The GIANT Room Partners with Fred Rogers Productions and Mrs. Wordsmith for Co-Design Sessions in Winter of 2025
The GIANT Room partners with two leading early childhood media companies, Fred Rogers Productions and Mrs Wordsmith, to co-design a series of learning apps with kids and their families.
The GIANT Room, an innovation hub for children and their families, is honored to announce two new partnerships with leading early childhood media companies, Fred Rogers Productions and Mrs Wordsmith, to co-design next versions of Daniel Tiger for Parents and Readiculous apps. We are bringing together diverse groups of families with researchers and industry innovators to put learning, wellbeing, and DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) at the center of product development for these learning apps. Families with children ages 2 to 6 years old are invited to apply to join either or both of these free co-design workshop series.
Families who are interested to participate in co-designing the next version of Daniel Tiger App for Parents will be invited to join either a 30-45 minute online interview on zoom, or an in-person two-hour workshop at The GIANT Room offices in the financial district, New York City. We ask at least one parent and one child 2 to 5 years old to participate in the in-person workshop. As a token of appreciation for your time, participating families will receive a $25 amazon gift card.
Children, ages 3 to 6 years old, who are interested in co-designing the next version of Readiculous app by Mrs Wordsmith will be asked to join three free in-person two-hour workshops at The GIANT Room offices in the financial district, New York City. Parents do not need to participate but are more than welcome to stay at our offices during the sessions. Kids who participate will learn and practice giving and receiving feedback and will build prototypes of their ideas in collaboration with Mrs Wordsmith designers who will be joining us from the UK and Denmark.
Apply to join either or both of these co-design opportunities.
The GIANT Room believes the most engaging and effective learning experiences are the ones that are designed with families’ point of view in mind, and even better, those that are designed with children involved in the design process. These co-design partnerships not only provide opportunities for children to meet and build prototypes with real designers from leading media companies, but also make it possible to create learning applications that millions of families around the world can use as an effective learning resource.
The Daniel Tiger App for parents includes a variety of songs and clips from Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, that support families in teaching children about emotional and social skills. The app also includes tips and conversation starters for parents and caregivers to use with their children in the learning process. Designers from Fred Rogers Productions are working on the next version of the app with the goal to make it more engaging and resourceful for families.
Readiculous is a game-based learning app designed to teach phonics skills to kids using Mrs Wordsmith’s Science of Reading. This app is “readiculously” fun to play and help kids to master important phonics skills while sparking a lifelong passion for language and learning. The app also includes a progress report so parents and caregivers can review what their child is learning. Designers from Mrs Wordsmith are joining us from the UK and Denmark to be in person with kids at The GIANT Room offices in New York City, around a “design table” to design new features for the app.
Dates for these interview sessions and workshops are as following:
Fred Rogers Interview Sessions (online via zoom): participating families will be asked to join only one session based on their availability on January 27th, 29th, February 3rd, 5th, or 27th.
Fred Rogers co-design workshops (in person at The GIANT Room): participating families will be asked to join only one session based on their availability on February 25th or 26th.
Readiculous co-design workshops (in person at The GIANT Room): participating children will be asked to join all three sessions on February 11th, 13th and 18th.
These programs are completely free for children to participate. We are accepting a limited number of families to participate. Families with children ages 2 to 6 years old are invited to apply.
The GIANT Room’s office is located at 25 Broadway, 12th floor, New York, NY.
For more information about GIANT STEAM programs and a full list of their workshops, class series, and events, please visit The GIANT Room’s website.