Aiding Social Development through Play - Dissertation

My Product is a toy suburban neighbourhood that uses early years learning to design a product that teaches 3 to 5 year-olds inter-social and motor skills through play and creative expression. My product looks to solve a gap in children's teaching technology that comes with our current hardware. Tablets and computers are very well suited to teaching children literacy, numeracy and other academic subjects but ill-equipped for interpersonal or physical development. My toy looks to use the Early Years Foundation Stage to break down what children need to learn and look to see what educational technology can't fully provide. It consists of a house with interchangeable rooms, a model café, a model park, small model people, a car & car track pieces.

Innovation from within the toy market has been over the years progressing towards projects more focused in cross-promotional material and the 7-11 age bracket than anything else. This coupled with the digitisation of many educational environments leads to a growing need. A need for children to get proper mental stimulation in a physical environment.

With smartphones and tablets becoming more of the default for educational tasks, children can have a better time understanding the world through this technology. Though this tech has limitations especially in proving comprehensive social development.

My design takes influence from traditional kids toys, to provide children with an experience that’s been optimised for socialising and learning through roleplaying. Children are invited to create their own small suburban town with modular locations and a house with customisable rooms.

Render by Lily Larsimont