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FableVision's Animated
"Parade of the Wooden Soldiers" Debuts at Symphony Hall for 2018 Holiday Pops Program
FableVision Studios is delighted to announce our collaboration with the Boston Pops for the 2018 Holiday Pops season. Led by FableVision’s Vice President of Creative Tone Thyne and Animation Director Rick Ritter, the studio provided the concept, art and design, and animation for Leon Jessel’s “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.” Inspired by Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart’s direction and desire to evoke the warmth, nostalgia, and magic of the holiday season, FableVision created an original story to accompany the musical composition.
The animation will be projected on a 40-foot screen in Symphony Hall and will be accompanied by the orchestra. Thousands of families attend the beloved Holiday Pops every year to hear live renditions of their favorite holiday melodies and new seasonal songs.
FableVision’s festive interpretation of “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers” embodies the spirit of the season and will be featured as part of the musical program at every concert. The animation follows a young wooden soldier who tries to keep up with his battalion despite a mischievous cardinal’s best efforts.
March over to Symphony Hall to celebrate the holiday spirit with FableVision Studios and the Boston Pops! Purchase tickets to see Holiday Pops performances here.
GPB Education, the Georgia Council on Economic Education, and FableVision Studios Launch Lights, Camera, Budget!
GPB Education is headed to the movies with its latest online game for middle and high school students. Created in partnership with the Georgia Council on Economic Education (GCEE) and the award-winning media developers at FableVision Studios, Lights, Camera, Budget! capitalizes on the excitement of the film industry to teach personal finance concepts. The game was designed to work across web and mobile platforms and is available online and via mobile devices here.
Taking on the role of a movie producer, students start with $100 million in funds and move through three phases of the game: pre-production, production and post-production. To ensure that the movie is completed, students must correctly answer questions about financial literacy topics in order to earn enough money to hire the top actors and directors and get the best locations and marketing firms.
“Lights, Camera, Budget! uses humor and riffs on well-known shows and movies made in Georgia to portray its film industry as a creative and multi-faceted career opportunity for students,” said Gary Goldberger, President and Co-Founder of FableVision Studios. “FableVision's design approach integrates personal interest and relevance with important financial literacy content for a fun, engaging experience that's aligned with GPB Education's excellent educational offerings.”
Students must analyze the risks and rewards of each choice and its impact on the budget, with the goal of creating a blockbuster movie that doesn’t bust the bank. Throughout the game, players draw on and enhance their knowledge of key financial literacy concepts, including debt, interest, loans and credit, budgeting, and goal setting.
“Lights, Camera, Budget! stands out in a crowded field of financial literacy materials because it intensely focuses on the decision-making process,” said Dr. Chris Cannon, Associate Director and Chief Program Officer, Georgia Council on Economic Education. “Good decision-making is at the core of healthy personal finance. The creative character names, unique imagery and unexpected events encourage multiple plays that should reinforce the content and decision-making skills in a positive way.”
Lights, Camera, Budget! is aligned to the Georgia Standards of Excellence (GSE) and was vetted by Georgia educators and students who provided feedback during the development process to guide production. The project was made possible through funding from SunTrust Foundation. Read the full announcement on GPB’s site here.
AG Healey, GE Foundation Unveil New Online App Developed by FableVision Studios, Announce $450,000 To Middle Schools For Substance Use Prevention Education
Part of $2 Million Public-Private Partnership to Tackle Unmet Need for and Expand Access to Youth Prevention Education
Attorney General Maura Healey and the GE Foundation today unveiled a first-of-its-kind web-based education app and announced nearly $450,000 in grants to public middle schools as part of Project Here, a $2 million public-private collaboration to make substance use prevention education available to all public middle schools in Massachusetts. Project Here was designed to tackle a significant unmet need in the state’s battle against the ongoing opioid crisis.
“We know that to end the opioid epidemic, we need to stop substance use before it starts,” said AG Healey. “Project Here was designed to address an unmet need for substance use prevention education in our schools. This new app and grant funding will help empower students to make the right decisions, promote health and wellness, and lead change in their schools and communities. We encourage every school to sign up for Project Here to access these free resources for students.”
Project Here promotes social emotional learning and empowers students to make healthy decisions through an innovative combination of curricula, digital content, and support for educators and students. The team behind the initiative (the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, GE Foundation, Health Resources in Action, The Herren Project) partnered with FableVision Studios to create Project Here Games, an innovative and engaging digital experience to teach students about healthy choices, peer pressure, substance use and coping with stress.
