Ithaca Toys at Cornell Department of Mathematics

On March 11, Mary Ann Huntley, Director of Mathematics Outreach at Cornell University, held a day-long workshop on mathematics. Topics included diversity in STEAM, geometry, tactile play, and physics. Along with distinguished speakers like Beth Prager, independent consultant; Kelly Delp, professor at Cornell University; and Richard Rand, also a professor at Cornell University, founder Lee Kaltman was invited to speak about math learning through games.

While Kaltman had not started his own business yet, he still had a core idea of what he wanted: a product line based around BLOX: a wooden block of wood on which visual languages like symbols, letters, and numbers could be engraved.

At Professor Huntley’s workshop, Kaltman presented on ColorBLOX, a currently undeveloped product that matches shapes and colors to create designs, and PuzzleBLOX, which has since been released to the public as CoasterBLOX and offered to classrooms as a Lesson on Area.

However, since 2017, our product offerings have undergone some changes. Today, our flagship product is NumberBLOX, a wooden dominoes set that truly encapsulates the spirit of math learning through games. One study by JoonKoo Park and Elizabeth Brannon in 2013 found that using different areas of the brain unlocks the most powerful form of learning. Working with symbols, such as numbers, uses one area of the brain while working with visual and spatial information, such as an array of dots, uses another. With tools like NumberBLOX, children can communicate between these two areas of the brain to optimize math performance.

Kaltman truly believes in the power of tactile play in driving education, and is immensely thankful to Professor Huntley for helping Ithaca Toys share our passion for STEM and tactile play with the Cornell community.

Edited May 2, 2022