TOYBOX in Toronto

May 31-June 3, 2025

At the beginning of June, the TOYBOX team travelled to Toronto to attend the Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CSSE) conference and the Canadian Network for Innovation in Education (CNIE) conference. With the conferences drawing researchers and educators from around the country, this trip was a great opportunity to network and share the TOYBOX project beyond the borders of Manitoba.

Over the course of a couple days, the team presented four times. Brian and Herlinda presented “A TOYBOX Story of Friendship.” Their presentation covered how they designed the TOYBOX characters Litty, Nume and Welly, and how the characters have developed over time to what they are now. Their storytelling was met with enthusiasm and sparked many questions from the audience.

Maggy and Lyn each presented a poster with the research findings from two studies. Lyn’s poster highlighted the findings from our research with children and was titled: “Learning ABCs and 123s Through the TOYBOX intervention Project.”

Her poster summarized the results from research showing us that the more minutes children spend doing TOYBOX activities, the more growth they show in literacy and numeracy. Maggy’s poster was titled: “Parents’ Perspectives on Implementing TOYBOX Home Learning and Wellness Activities,” and focused on the experiences of parents who tried TOYBOX activities at home with their preschoolers for 12 weeks. Results from this study were positive, indicating that the majority of parents thought the activities helped them engage more with their children.

Finally, Callie and Paul hosted a workshop which included background information on the TOYBOX project, a close look at our activities, and some of our next steps and future goals. Once again, the team had the opportunity to make connections with educators and researchers from other provinces.

Overall, our visit to Toronto was a great learning experience for everyone involved! Over the course of the conferences, the team answered many thoughtful questions and had the pleasure of sharing multiple facets of our project, from graphics, to research, to developing activities.

To see the posters we presented in Toronto in full, visit the Research tab on our website.

Written by: Maggy