The countdown is running and the 10 winners will soon be announced.
Basel, 7 November 2014 The Federal Toy Retailers‘ Association (Bundesverband des Spielwaren-Einzelhandels – BVS) has announced 27 November 2014 as the official date on which the press will be told who the 10 winners are. The TOP 10 toys hit parade, published by the BVS, is an important guide to the toy industry. As in previous years, the TOP 10 jury has been busy testing and evaluating lots of toys, 35 of which have been nominated, and Xyloba is one of them.
As Dieter Jost, sales manager at the Geschützte Werkstätten Weizenkorn (Weizenkorn Sheltered Workshop) in Basel, explains: „With Xyloba, you can play everything from simple children’s song to Mozart, so it’s a wonderful idea for a toy, and now it’s been nominated, it’s getting the appreciation it deserves“.
The Xyloba marble run is a modular and stable interlocking system that can be extended and combined to meet individuals‘ requirements. The way it works is simple: Sounding plates of various pitches are inserted into the marble run, and determine the melody. Ramps of different lengths produce the rhythm. The marble generates the notes and melody as it rolls down the slope and hits the sounding plates fixed into it. The musical marble run is made of 100% natural beech wood and the sound plates are of high quality and tuned precisely to produce an agreeable sound.
Weizenkorn, a social enterprise, is proud of its unique marble run, and wants Xyloba to be seen and used as a musical construction game, since the system used in it offers all the benefits of one – encouraging the use of motor skills, imagination, spatial awareness, creativity, concentration, and so on – as well as the benefits of a musical instrument: there are no limits to children’s creativity when it comes to composing tunes on it. The marble run makes musical concepts tangible and combines them with the fun that comes from play. By playing with Xyloba, children automatically develop a feeling for beat, rhythm, pitch and notes. They absorb and internalise basic musical principles without being forced to or having to think about them.
Weizenkorn recommends its piccolino, mezzo and orchestra building sets as good ways of introducing them to Xyloba and its world of sounds.
Geschützte Werkstätten Weizenkorn (Weizenkorn Sheltered Workshop) is a social enterprise. It offers over 280 sheltered jobs and training positions, predominantly for young women and men who, for psychological or psychosocial reasons, are temporarily or permanently unable to find employment.
Weizenkorn has been in existence since 1979 and is recognised as a sheltered workshop by the Swiss Confederation and by the canton. The enterprise is funded through the sale of products, operating subsidies and donations.
Kontakt
Stiftung Weizenkorn
Erika Ruf-Gabriel
Oetlingerstrasse 81
4057 Basel
0041 61 6869131
erika.ruf@weizenkorn.ch
http://www.weizenkorn.ch