Makeplay

#makeplay provides activities for busy parents with projects that encourage creativity, self-directed play and learning.

The platform was created in order to encourage parents to stimulate young children with simple home-made activities rather than relying on the iPad and other technologies for entertainment.

You can view the website at makeplay.net

Solving a problem

In 2014 when the iPad started to become a popular family device, I began to notice a lot of young children spending their time playing on this digital device rather than with other stimulating games and activities. Bothered by this problem, I decided to find a solution that would encourage parents to continue to practice stimulating activities with their children.

My intial idea was to create a campaign with posters highlighting the negative side-effects of children using technology at a young age. However, I realized the this would only highlight the problem more but not provide a solution. After braninstorming a few other ideas, I decided to develop and design a website with non-technology activities for children.

After sketching more details, I made a clean wireframe of what the #makeplay platform would look like.

Obstacles

In the beginning the idea was to use activities found in books and online blogs and create a community where parents and teachers could also upload creative activities done with children. Shortly, I found out that this would recquire a more complicated CMS system and I needed some content to start with before relying on users to feed the content of the platform.

With the help of many blogs, I adapted the easiest and most stimulating activities and recreated them myself. I then photographed each activity, added the instruction and started to build up the platform.

Outcomes

Finally, I decided to make a very simple website which parents can browse through in order to find the most simple activity to do with their kid. While travelling, at a restaurant, outside or at home, there should always be a simple enough game that will stimulate kids to develop fine motor skills rather than playing with a technological device.

Makeplay has been live since 2015 with the hope of providing a better alternative to the iPad as a game or tool for play for small children. I hope that parents and caregivers around the world can use this platform and make their own play. Using the hash tag #makeplay, the idea is that users of the website share what they have made with inspiration from makeyplay.net

You can see the live website at makeplay.net