Meet our Community Members

I am a Faculty Member in Education at The University of Winnipeg. I joined ToyBox in 2021 to support the project by reviewing material and advising on Indigenous content. I have been learning more about early childhood development from a program perspective, including the first-hand experiences of early childhood educators and administrators!

"A fundamental goal of the ToyBox project was always to ensure ToyBox content and procedures are supported by research, so participants, other researchers and the general public could be informed about the best practices available in learning and wellness."

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ToyBox Caregiver Handbook (2022)

My research and teaching interests centre on children's well-being, children's autonomy, and distributive justice. I became involved with TOYBOX in 2023 participating in initiatives that focus on well-being and climate action. I particularly loved working with M's grade 4/5 class on our climate action children's book!

I have been an educator for 34 years working with students from Kindergarten to Grade 5. I joined the Toybox team early on when we were developing the first two sets of activities for numeracy. Beyond the material creation in the early years of Toybox, I was tasked with ensuring the development of the numeracy skill from toddler to school age.

As an undergraduate music education student at the University of Manitoba, my time is filled with many creative mediums including music-making, dance, art, and writing. I joined the ToyBox in 2024 as a research assistant, and I am already learning so much about child development that I can bring into my current and future classrooms as a teacher. My favourite role working on ToyBox so far has been translating childcare observation notes from French to English. I love reading the sweet and silly things that the children say, as well as seeing their progress over the weeks as they learn through the ToyBox activities.

My name is Paulette, I am a professor at Université de Saint-Boniface in the Early Childhood Education program. My previous roles include Child Care Coordinator for Manitoba Family Services and Director/Supervisor as well as Frontline Worker in a few different child care centres. I have been part of the ToyBox Project since 2020. I joined ToyBox because I saw the important work being done to support parents and those working with young children My role in the ToyBox project has been to bring ToyBox strategies to the French-speaking community, including organizing and participating in a research project in a French-speaking child care centre to test ToyBox strategies. I also had the pleasure of working with a translation student from the Université de Saint-Boniface who did a translation internship of over 6,000 words on the ToyBox strategies.

Je m'appelle Paulette, je suis professeure à l'Université de Saint-Boniface dans le programme d'Éducation de la jeune enfance Mes rôles précédents incluent ceux de coordonnatrice de la garde d'enfants pour les Services à la famille du Manitoba et de directrice/superviseure ainsi que d'intervenante de première ligne dans quelques centres d'apprentissage différentes. Je fais partie du projet ToyBox depuis 2020. J'ai rejoint ToyBox parce que j'ai vu le travail important effectué pour soutenir les parents et ceux qui travaillent avec les jeunes enfants. Mon rôle dans le projet ToyBox a été d'apporter les stratégies ToyBox à la communauté francophone, notamment en organisant et en participant à un projet de recherche dans une garderie francophone pour tester les stratégies ToyBox. J'ai également eu le plaisir de travailler avec une étudiante en traduction de l'Université de Saint-Boniface qui a fait un stage de traduction de plus de 6 000 mots sur les stratégies ToyBox.

​I am a PhD candidate at the Usask using toybox data in my dissertation.