Taking cues from popular mainstream games already played by the target audience, the research-based Project Here Games app is a web-based interactive structured as a fast-moving experience that offers bite-sized experiences. Players begin by playing a variety of mini-games and quizzes to earn skills in four content areas—myth-busting, coping, decision-making, and communication. Players can then apply these skills to solve scenarios dealing with critical social and emotional life skills such as mindfulness, peer pressure, stress, and effective communication. The scenario section gives players an opportunity to try out these solutions in a safe, online space and is structured as a fast-moving, playful consumer entertainment experience with an underlying, embedded curriculum.
FableVision concepted and storyboarded the interactive with a variety of simulated environments to engage and assess students’ understanding about the risks of substance use and reinforce their healthy decision-making skills. Project Here Games is available for free on computers, tablets, and smartphones and has the flexibility to be used by teachers as an in-classroom activity or by students outside of school.
Project Here Games is available to play at www.projectheregames.org. People can learn more information and schools can register for Project Here, which provides access to the Online Toolkit and support for Project Here Games, at www.here.world. You can watch the press conference announcement here and read the full press release here.
Join Peter H. Reynolds for a
Rose's Garden StoryWalk on The Greenway
The Rose Kennedy Greenway will host a StoryWalk of New York Times bestselling author/illustrator Peter H. Reynolds' children's book, Rose's Garden, in August. Inspired by Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy and the work she did to make Boston a beautiful place, the book features a gorgeous garden much like The Greenway that winds through Boston's downtown.
Join The Greenway, and partner organizations - The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, the Boston Children's Museum, and The Reynolds Center for Teaching, Learning, and Creativity - over the summer months for a series of paper flower making activities. The culminatingulatin event will be held on Saturday, Aug. 25, with a photoshoot at 1 p.m. on the Greenway (Parcel 14). Children will be encouraged to make paper flowers and write how they will make a difference on the petals - and bring them for the big, group photo with author Peter H. Reynolds.
For more details and to make flowers, click here.
What: Rose's Garden StoryWalk & Photoshoot
When: Saturday, August 25, 2018, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Where: Greenway Carousel at the Tiffany & Co Foundation Grove
FableVision, MPT, Maryland Humanities,
and CIRCLE Awarded Prestigious
Library of Congress Grant
FableVision Studios, in collaboration with Maryland Public Television (MPT), Maryland Humanities, and The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life, is proud to announce their award of a Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Regional Grant from theLibrary of Congress.
This $450,000, two-year grant will fund the development of Civics: An American Musical,an online and mobile civics game designed to effectively and creatively engage middle school students using primary sources from the Library of Congress. Inspired by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s renowned musical Hamilton, Civics: An American Musical will consist of a web-based role playing game, hands-on classroom projects, and professional development materials for teachers.
“We are thrilled to collaborate with leading institutions like MPT, CIRCLE from Tufts University, Maryland Humanities, and the Library of Congress to showcase some of our nation’s most important primary sources,” says FableVision President and Co-Founder Gary Goldberger, who made the announcement. “Our strategy is to engage kids using a familiar concept, a cultural musical phenomenon, that captures their imaginations – and create a scaffolded onramp to make history relevant to their everyday lives.”
The Teaching with Primary Sources program at the Library of Congress is a powerful way to help students ask engaged, probing questions, develop critical-thinking skills, construct knowledge, and inspire original research. The educational outreach program for teachers provides professional-development opportunities that focus on enhancing their ability to embed digitized primary sources from the Library of Congress into inquiry-based instruction to build student literacy, critical thinking skills, and content knowledge.
You can read the official Library of Congress announcement here. For more information about the TPS Grant and to learn more about Civics: An American Musical, read our full release. Have more questions? Please contact Sarah Ditkoff, Communications Director, at sarah@fablevision.com.
March 2021
Primary Source Nexus: TPS Spotlight: Civics! An American Musical
February 2021
ilovelibraries.org: These Online Games Help Kids Learn Money Skills Early
February 2021
Peabody Essex Museum: Telling the story of the Mahabharata
May 2020
Animation World Network: Global Tinker Introduces S.T.E.A.M. Entertainment with ‘The Paper Girls Show’
December 2019
Peabody Essex Museum: What is blue and white, makes you smarter and cracks you up?
