10 Things That We Create

　“Children’s imagination will create the future!” With this conviction in mind, we have continued to create learning opportunities for children for 12 years. 350,000 children have participated in our programs.
　It has been our challenge to create “10 things” for realizing children’s creative learning.

1.) Creating Opportunities

　We have been working to support children’s creative activities in cooperation with industries, government, and schools. With about 300 activists as our vanguard, we work closely with many people ‒ people who create workshops, people working in after schools, science museums, other museums, people working in the field of education, researchers at universities, many artists from different fields, business people, government officials, and municipal officials ‒ to build a platform for children to create something.

　Every year, we hold the world’s first and largest children’s creative event. It is called the “Workshop Collection”. The Workshop Collection is an exhibition of workshops. Held recently, the 9th Workshop Collection had 100 creative workshops and 100,000 families that participated in 2 days. Acknowledged for its social value and prevalence as a “system that promotes children’s creativity and expression throughout the nation”, the Workshop Collection received the Good Design Award and was also selected for the Good Design Best 100.

2.) Creating Programs

　Creating movies, creating robots, creating music…we have developed programs in our workshops that motivate “creation”. The programs range over a variety of fields. Subjects include molding, designing, movies, music, the body, digital technology, programming, the environment, science, numbers, language, international exchange, netiquette, and food. There are 200 types of molding workshops alone!

　There are many programs in the world that allow participants to listen, search, and learn, but the programs we’ve developed and offered in the past encouraged children to create themselves.

3.) Creating Resources

　Our goal is for all children to be able to participate in creative learning. To realize this goal, it is vital to create resources on how to prepare these workshops, so that anyone can organize them.

　Our Workshop Resource Package has been used in 320 facilities, such as museums, nursery schools, kindergartens, schools, universities, after schools, day cares, cultural facilities, commercial facilities, and apartments.

4.) Creating Tools

　Wouldn’t it be nice to engage in creative activity in your daily life? We are working to develop a system, which families can use to engage in creative activity, such as a smartphone or tablet app. Our app, “tap*rap series” allows users to engage in creative activities. This app has received the Kids Design Award and Good Design Award.

5.) Developing Talent

　Although programs and tools are important, “people” create the community for learning. We are working to nurture facilitators and producers that help children engage in imaginative activity. Currently, there are 1,087 facilitators enrolled with us!

6.) Creating Spaces

　The spaces where children engage in creative activity is very important. We have worked to create an environment that supports children’s creative activities in homes and cultural facilities. Our ideology has been realized in places such as museums, apartments, as well as digital storybook museums, and the recently redeveloped “Park City Osaki” – the largest metropolitan area inside the Yamanote line.

7.) Creating Home Base

　We have worked to create a home base where children can participate in creative learning. We have developed a program called the Kids Creative Research Center held at Tokyo University, Keio University, Waseda University, Futakotamagawa Catalyst BA and so on. The ratio of acceptance to the number of applicants is 1:10, which shows the high interest of parents in such programs. We are also working to create places for productive after school activities, and we are implementing our programs in facilities for after school activities.

8.) Creating a Community

　We have a vision of making a city filled with children’s creativity. Our vision is to establish local communities that support the creative activities of children, by which local communities are revitalized. In such a way, we are working to create a positive community.

9.) Creating an Environment

We have worked to create an environment where children can use digital technology safely and securely. Our efforts include implementing information literacy education and supporting social movement. Digitalizing school education is also a key factor in this effort.

10.) Creating the Future

　Imagine the future post office, imagine the future car, imagine the future train, imagine the future hospital. We have implemented projects, where children – together with other children and experts – can connect with children of the world, imagine the future, and send a message to adults.