Can New Tech Toy Teach Inclusion? Environmentalism? Humanitarianism? One Start-Up says, ‘Yes’.*
smallworld.com — Opening Tiny Minds.
What if… you could feel good about your kid being on a screen? What if educators, activists — and digital artisans could all come together to teach Inclusion, Environmentalism, Humanitarianism to our tiniest citizens? What if you could find a digital tool that taught your children about geography, culture, nature — and more — AND they loved it? Well, that is exactly what start-up smallworld.com has set out to do — and you won’t believe what they’ve come up with.
A Little Bit of Magic
Let’s take a walk through the smallworld experience. The journey, aimed primarily at children 2–4 yrs old, but stretching to 6, begins with a thrilling initiation involving both parent and child. By following a beautiful, interactive introduction the child can design both their ‘on-line traveler’ (thanks to partner Bitmoji), as well as a real life doll (thanks to partner American Girl Doll), that looks exactly like them! From here the child begins a fantastical trip around the world — and what happens next is a little bit of magic.
smallworld.com — Opening Tiny Minds.
Using the smallworld.com platform, your child can tour the globe and visually visit a total of over 100 countries. “Visits” include various modalities including video, song, dance and language (written and spoken) to share information about the host country’s people, animals, nature, religions and more! What emerges in front of your eyes is a beautiful cultural experience that will keep your child — and you! — thirsting for more.
Through the Eyes of a Child
Smallworld’s digital experience is a fascinating frenzy of fun facts — and they are delivered by little friends ½ a world away. The child ‘traveler’ gets to see other nations through the eyes of children their own age for ultimate engagement! They learn about nature and environmentalism through science made simple, while a mixture of movement, music and art are expertly woven together to tell the tales of countries’ natural history, straight through to their modern day culture.
Something else unique about smallworld is that it includes live action content not normally seen in American pre-school education. The ability for young children to watch their international peers’ creativity and knowledge in live-action, using real live people, in the real world, provides an unparalleled digital experience. Smallworld’s little hosts become welcome friends — entertaining, happy and curious.
An active community of parents and guardians also gets involved in the action, and enjoys exchanging experiences, encouragement — even local recipes! Most importantly, they are there to encourage our young people to engage and share stories with other tiny travelers.
Reaching Lives, Breaking Boundaries
Animation allows child travelers to be front-line and center, using fundamental math and language skills to achieve success in puzzles and quizzes along their journey. Kid travelers can store up points to purchase products on-line by answering simple, visual questions about the content along the way! ‘Travelers’ can buy native dress, traditional housing — and even on-line pets!, while also buying real costumes for themselves and their dolls as they move around the world.
What’s really great is that the garments provided are all indigenously sourced, encouraging local businesses and enabling emerging micro-financing programs (thanks to partner The Grameen Foundation.) It is a basic tenet of smallworld.com that the best way to help the world is by investing in local businesses.
In light of that commitment, smallworld.com contributes 10% of all profits to micro-financing and lending programs globally.
So, in addition to giving children the opportunity to learn inclusivity and environmentalism, smallworld.com also them teaches them to give back. Smallworld’s increasing web of contributors and partners is only just the beginning. As smallworld grows, they expect to continue to reach out to agencies, corporations — and local providers to share more, learn more — make more and give more.
One Message, One World
As your child moves around the globe with smallworld.com, one message becomes clear — “Wow. There are children all over the world just like me. They have families that they love, they go to school to try to learn and they care about animals and nature. They also care about me, and about the planet we share. We’re going to all have to stick together to make sure we can make the best world possible.”
Not a bad message — and the fact that kids can be connected with international pen pals (Thanks to partner REACH), means that that message can be shared and reiterated to the far corners of the earth. Have these guys thought of everything?
smallword.com. A tiny step for Children, a giant leap for Mankind.
*This story is fiction and in no way represents any parties mentioned herein.
