Thumball Goes To College

Thumball is making waves on campuses and with co-eds. At first they arrive on the scene and get casually investigated. Then they are used for juggling or extreme catch.

Eventually however the players read and think about what's on them and begin to play with interest. Then the fun starts and everyone is clamoring for more Thumball.

Icebreaker, Who Are You? and Meet & Greet Thumball are perfect for orientation and social events to get students interacting and feeling less awkward.

Emotion Mania and Move Your Body Thumball get grabbed up by drama departments and PE classes. Act out feelings, exaggerate movements and learn about body language. You couldn't refrain from laughing if you wanted to.

Category Mania Thumball can get competitive and surprises everyone by how challenging it can be to name things in categories quickly and accurately. Name as many flowers or birds or noisy things as you can and just try not to stammer.

Virtues and Values Thumball really inspires personal thought and reflection. Three attributes are revealed under your thumb and you decide if you have them, if you observe them in others or if you would like to have them. This activity changes with age and is appreciated by families, counselors and coworkers.

Catch Peace Thumball inspires students to learn more about world geography, languages and cultures. Find on the map the countries that speak Malay or Persian. Enjoy trying to pronounce the word peace in them too.

We are pleased to see Thumball's reach expand and whether they are used for learning and communicating or juggling and radical acts of catch it brings people together. That is our ultimate goal to come together and recognize our similarities and differences without the need for judgement.

Can a ball do that? We say "Yes". Now we just need to get the warring factions on our planet to play catch and maybe they will come together too.

Give Peace A Chance

We are a nation at war and it still surprises me at times but most things about war surprise me and shock me. I am always amazed at the casualty numbers and how we separate our American losses from the countries we are fighting. The number of civilian losses in Iraq are staggering yet we scarcely blink an eye because it is not "our" people. Well there in lies much of the problem.

I believe in the interdependence of all things. In early science classes we were all taught about ecosystems and that organisms working in harmony as a community result in growth and life. We seem to forget it applies not just to plants and other animals. We are part of it too and it includes the people we count as separate from us based on imaginary boundary lines.

We came to create a ball of hope, The Catch Peace Thumball is covered with the word Peace in different languages just like our world is covered with different nations and tongues. We use it to discuss the many languages that exist and find on a map where they are spoken. It is fun to highlight the different way words sound and trying to pronounce words "foreign" to us.

We use Catch Peace Thumball to honor the belief that to focus on our similarities not only our differences will help cultures understand each other and lead to communication and respect. It is a small step perhaps but to share the concept of oneness to children from a young age can't be a bad thing.

The war being fought is not American vs. Iraqi. The majority of Iraqis are people like us raising families, working hard, living simply and wanting peace. Toss it around, practice saying peace. it just may give peace a chance... of growing.

Yoko Ono Has Our Balls!

Gwen Owens, a reporter for Comcast Channel 8 is one of those terrific, thoughtful, kind and intelligent people. A person we were lucky enough to meet because of Thumball. Gwen came to my elementary school in September 2007 to do a story on Thumball as an effective new learning tool which allows typically developing students to participate with non typically developing students in a fun way.Developing social skills is a natural consequence of a game of catch. The questions on Thumball take it to the next step and students are verbally expressing themselves to each other.

Our reporter Gwen, she was friendly and approachable and our conversation led to the peace tower which Yoko Ono was dedicating to her late husband John Lennon the following month in Iceland.

We recalled that anchor Larry Kane one of the first reporters to travel with the Beatles in the 1960s also worked at CN8 so we took a chance and asked Gwen if she knew him and if he might have contact information for Yoko Ono. Well she did and he did so we did the only natural next step and sent her the Catch Peace Thumball. It has the word peace in different languages and Yoko loved it. She decided to order 48 Thumballs to give as Christmas gifts in her continuing commitment to peace.

We were thrilled with our first (of we anticipate many) celebrity endorsements. Now my husband can proudly report "Yoko Ono loves my balls." I apologize if that is crude but ball jokes are inherent in our business. Gosh we love the Beatles and we miss John dearly. Thanks Yoko for everything. Peace.