Made by a mum, for the world our kids are growing into.
Mini Brains Play is a simple way to hand your kid a good idea in ten seconds, and grow the strengths that will matter most in the future while they play. Here is why we made it.
The world has changed what it means to be clever.
For a long time, being clever meant knowing things. That is ending. A machine can recall more than any of us and answer in a heartbeat. So what gives your child an edge is shifting towards the human strengths a screen cannot teach, the very ones it wears away.
Those strengths are grown slowly, through play, and ages two to seven is when the ground is softest.
Hi, I'm Tina. A mum, and a scrappy outback kid.
I grew up in the outback with a lot of space to roam and time to fill. I spent my days building tree houses, digging underground forts, wandering through bulldozer cuts and turning interesting scraps into a new toy. I learnt to make my own fun by fixing things and working things out for myself. It taught me to problem solve, to have a go, to stick at something hard, and to be resourceful when there was no easy answer to reach for.
These days I work in AI, with a background in tech and writing, so I spend my time looking straight at where the world is heading. That is what makes me certain which human skills are worth protecting in our little ones, and why I decided not to wait for school to catch up.
Mini Brains Play is the good part of a resourceful childhood, made easy for parents who are flat out. Steady, playful practice at being wonderfully, capably human, with whatever is already around you.
Tina, founder and mum
A brains trust of educators, with an eye on what's next.
Most learning products are made by teachers, or by technologists. This one comes from both, in the one family.
An eye on the future
Tina works in AI for a living and comes from a tech background. Watching where technology is heading every day is what tells us which human skills are worth protecting now.
A family of teachers
Tina grew up surrounded by educators: a retired schoolteacher mum, a sister teaching high school, and a sister lecturing at university. Decades of real classroom experience sit behind how this is built.
A mum, in the thick of it
Every idea is built and tested at a real kitchen table, on real two to seven year olds, so it holds up when you are flat out and the witching hour hits.
Eight little strengths, woven through everything.
Every activity is built to grow two or three of these. Problem-solving and critical thinking run all the way through.
Attention
Staying with something slow, and the patience that grows from it.
Curiosity
Asking the next question instead of taking the first answer.
Real world
Hands that know how things really work, by doing them.
Creativity
Making something new that is all their own.
Agency
Being the one who decides and makes things happen.
Connection
Reading a real face, sharing a real moment.
Discernment
Telling what's true from what only sounds true.
Sticking at it
Staying with something hard until it works.
Private by design, and always will be.
We collect as little as possible, we never sell it, and there are no ads chasing your child around the internet. What happens at your kitchen table stays there. It is built into how the whole thing works, and it always will be.