Exciting Adventure Ahead at IPP!

Today I'm off to an amazing conference. It's called IPP (International Puzzle Party). It is organized by Jerry Slocum (the foremost puzzle collector in the world). This is my second year attending and I'm thrilled to be a part of this very exclusive event. In fact, there were only about four Canadians on the list last year who were invited to attend!
This conference is for major collectors and inventors from around the world. One of the invitation requirements is that you have at least 500 puzzles in your personal collection. Last year I helped Bill Ritchie run the IPP Kid's Puzzle Room. It was the first year this room was created. I had an amazing time meeting the kids who visited this room and all the adults as well! It was a great project to be a part of my first year!
And then this year Bill could not attend IPP, so he has asked me to run it on my own. We have been working very hard putting together the puzzles for this room. There are three components:
1) A display of selected SNAP Math Fair projects of kids from the Collingwood area who did Math Fairs this year. I shipped them a few weeks ago and will set them up for the kids to play with and for people who are interested in finding out about SNAP Math Fairs. I have included photos of the actual kids with their projects in the display.
2) I'm excited to have ThinkFun Game Club set up as well. We have chosen 8 games from this program for the IPP kids to play and we are also displaying photos of actual Game Clubs that have already run. It will be great for IPP'ers to see how we're bringing puzzles/games into education as manipulatives for teaching problem solving.
3) A puzzle story will also be on display. This is another exciting display because it was last year that I introduced the idea to Bill. Over the past year, with Bill's help, I've been writing a Puzzle Story for kids to solve puzzles as the story advances. I believe there's a real interest in the classroom for something like this and I'll be very interested to see how the kids react. It has taken a lot of effort to put this together. After the story was written, Bill contacted two amazing puzzlers named Saul Bobroff and George Miller to make some wooden versions of the puzzles we needed. Bill also contacted an amazing illustrator named Amanda Manning who drew the most beautiful illustrations for my story. And finally, a dear friend of mine, Michelle Fleming, who is a very talented artist who runs her own art school, Georgian Bay School of Arts, took the wooden puzzles and had her students paint and decorate them to use at IPP. So now the puzzle story is finished and will be on display for the kids to play and discover!
So I'm very excited to attend IPP and I'm looking forward to meeting many talented people from all over the world. It was funny when last year (this was my first international conference) people would as me where I was from. I'd say "2 hours north of Toronto" and they'd look at me confused. I'd say "in Ontario" and still confused looks. Then I'd say "Canada" and they'd understand. So then I learned to just say Canada immediately.
And this year I'm doing a lecture/presentation about SNAP Math Fairs and ThinkFun Game Clubs, i.e. puzzles in education. So the conference will be great! I will post photos as soon as I'm able!
Tanya