The GIANT Room, Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, and Toogs are Partnering with Families to Co-design Family Playtime!
Location: YMCA Upper West Side, 5 W 63rd St, New York, NY 10023
Dates and Times:
Tuesday, November 10th, 4 to 6pm
Wednesday, November 11th, 11am to 1pm
Thursday, November 12th, 4 to 6pm
The GIANT Room has partnered with Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, and Toogs to co-design resources for creative and joyful family play time!
The GIANT Room, an innovation hub for children and their families, is honored to announce a partnership with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and Toogs to co-design a browser-based app that helps families engage in creative play while developing and practicing social-emotional skills, literacy, and math—all off-screen! Families with children in kindergarten and first grade are invited to apply to participate in three interactive workshops filled with creativity, hands-on activities, and play!
The three sessions will take place on November 10, 11, and 12 at the Upper West Side YMCA. Each session will last two hours, and participating families will receive a $75 gift card as a token of appreciation for their time and contributions.
During these sessions, families will engage in hands-on creative activities, design their own family games, share ideas, build prototypes, playtest one another’s games, and provide feedback. Participants will have the opportunity to collaborate with educators and play designers from The GIANT Room, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, and Toogs to help shape a meaningful family play tool that is engaging, accessible, and designed to inspire countless memorable moments together.
The GIANT Room believes the most engaging and effective learning experiences are the ones that are designed with families’ points of view in mind, and even better, those that are designed with children, youth, and caregivers involved in the design process. These co-design partnerships not only provide opportunities for families to meet and build ideas with real designers and researchers, but also make it possible to create resources that students can use to learn more independently and confidently.
Named for the co-founder and visionary behind Sesame Street, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center is an independent research and innovation lab within Sesame Workshop that advances positive futures for kids in the digital world. They conduct research on emerging technologies and collaborate with technologists, digital media producers, and educators to put this research into action to support children’s learning and well-being. Joan Ganz Cooney Center also works directly with policy makers and investors to drive national conversations and decisions that help children thrive within the digital world.
Toogs is a family play platform designed to bring parents and children closer together through meaningful, creative play. Built around the idea that just 20 minutes of focused play each day can strengthen family connections and support children's development, Toogs offers playful activities that combine digital tools with everyday materials such as paper, pencils, and household objects. Each game is designed to nurture essential skills, including creativity, communication, collaboration, emotional awareness, early literacy, and math. By making purposeful play simple, accessible, and fun, Toogs helps families turn everyday moments into opportunities for learning, connection, and shared memories.
Location: YMCA Upper West Side, 5 W 63rd St, New York, NY 10023
Dates and Times:
Tuesday, November 10th, 4 to 6pm
Wednesday, November 11th, 11am to 1pm
Thursday, November 12th, 4 to 6pm
Participation: If selected, At least 1 child and 1 caregiver must be present at all 3 sessions to receive gift cards
Appreciation: Participating families will receive a $75 gift card
For more information about GIANT STEAM programs and a full list of their workshops, class series, and events, please visit The GIANT Room’s website.