Given how much children love playtime, it seems logical that a teacher would want to incorporate more toys into their classroom lesson plans. The Toy Museum: A Mini Musical offers instructors the ability to do just that. Whether it’s language arts, social studies, performing arts, or the concept of sharing, the play (about playing) offers an educational experience for students from pre-K to third grade.

The event’s main character, Queen Marlene, guides the audience through magical stories of toy history, and a large doll, Rosie Rascal, stirs up trouble for the rest of the characters on stage. The show was written and produced by the Toy of Museum of NY’s founder Marlene Hochman. A strong believer in the power of toys as educational tools, Hochman told The New York Times, “If we let our young children today sit in front of a computer or to play with electronic games, we are not giving them the opportunity to think on their own or to create on their own. It’s already preprogrammed, so what kind of inventors are we going to have?”

Photo: Courtesy of the Toy Museum of NY.