Originally published at: https://www.ogbongeblog.com/kinspire-app-parents-discover-activities-that-keep-kids-away-from-screen.html
For parents looking for alternative ways to keep kids occupied and entertained, preferably offline, you can now discover and share screen-free activities on Kinspire, the mobile app that takes your kids offline.
According to Dr. Doreen Dodgen-Magee, a Renowned speaker; “Kinspire is this incredible app that uses technology to get us away from technology. It’s kid-driven, where your child can go in with you and find activities, crafts, projects, explorations, mostly with things you have around the house, which is something I really value and appreciate. This teaches resourcefulness, and it helps us get our kids away from tech in exciting and really approachable ways.”
Available on Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store and featuring hundreds of kid-tested, screen-free activities from educators and parents, the Kinspire app seeks to solve one of the Covid era’s biggest parenting challenges: how do we balance our children’s screen time with offline learning and play?
At launch, Kinspire features over 350 screen-free activities, including project-based STEAM activities from Tinkerclass, via NPR’s “Wow in the World” — a kids’ podcast designed to encourage kids to think and “tinker” with ordinary household items.
When you first open the Kinspire app, you’ll see a vertical feed of images, similar to Instagram. But instead of wading through memes and news to find fun stuff to do with your family, you can scroll through the activity suggestions which are tailored to your needs. Each activity card will feature a photo taken by the Kinspire community, which includes teachers, activity creators, as well as parents and caregivers.
Parents can also filter the suggested activities by age, whether it’s designed for indoors or outdoors, prep time, how much parental involvement is needed, activity type, materials needed, and even the mess level involved. You can also save favorite activities you may want to try later. You and your child can choose activities together, or let them pick. When kids choose activities they love, they’re more likely to experience satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. As kids complete the activities in Kinspire, they earn in-app rewards as they accomplish things.
Kinspire uses classic gamification techniques to encourage families to increase their offline play time, leveraging digital tools to enhance and encourage physical-world behaviors. Each time you create an activity or add a Kinspiration, you earn points toward levels that feature origami animal character rewards. A digital character badge goes on your profile, but more importantly, you receive printable instructions to build the character with paper at home.
The app’s “Kinspire Your Friends” feature lets you challenge friends and family to do an activity and share their version, in a kid-friendly, offline version of the current challenges craze.
Kinspire is also working on shoppable activities, a top user request during testing. This lets parents easily purchase all the necessary materials for an activity directly in the Kinspire app, instead of having to go to Amazon or another store. Kinspire would take a commission on those purchases.
Download Kinspire App for Kids for Android and iOS
The Kinspire app is a free download on iOS and Android in the U.S. and Canada.
You can download Kinspire for Android
You can download Kinspire for iOS