main

ARTEDUCATIONALTOY Blog

DESIGN CARDS THAT TRAIN VISION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

design-cards-that-train-vision-in-early-childhood4-960x540.jpg

When light passes through our cornea (transparent eye surface) to your pupil (the opening to the inside of your eye) it reaches our lens, which focuses it on your retina (the back of your eye), where it’s converted into a nerve signal and carried by the optic nerve to your brain. Now this connection system creates memories in our nervous system. These memories are then co-related to the other body parts in order to generate motion and perform tasks. That’s why this company has created “Baby Visual Stimulation Cards“, some design cards that train vision in early childhood and guide your baby through their first few years of visual discovery..

ARTDESIGNEDUCATIONALTECHNOLOGYTOY Blog

Smart activity kits for learning STEAM education

Advantage-1.png

SMARTIVITY are the makers of smart activity kits for learning STEAM education to help children of age 3+ to understand fundamentals of STEAM. They make World’s finest Smart Construction Toys to make the fundamentals FUN. They believe in the potential of child to be the maker of a better future and inspire child to unleash their true potential to be an innovator, a creator, a tinkerer, a problem-solver… as a maker of our future!

ARTDESIGNOPEN TOYTOY Blog

A playground made with imagination and the big blue blocks

Build-it-Editorial-960x640.jpg

We have previously talked about how a toy without instructions designed by Cas Holman. It challenges different clichés related to the sphere of childhood and the toy world in general and lets a child re-imagine their own toy. Today we are writing about one such wonder, a playground made with imagination and the big blue blocks

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you want what you imagine, and at last, you create what you want.

– George Bernard Shaw

ARTDESIGNEDUCATIONALMARKETINGSOCIALTECHNOLOGYTOY Blog

A new way of Education with Experiential Learning

6-960x640.jpg

In today’s world full of technology and advancement, only theory based knowledge isn’t enough. Narmada Bal Ghar is an NGO that works on providing a new way of education with experiential learning by empowering 850+ schools with Classroom Labs, Providing resources to 1100+ teachers and reaching more than 250K students all over the world. They believe in making kids Future ready by developing entrepreneurial skills.

ARTEDUCATIONALTECHNOLOGYTOY Blog

AN ANALOG STEAM TOY PROJECT WITH A DIGITAL CORE

In this article we will talk about an analog STEAM toy project with a digital core for approaching children to art invented by an English start-up. Let’s start by saying that it is scientifically proven that art is good for children. Probably not new, “I always say!” you will think, but the proof of our assumptions comes from the University of Arkansas that has carried out a thorough research on a large sample of children exposed to works of art. The results show that those who have visited museums or are used to the observation of works of art develop different “soft skills” including a greater educational memory and critical thinking skills.

ARTEDUCATIONALDESIGNTOY Blog

A KINDERGARTEN TO EDUCATE TO BEAUTY

a-kindergarten-to-educate-to-beauty-7-960x640.jpg

“Beauty will save the world” is one of the most renowned quote by Fedor Dostoevskij. Frequently abused, this phrase was taking seriously by the founders of Baby Caring, a kindergarten to educate to beauty in Milan.

Baby Caring is a bilingual nursery born in a historically important building for the city of Milan: the Mantegazza Foundation, San Calcero 16 street. Here, Laura Solera Mantegazza opened the first kindergarten in 1850 with the purpose of helping female workers not to leave their children. A place that has been destined to host great and beautiful things since its birth has reopened its doors in March 2017.

The core philosophy of this Children Innovation Lab is “Who sows ideas, collects certainties”. The promise, on the other hand, is to educate to beauty, in all its artistic and conceptual nuances, children from 1 to 12 y.o. through a playful and artistic experience. The traditional formative programs are rewrote by the centrality of the child who becomes the active protagonist in modifying, consciously or unconsciously, his training path based on his tendencies and interests.

Education takes place primarily through the daily participation in works of art exhibited like a gallery inside the structure: interiors, as well as furnitures, are signed by big names of art and design; here we find ‘numeric’ paintings by Paolo De Cuarto and fairy wooden sculptures by Duilio Forte. Atelier Forte designed also ‘Ursus’, a big wooden bear that can be climbed and explored by pupils in total safety, demonstrating that in a kindergarten to educate to beauty no details can be omitted and that all contributes harmoniously to the play and educational experience. The workshops are important part of the program too and are designed by renowned artists; an example is Micro-Memory, curated by Armenian artist Liana Ghukasyan, where children are stimulated to create themed images on a paper created in laboratory, in order to make small books.

The educational proposal is based on the theory of multiple intelligences by H.Gardner, a contemporary american psychologist who theorizes the existence of multiple level development in the person, from linguistic to musical or video-spatial. This approach to knowledge allows to stimulate kids under different topics and underline their big potentialities, cultivating beauty and design values. Innovative teaching, in which new technologies and learning blend and promote, also through media and robotics, playful experiences to draw, compose music, design images and create stories.

At Baby Caring Mantegazza innovation touches organizational aspect too: the kindergarten is open all year round, 7 days a week and the tratitional annual frequency formula is flanked by the ‘time’ one that follow the parents working times. In this way school support the work-life balance of the family, so hard to find already in the XIX century at the time of foundation of the building, let alone in today’s society.

Baby Caring Mantegazza is a positive news not only in the world of education. In a historic moment where neglect or badness often prevails, a kindergarten to educate to beauty is what it takes to turn a quote into real hope.

ARTDESIGNEDUCATIONALTECHNOLOGYTOY Blog

WOODEN TOYS THAT CAN TEACH KINETIC ARTS

wooden_toys_giocattoli_in_legno_1-960x639.jpg

Children have an innate love for stories. Stories allow kids to communicate thoughts and share feelings with others and it can be innovatively improved using wooden toys that can teach kinetic arts.

LINKKI from Eun Young Park on Vimeo.

LINKKI is a kinetic construction toy based on planar linkage mechanism which children can use to design movements, make kinetic arts and learn basic STEM subjects while playing.