Rovio bringing games to school with Angry Birds Playground

Angry Birds developer Rovio Entertainment and the University of Helsinki have teamed up to create Angry Birds Playground, a set of educational materials based on the Finnish educational curriculum and featuring the popular video game characters, The Guardian reports.

Developed for kindergarten-aged children, it covers everything from art to language, math, music and physical education. Rovio unveiled it last week in China, where it will launch at a school in Shanghai.

"It's not just games we're talking about here: it's a full 360-degree approach to learning, where games are just one part of it," said Sanna Lukander, Rovio's vice president of learning and book publishing. "It's not learning by sitting down and playing with a digital device.

"There's a real substance to it, and a healthy balance between rest, play and work. We feel it's necessary to talk about healthy nutrition and physical exercise, as part of this approach to learning, balance and wellbeing."

The University of Helsinki will continue to train educators to use the materials and use feedback to tweak the program going forward.

Rovio previously teamed up with National Geographic, NASA and the European Organization for Nuclear Research to create educational materials featuring its trademark Angry Birds.