ABOUT US:

So who exactly are Spark of Inspiration and why are we so keen on a small black box of puzzle pieces that goes by the name of Lonpos?

Well, Spark of Inspiration is a family run retailers specialising in educational learning toys for all ages (o.k., mostly children).   Our ethos is to encourage children of all ages and abilities to develop their own, unique, creative abilities.   We believe that with gentle encouragement children gain the confidence to question and through questioning are able to expand upon and use ideas and information that they are given.  Children thrive when they receive the correct level of mental stimulation.  As parents, we embrace anything that can help us to deliver this – we thought that other parent's too might share our enthusiasm.

We wanted to give children access to a varied source of information and encourage them to find things out by doing. For us, educational toys shouldn't be dull or boring - quite the opposite. The more exciting and stimulating kids find a learning activity, the more enthusiastic they will be about following it through or progressing to a further level.   The more enthusiastic and actively engaged your child becomes in tasks, the more benefit they'll gain from them.

Yell.com liked what we were trying to achieve and earlier this year awarded us with a runner-up accolade for the "Best Family Business of the Year Award" for the South East Region.

We didn't set out to become distributors.  We certainly didn't set out, as a family to become totally hooked on a puzzle game either.  Trouble is, when you find something really good – your children like it, the grandparents like it, so do all of the uncles, aunts and friends that come into even brief contact with it –you start singing its praises from the rooftops.  We did in any case.

Lonpos is the perfect size to play wherever you are.  Lonpos is simple to understand, yet it presents a challenge no matter what age you are.  It draws you in and holds your attention.  Best of all – it helps children to develop their thinking skills in a creative way.  It shows them that there are often different ways to solve the same problem and that just because their way of doing things may not be the same as their peers, does not make their way wrong or less valuable.

We realised the potential of Lonpos immediately,  Our enthusiasm has also been shared by teaching professionals from up and down the Country who also praised the product highly when they played it at the Education Show (NEC, March 2006) and The Early Years and Primary Teaching Show (GMex, May 2006).  

We're delighted that Lonpos has also been short listed for the 2006 Science Museum Smart Toy Awards in the Smart Puzzle category.  This year's judges will include: Dr Raj Persaud, Gresham Professor for Public Understanding of Psychiatry; Clare Jones, First News; Prof Mary Ratcliffe, Director, Science Learning Centre South East, Diane Lees, Director, Museum of Childhood; Jean Franczyk, Head of Learning, Science Museum and Ashleigh King, Buyer, Science Museum.   We hope that they will love the puzzle as much as we all do.

What we really hope is that you'll love it even more (if that's possible).   We're keen to develop the full potential of this puzzle and will be introducing lesson plans and additional puzzle booklets so watch this space.

In the meantime: HAPPY PUZZLING!

Sonia Wilkinson