play-based-learning
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Natacha Beim Boserup and the school that started with one student
She wanted young children to have room for science, poetry, paint and possibility. Building CEFA meant persuading adults to take that ambition seriously.
CEFA Turned Preschool Into a $2.5 Million Franchise - Here Is the Lesson Plan
Natacha Beim Boserup could not persuade existing schools to adopt her early-learning ideas, so she opened one herself. Twenty-eight years later, CEFA packages curriculum, teacher training and a premium school experience into a franchise that costs roughly C$2.5 million to C$3 million to open.
The Preschool That Runs on Curiosity - and Nearly 100,000 Small Customers
It sells peace of mind to working parents, a business to local owners, and a play-based curriculum to nearly 100,000 kids. Inside the franchise that turned early childhood into one of America's most resilient service industries.
Vivvi
Vivvi is a New York-based child care and early learning company that partners with employers to make high-quality care affordable and flexible for working families. Founded in 2018 by Charles Bonello and Ben Newton, it operates a growing network of early learning campuses for children from six weeks to five years old, and layers on employer-sponsored offerings such as backup care, in-home care, virtual tutoring, and its Care Cash reimbursement program. The model turns child care into a recruiting and retention benefit for companies while giving parents full-day, year-round, research-based programs.
Kibeam Learning
Kibeam Learning is an Oakland, California edtech company building the Kibeam Wand Reading System - a screen-free, AI-powered handheld device that brings physical books to life with sound, character voices, read-aloud and play-based games. Founded in 2020 by LeapFrog LeapPad inventor Jim Marggraff, Kibeam targets PreK-3 literacy at home and in classrooms, grounded in the Science of Reading, and has run large pilots including a partnership with the University of Florida's Lastinger Center reaching tens of thousands of families.
Jim Marggraff
Jim Marggraff is a serial inventor and entrepreneur with 70+ patents whose products have touched over 100 million children and adults worldwide. He co-invented the LeapFrog LeapPad - the #1 US toy two years running that generated $1B+ in sales - then built Livescribe (the world's first smart pen) and Eyefluence (acquired by Google in 2016 for eye-tracking AR/VR). Today he's back doing what he's always done: tackling childhood literacy. His Oakland startup Kibeam Learning has created a screen-free, AI-powered wand that brings physical books to life using sound, light, and motion - sending kids to 28 minutes of reading engagement versus the usual 5-7.
Begin
Begin (legally Conscious Content Media, dba BEGiN) is a New York-based early-learning company that builds research-backed, play-based products for kids ages 2-10. Its portfolio - HOMER, codeSpark, Little Passports, and the Sesame Workshop partnership app Learn with Sesame - blends digital, physical, and experiential learning around a '6Cs' skills framework, and has reached more than 10 million families. Backed by LEGO Ventures, Sesame Workshop, and Gymboree, the company raised a $94.5M Series D in late 2022 before entering a prenegotiated Chapter 11 restructuring in December 2025 to cut roughly $106.5M in debt and continue operating its brands.
Teaching Strategies, LLC
Teaching Strategies is a Bethesda, Maryland based early childhood education company best known for The Creative Curriculum and GOLD, a formative assessment system used by hundreds of thousands of teachers serving children from birth through third grade. The company provides integrated curriculum, observation-based assessment, family engagement tools, and professional development across Head Start, public Pre-K, private child care, and elementary programs in the United States and abroad.