Childhood is changing
Screens have become the default. Busy schedules have replaced neighbourhood games. Many children have fewer opportunities than ever before to simply play, connect, and belong.
The Play Project was created to bring those moments back.
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Through guided games, challenges, creativity, and teamwork, children build confidence, friendships, communication skills, emotional regulation, problem-solving skills, and a stronger sense of belonging.
Because play is not just fun. Play is how children learn, connect, and grow.
Play With Purpose
Play is more than fun.
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It's how children learn to communicate, build friendships, solve problems, regulate emotions, develop confidence, and understand the world around them. Every experience is intentionally designed around play with purpose.
Play Is Regulation
Children need opportunities to move, create, imagine, and explore. Play provides a natural pathway to practice emotional regulation, confidence, flexibility, communication, and social skills.
Our Approach
Connection Before Correction
Children are more successful when they feel connected. Rather than focusing only on behaviour, we focus on the relationships underneath it, through restorative practices and relationship-based strategies.
Learning Through Experience
Children don't sit through lessons about friendship or communication, they experience them. Through play, they learn to work together, navigate disagreements, take healthy risks, and recognize their own strengths.
The Six Types of Play
Building persistence, planning, problem-solving, and collaboration.
Building confidence, body awareness, teamwork, and regulation through movement.
Practicing communication, problem-solving, and belonging through shared challenges.
Developing creativity, flexibility, empathy, and perspective-taking.
Encouraging self-expression, confidence, and exploring new ideas.
Building persistence, planning, problem-solving, and collaboration.
Strengthening relationships, leadership, kindness, and conflict resolution.
Why Play Matters Now
Children today have fewer opportunities for unstructured play, fewer chances to naturally practice social skills, and more pressure placed on them than ever before.
The Play Project creates space for children to slow down, connect, laugh, move, and discover what they are capable of. Because play isn't something children outgrow.
Play is how children grow.
Meet Kim
Founder & Chief Play Officer (CPO)
Kim has always believed that play is where children find connection, confidence, and belonging. With over two decades of experience as an educator, camp leader, trainer, and youth program creator, she's witnessed the impact meaningful play has on children's emotional regulation, social development, and wellbeing.
Throughout her years in the classroom and leading camps, Kim noticed something powerful: when children felt connected, understood, and given opportunities to play, they were more confident, more engaged, and better able to navigate challenges.
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The biggest moments of growth often happened through games, laughter, teamwork, and the relationships built along the way.
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As childhood continues to change, Kim recognized a growing need for spaces where children could simply be children.
The Play Project was created from this belief: play is not a break from learning, play is how children learn.
Kim combines her experience as an elementary educator with her training in Conflict Resolution and Restorative Practices. Her approach is grounded in a simple philosophy: connection before correction, play with purpose, relationships first.
When she's not designing new games or dreaming up the next Play Project adventure, you can usually find Kim exploring trails, laughing with kids, or reminding adults that sometimes the best way forward is to bring play back.
Why Families Choose
The Play Project
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Purposeful play rooted in child development
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Experienced educators and trained Play Facilitators
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A relationship-first, restorative approach
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A neuro-affirming and strengths-based philosophy
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Small groups where every child is known
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Active experiences that build confidence, communication, and friendships
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Less screen time, more movement, creativity, and connection
