English (United Kingdom)CHANGE REGION
HomeFamily TogetherChild DevelopmentMessage BoardsLEGO & Society
LEGO & Society

Download .pdf  

LEGO Group opens its first Education Center
in the USA

The first LEGO Education Center in the USA has just opened its doors in Southlake near Dallas, where seven employees look forward to offering children extracurricular activities with a difference.

Children in the 3‑12 age group are offered weekly courses in which they use LEGO Education sets to understand the world around them – for example, learning about machines, wheels and animals. And classes for the older children make use of LEGO MINDSTORMS robotics.


Hanne T. Odegaard, Director of LEGO Education Center Business Development, has been in Southlake since spring to make sure the new Center gets off to a good start. She reports that kids are now enrolled in all of our classes, from 3 year olds to 12 year olds. The LEGO Education Center also offers birthday parties a total of 5 different themes and these are extremely popular and a great way for us to get the word out about our new LEGO Education Center. Recently, we celebrated our Grand Opening with a full week of great activities, give-aways and competitions for kids every day.

Well received by parents

“We have been very well received by parents, schools, and the media in the area. Many drop by out of curiosity after having seen our LEGO logo. From an American perspective it is important that children learn and develop skills through attending our classes – and the fact that they have fun while learning is important for parents. Parents are very interested in the potential of alternative ways of learning and in the LEGO Education products. Our method and approach are different, creative – and geared to the children. Quite a few families have enrolled more than one child at the LEGO Education Center; they appreciate that we have classes for very young children as well as for teenagers,” says Hanne T. Odegaard.


A new aspect of Education Centers is that we validate their learning within seven different competencies: communication, concentration/perseverance, social interaction during learning, planning & organizing, design, creative problem‑solving and the ability to think independently. The children’s skills are evaluated partly by their teachers and partly by an external consultant.

“These are skills that are important to the parents because children need them to be able to cope and get by in society. But there isn’t always time to develop and strengthen these competencies within the established school system,” adds Hanne T. Odegaard.

Mornings, afternoons – and holiday camps

At present the Southlake Center only runs classes in the afternoon, but it will be starting to offer field trips, play groups and home-school classes in the mornings, so that local schools and children who are taught from home – of whom there are some 200,000 in Texas – may use the facilities in the morning hours. The LEGO Education Center is open Monday through Saturday from 9 am to 6 pm. LEGO Education will also appeal to work at home mothers because the center is located in an area with shops, a fitness center and other facilities which mothers can visit while their children are attending classes. During breaks and holidays the center offers activity camps – the first camp – a three day camp on Robotics and Space activities – will be held during the Christmas break from Dec 26 - 28.

To learn more about the LEGO Education Center in Dallas call 1-888-72-LEGO or follow this link: http://www.legoeducationcenters.us/default.aspx



  • LEGO, the LEGO logo, DUPLO, BIONICLE, MINDSTORMS, the BELVILLE, CLIKITS, KNIGHTS’ KINGDOM and EXO-FORCE logos,
    the Brick and Knob configurations and the Minifigure are trademarks of the LEGO Group.
    © 2008 The LEGO Group. All rights reserved. Use of this site signifies your agreement to the terms of use.