Creative play with familiar places
A great tool for Exploration
Creativity can start with a small choice: pick a colour, change a building’s size or direction, or place another building. Children can try an idea, change it, and decide what their city becomes. The focus is on making—not studying a map.
The short answer
Creation can happen throughout the experience: choose colours, resize or rotate a building, or add one from the catalog. Each choice can lead to another idea.
Pediatric research describes play as supporting brain structure, cognitive development, and executive function. Creating gives children chances to imagine, make choices, test ideas, and revise them. [2]
The creative loop
Creativity happens in the making.
It is not one special tool. It is the process of imagining, making a choice, seeing what changed, and deciding what to try next.
Choose
Pick a colour, a detail, or a place to start.
Change
Resize or rotate a building and see how the idea shifts.
Build on it
Add a building and imagine what belongs there.
Open-ended art guidance similarly puts children’s choices and exploration ahead of copying one finished example. [9]
Play and development, without the hype
What research says about play and creating
Research gives us good reason to make room for play, making, and trying ideas. The findings describe patterns across play and intentionally designed learning experiences; children and outcomes vary.
Play supports development
The American Academy of Pediatrics describes developmentally appropriate play as supporting cognitive, language, social-emotional, and self-regulation skills, as well as brain structure and executive function. [2]
Creative skills can be practiced
A 2025 review of early-childhood programmes found gains in some measured skills, including originality, elaboration, and imagination, through intentional creative activities. Results varied by skill. [8]
Skills that can grow
A meta-analysis found that targeted spatial-skills training can improve measured skills in early childhood. That does not mean every activity produces the same result. [3]
These findings describe possibilities across play and intentional learning activities. They are a reason to make room for children to create and practice, not a guarantee that one activity will produce a specific developmental result.
Audience guide
On this page
Each section explains how Openmap could fit this audience and offers one practical activity.
01 · Early childhood · families and caregivers
Give young children room to imagine and remake
Children can start with a familiar city and make it their own: choose building colours, change a building’s size or direction, or add another one—then decide what to keep, change, or imagine next.
Why Openmap may help
Young children learn through play, repeated choices, and conversation. Openmap makes creation visible: a child can choose a colour, adjust a building, add one, and see the idea take shape. Research on intentional early-childhood activities found gains in some creative skills, including originality and imagination. [8]
Changing size, direction, and placement can prompt children to think about space and how parts fit together. Targeted spatial-skill activities can strengthen measured skills in early childhood. [3]
Try it together
Invite the child to choose one change: a new colour, a different building size or direction, or one building to add. Ask, “What are you imagining?” and “What would you like to try next?” Let them lead the pace and decisions.
Openmap is one option for child-led making. Conversation, blocks, drawing, and pretend play can offer the same freedom to explore.
02 · Autistic children · families · educators · therapists
Start with the child’s interests and needs
Autistic children are individuals with different interests, communication styles, and sensory needs. A visual city activity may feel inviting to one child and too busy or uninteresting to another.
Why Openmap may help
NICE guidance recommends visual supports that are meaningful to the individual child and asks teams to consider sensory sensitivities. Openmap offers a visible scene and simple changes—such as choosing a colour, adjusting a building, or adding one—which an adult can offer one step at a time if the child wants to engage. [5]
Try it, if it suits the child
If the child enjoys colouring, offer to colour buildings together one at a time. They could also choose where to add a building or change its size or direction. Accept their usual way of communicating, and let them stop without needing to finish.
Use Openmap only if it fits the child’s preferences and individualized support plan. It is an optional creative activity—not autism treatment or a replacement for professional care.
03 · Teachers · primary and secondary
Let students make an idea visible
Instead of only looking at a city, students can choose, add, and change elements, then explain what they were trying to make.
Why Openmap may help
Students see the effect of their choices right away: they can change a building’s colour, size, or direction, or add one to the scene. Those visible changes give teachers a concrete starting point for asking what students imagined and what they might revise.
Try it in class
Ask each student or pair to add a building for a chosen community use. Invite them to adjust its colour, size, or direction, then explain one choice they would keep and one they might change.
Use the app to make and discuss ideas. Check factual claims about a real neighbourhood against reliable local information.
04 · School projects · architecture students
Explore design ideas in a real setting
From a school project to an early architecture studio, learners can place a building in a city, change it, and talk through what they would try next.
Why Openmap may help
For school learners, adding and adjusting a building makes a design idea visible and easier to discuss; the national geography framework also emphasizes inquiry and critical thinking about place. For architecture students, placing, resizing, or rotating a building beside its neighbours can prompt early questions about orientation and site context. Design education asks students to consider users and site conditions. [4][6]
Try it in a project
For a school project, ask learners to add a building for a neighbourhood need and explain their choice. In an architecture activity, place a catalog building, adjust its size or direction, and compare it with nearby buildings and routes.
Openmap is a quick visual exploration aid, not a measured site survey, CAD/BIM model, or proof that a design is feasible.
05 · Researchers · field teams · community partners
Put the research question beside the place
Openmap’s city view gives teams a shared visual starting point for discussing where a question applies and what context may be missing.
Why Openmap may help
Participatory mapping has been used in community-health research to discuss how social and environmental conditions vary by place. Openmap can support an early conversation by giving people a shared city view to consider together. A visual discussion aid alone does not ensure that research is accurate or inclusive. [7]
Try it during scoping
Before formal data collection, use the city view to ask where a question applies, which perspectives may be missing, and what evidence is still needed. Keep consent, sensitive location details, observations, and analysis in approved research systems.
Use Openmap to support discussion, not as a GIS, research repository, or validated data-collection method.
Read the source, not just the summary
Sources & further reading
These sources cover research on play, creativity, and spatial skills, along with professional guidance for the audiences above.
[1] Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. “Serve and Return.” Read source
[2] Yogman, M. et al. “The Power of Play: A Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children.” Pediatrics, 2018; 142(3):e20182058. Read source
[3] Yang, W., Liu, H., Chen, N., et al. “Is Early Spatial Skills Training Effective? A Meta-Analysis.” Frontiers in Psychology, 2020; 11:1938. Read source
[4] National Assessment Governing Board. Geography Framework for the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Read source
[5] National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Autism spectrum disorder in under 19s: support and management, recommendation 1.1.9. Read source
[6] National Architectural Accrediting Board. Conditions for Accreditation, 2020 Edition, revised March 19, 2026; SC.5 Design Synthesis. Read source
[7] Douglas, J. A., Subica, A. M., & Franks, L. “Using Participatory Mapping to Diagnose Upstream Determinants of Health and Prescribe Downstream Policy-Based Interventions.” Preventing Chronic Disease, 2020; 17:E138. Read source
[8] “Enhancing Children’s Creativity in Early Childhood Education and Care: A Systematic Review and Multivariate Meta-Analysis of Studies Between 1969 and 2019.” Early Childhood Education Journal, published 2025. Read source
[9] Bongiorno, L. “How Process-Focused Art Experiences Support Preschoolers.” National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2014. Read source
Imagine, make, revise
Start with a place. See what they create.
A colour, a changed building, or a new addition can be the start of an idea. Ask what they want to make next.