October 2019
Harvard Gazette: Learning apps for parents that help kids
July 2019
Kidscreen: How Dodo Kids landed a Dora-sized boost
May 2019
Boston 25 News: Isaac’s Story: A Book About Mental Illness Written for Children
February 2019
Education Week: How Digital Games Take the Stress Out of Formative Tests
December 2018
Boston Globe: Lockhart and the Pops have holiday cheer to spare
October 2018
Georgia Public Broadcasting Education: GPB Education, the Georgia Council on Economic Education, and FableVision Studios Launch Lights, Camera, Budget!
September 2018
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office: AG Healey, GE Foundation Unveil New Online App, Announce $450,000 to Middle Schools for Substance Use Prevention Education
July 2018
Library of Congress: Library of Congress Announces Application-Development Winners to Receive Over $1 Million in Grants
May 2018
Animation Magazine: AardBoiled Series "Don’t Mix Us Up" Prevents Commonplace Catastrophes
Kidscreen: Aardman bolsters YouTube content output
February 2018
PR Newswire: "The Paper Girls Show” Wins Best Original Web Series at the 2018 Kidscreen Awards
November 2017
Boston Voyager: Meet Leigh Hallisey of FableVision Studios in Fort Point Channel
October 2017
Arts Hub:
Gristmill, ACTF See Little Lunch Turn into a Big Feast
September 2017
PR Newswire:
Westchester Publishing Services And FableVision Studios Sign Agreement
June 2017
District Administration, June 2017: Game On
September 2016
REVERE Awards Profile: Zoombinis Combines Computational Thinking with Engaging Game Play
June 2016
The Players' Tribune: Game Break: Martellus Bennett
May 2016
Good Morning America: 11-Year-Old Cancer Survivor Creates and Directs Animated Film
NewBostonPost: An unlikely media mogul: FableVision founder Peter H. Reynolds
March 2016
Los Angeles Times: Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss! Students celebrate Read Across America Day
January 2016
Boston Globe: A focus on creativity at Belmont World Film’s family festival
December 2015
Huffington Post: Neshama: 10-Year-Old Battling Cancer and Directing Animated Film
September 2015
VideoInk: Marriott and Believe Entertainment Open Hot Shoppe Animated Series
STEMConnector: New Smithsonian Web Series Helps Teachers Get in Back-to-School Spirit
August 2015
USA Today: The long, strange journey of 'Zoombinis'
Lab Out Loud: Good Thinking! from Smithsonian Science Education Center
July 2015
Kidscreen: 1990s Zoombinis revived for touchscreen generation
Entertainment Weekly: ‘90s computer game Zoombinis to return this summer
June 2015
U.S. News & World Report: 7 Apps to Teach Your Kids Personal Finance Skills
March 2015
Dig-It! Games: Q&A With Paul Reynolds, CEO Of FableVision, Inc.
Examiner.com: Lightning strikes twice for puzzle game Zoombinis
February 2015
BetaBoston: Zoombinis’ relaunch will target the iOS and Android markets
PR Newswire: Beloved Educational Classic Game, Zoombinis, Journeys to Homes and Classrooms on iPad and Android Tablets This Summer
EdTech Times: Zoombinis: Bringing a beloved ’90s game back for tablets
January 2015
Lesley University:
Renee Kurilla and Keith Zulawnik:
Living and Working Happily Ever After
September 2014
Parka Blogs: 5 Questions for Renee Kurilla
August 2014
Kidscreen: Stories that Matter
June 2014
The Huffington Post: Peter Reynolds, Picture Book Master, Talks to The Book Doctors about Books, Kids, Writing, Twins and How to Get Published Successfully
Kidscreen: Headlines from Games, Learning, and Society 2014
Gloucester Times: A Think Tank for the fisheries game
Maritime Gloucester: Opening for "Think Tank" Interactive Fisheries Exhibit on World Oceans Day
May 2014
Let's Get Busy Podcast: Renee Kurilla (Ep. 54)
March 2014
Animation World Network: FableVision Adds Tone Thyne as VP, Creative
CynopsisKids!:
FableVision Studios is opening the book on original production
Kidscreen: FableVision steps up original IP output with Tone Thyne as creative VP
iKids: Marketing, monetization, and makers among top kid themes at GDC 2014
Jetpens.com: Pen Pals Interview: Cartoonist, Art Director, and Bravest Warriors Character Designer Bob Flynn
February 2014
Naplesnews.com: Discovery Day Academy "Lighting the Way" with New Animated Video