom to some of the blocks and see how this altered their play. Stories emerged, magical vistas appeared. Children from our elementary and middle school classes were drawn to the play as time went on. There were ongoing requests for more personalized blocks. Blocks found their way out of the play area and into other creative exchanges throughout the school.

Natural Pod - Invitation to Play - Contest Entries - Voyagers' Community School
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A Kids World – Parksville, BC, Canada
Description: A miniature world of wonder is created in this wooden bowl. Where does the grass come from? How soft is the moss? Spring has sprung! Can we make. A fairyland is waiting to be created or maybe we will have a surprise visitor of bug kind

Natural Pod - Invitation to Play - Contest Entries - A Kids World
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Our Garden – Philadelphia, PA, United States
Description: At Our Garden, an inner city preschool in Philadelphia, children transform into foxes and the city into a forest wonderland in a re-telling of the Japanese folktale, The Foxes’ Wedding. You’re invited to join us as we use branches, paper, fabric and natural materials both found and reclaimed to recreate an imaginary woodland filled with masks, dance, tea party and fox calls…

Natural Pod - Invitation to Play - Contest Entries - Our Garden
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Annieville Elementary School – Delta, BC, Canada
Description: I wonder what stories live in this invitation to play? Who lives under that bridge? Where are the animals?

Natural Pod - Invitation to Play - Contest Entries - Annieville Elementary School
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