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Thank you for taking the time to review this crucial early childhood learning crowd-funding project. If you have children or grandchildren, or are an aunt, uncle or other caregiver/teacher of pre-K and older children, you’re in the right place to help them succeed in a major way.

Spielgaben Crowdfunding Intro Video from J Kim on Vimeo.

ABOUT SPIELGABEN PROJECT

I’m Kidsground founder Jim Kim. Here at Kidsground, we’re dedicated to early childhood education and boosting the IQ of children between the age of 3 and 12 by promoting the open-ended educational play system, Spielgaben (German for “play gifts”), which was first imagined and created by Friedrich Frobel, the German educator who founded kindergarten. You can learn more about Frobel’s philosophy and teaching method by clicking here.

I founded Kidsground from the passion that burns inside me to promote the Spielgaben Educational System. Like many 21st century families, my own family fell victim to digital games and kid's TV programming. My wife and I witnessed the negative effects personally: our children had trouble paying attention; they spent very little time with us, and they kept asking for more games and TV access. In a moment of sheer determination, I decided to reduce exposure to digital media and sought out the best tried-and-true educational aids that could promise quality time between parents and children while offering tangible educational benefits.

My search for the best educational aids took more than two months. In the end, I discovered Frobel’s educational system. I became fascinated by his teaching philosophy and discovered how it helped develop the great minds we revere today. Sadly, following Frobel’s death, awareness of his educational play method declined sharply; today too few parents and teachers are aware of it.

I bought a set of Froebel occupation called, Froebel gifts and started playing with my children only to come up against a critical hiccup: the set was designed for educators to use while teaching young children. Without proper training, it was next to impossible to make most of Frobel’s wonderful system!

So I hired a part-time Early Childhood Education specialist and primary school teacher and spent more than 13 months gathering & testing every piece of Spielgaben educational materials. In doing so, we demystified the various pieces and was able to explain their intended uses while making the set easy to play with so ordinary parents (those without formal early childhood education training or coaching) can use them to best effect. As soon as we understood the system completely, we created 4 full- colour illustrated play time guide books for parents and grandparents.

We also discovered that the Spielgaben open-ended play system is a great way to teach children crucial mathematics basics while enjoying quality play time between parent and child. So we married the play set and guide books to today's primary school curriculum (1st to 6th grade) and dedicated two of the four guide books to showing how easy it is to teach core mathematical concepts while children play with the Spielgaben wooden aids.

So after sixteen months of hard work and dedication, we’re finally ready to unveil a re-engineered early education set very much like the one that developed the mental giants of the 20th Century, and one that encourages quality time between parent and child: THE SPIELGABEN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE PROJECT

To date, we have elevated the original educational aids to 21^st century design standards while honouring environmentally-sound procurement practices. We have also completed full-colour play time guide books in digital formats and we’ve produced physical samples. We’re on the threshold of producing the first batch of clean, beautifully-designed Spielgaben educational aids. Although we wanted to fund the whole project on our own, we discovered that producing the first batch of products with high-quality, 100% certified-sustainable solid timber and toxin-free materials is an expensive enterprise, so we realised we need financial backing to help us to make the first batch a reality.

TIMELINE

In May 2013: By end of May, we want to start producing the first batch of clean, beautifully re-engineered Spielgaben Educational Aids

In June 2013: we will undertake interim inspection and quality control procedures to ensure defect-free products. Toward the end of June, the first batch is expected to be completed.

In July 2013: the first batch should be ready to be shipped to our early supporters and adopters. We hope you will decide to be among them!

PROJECT TEAM

Jim Kim – Founder and Chief Player — responsible for all hands-on operations.

Jan Schmitt (Industrial Designer) – German industrial designer who helped us re-design and guide us to ensure the products will be produced as designed.

Pecgi Tanjung (Graphic Artist) –Illustrator and graphic artist who does illustrations in  play time guide books

Hunter Leonard (MD of Blue Flog Marketing) - a mentor to founder Jim Kim. He is a marketing veteran with over twenty years’ experience in sales & marketing disciplines. He provides marketing consultancy to Spielgaben Project.

WHY WE ARE CROWD-FUNDING

- To start production with at least minimum order quantity

-To gain valuable feedback and recommendation via communicating directly with the public

WHERE THE MONEY WILL GO

-80% to production & 20% to inspection, logistics and staffing

HOW TO HELP

Please pledge money in return for awesome rewards and benefits, including the benefit of introducing your own children, grand children and other youngsters to help us to cover some of the first batch of production costs.

Also please share this project with your colleagues, friends and family. I will be delighted beyond adequate expression if we reach our target goal of $24,950 because if we don't raise 100% of the target goal, we get nothing. (And those of you who have pledged money won't be charged a dime.) Failing to reach our goal would be tragic because it will further delay getting these crucial educational aids into the hands and minds of the families and children who need them most.

I hope that,together, we can make this project a reality for parents, grandparents and early childhood educators to help make most of children’s short brain development window.Developing the cognitive, relationship and mathematical skills youngsters will need to succeed in school and in life has never been more crucial than it is today in the 21^st century. Please join us!

MORE INFORMATION

Please also visit my website to find out more about this system. Reach us from this website or you email us at spi[email protected].

 And don’t forget to visit, LIKE and SHARE our Spielgaben Facebook Page. You can also follow us on Twitter. Viral is good, but from our hearts to yours, thank you again, so much, for whatever you decide to do to help this project sprout wings and fly to its desired destination! Tomorrow’s opportunities lie in how well we raise our children and grandchildren today.

WHAT'S INCLUDED IN SPIELGABEN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

4 SETS OF USER GUIDES IN PDF FORMAT WITH HIGH RESOLUTION

USER GUIDE SAMPLE (PLEASE CLICK ARROW BELOW TO FLIP SAMPLE PAGES)