Toys as Tools for Educators Connexions Toy for Empathy + Creative Dialogue
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Twenty One Toys creates toys and workshops to teach empathy, creativity, innovation collaborative learning & problem solving. The CONNEXIONS Toy is an award-winning toy originally designed with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind to bridge the communication gap between visually impaired students and their sighted classmates.
The CONNEXIONS Toy is now used as a versatile tool for empathic learning and creative education in classrooms across Canada.
This is how the game begins . . . Player 1 has a set of puzzle pieces in a certain pattern.
Player 2 must now re-create that pattern.
The Challenge
Both are blind-folded and must use only their words to re-create the pattern. The Outcome
A valuable debrief on how play lessons can be applied to the way you work and communicate. … but where it goes is up to you!
Multiple ways to play: • One blindfolded player instructed by multiple non-blindfolded observers • Multiple blindfolded players instructed by one non-blindfolded observer • Two blindfolded players swap puzzles, moving only one piece at a time • Different shapes are made the same by multiple blindfolded players • All instructions must apply course specific vocabulary Design new forms of play with your students! www.twentyonetoys.com
Multiple lessons
Your toy package is a Facilitation in a Box with a guidebook and activity cards that include workshop ideas for: • Empathy & Creative Dialogue • Conflict Resolution • Leadership • Teamwork • Bullying • Special Needs … and concepts that can even be applied to specific curriculum in literacy and language learning, numeracy, scientific reasoning, and more.
Play for all ages!
The Connexions Toy can enrich learning at all levels.
Elementary: • Cultivate social, communication, and empathic skills • Transition from one lesson to the next with a defining mental set • Teach appropriate responses to frustration and failure • Develop basic geometric concepts
Intermediate: • Build more expressive, descriptive vocabulary • Reinforce the value of self and peer assessment • Refine negotiation and diplomacy skills • Improve visualization and spatial awareness skills
Advanced: • Gain psychological insight into learning and problem-solving strategies • Test and refine instructional approaches by taking turns leading debrief sessions • Consider the importance of symbols and social abstractions • Demonstrate and investigate neuroplasticity in learning
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Not “Just” Play Play hones our imaginations and sharpens our problem solving skills. It provides a safe environment to try new things and to learn from failure. It is in play that we learn to derive pleasure from the challenge, not simply the result. Because of this versatility, play can also be a powerful tool for ongoing feedback and assessment.
Assessment as learning: • Connexions can help students become autonomous learners by allowing them to identify the communication, problem solving, and collaborative techniques which work best for them. • In debrief sessions, students practice peer assessment which provides meaningful and sensitive feedback.
Assessment for learning: • Connexions allows educators to provide students with feedback through detailed observations during game play, and rich conversations during the debrief sessions. • A tremendous number of possible game scenarios allows for differentiated assessment which can be adapted to fit a wide variety of learning styles.
Play to Develop Learning Skills and Work Habits: Responsibility:
Organization:
• Students take ownership of their behavior by learning to consider how it affects those around them.
• Students must devise, implement, and test logical strategies for accomplishing the goals of the game.
Independent work:
Collaboration: • Students must accept different roles within this group activity, and seek to better understand their teammates.
Initiative: • Students demonstrate the willingness to take creative risks in an unfamiliar situation.
• Each student must monitor his or her own approaches to assigned roles and track improvement over time.
Self-Regulation: • Students must learn to persevere in the face of the game’s inherent frustrations.
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Where we’re playing...
Oh, the places we’ve been
Northwest Territories Chief T’Selehye School
Nanga, Uganda
Greater TORONTO Area & Ontario
Grove Community School
Peel Alternative School North DufferinPeel Catholic District School Board
Grace Daycare
Ministry of Education Provincial Schools Branch Toronto French School
MONTRÉAL, Québec
Philip E. Layton
I-Think Initiative, Rotman School of Business
Westmount High School
Gerald McShane Elementary
What’s inside the box? $425 per package
•10 piece wooden set with blindfolds * hand crafted, locally made • Activity Cards • 80 pg. Guidebook • Access to online resources * videos, tutorials, supports
For discounts on multi-set orders: hello@twentyonetoys.com Learn about our toys – and our play revolution –online at twentyonetoys.com/toys
Twenty One Toys Centre for Social Innovation 720 Bathurst St, Toronto hello@twentyonetoys.com @21Toys 21Toys
Available now.
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Twenty One Toys
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