Who makes this

Plenty of people reach parenthood without a repertoire of play, because nobody played with them. That is a gap in what was passed on rather than anything lacking in them, and it is fillable. Playsaurus exists to fill it.

Why it exists

Play is normally learned by being played with. When that does not happen, and there are many ordinary reasons why it might not, what is left is not a shortage of love but a shortage of ideas: you are alone with a two-year-old on a wet Tuesday and you genuinely do not know what to do for the next twenty minutes.

Most of what exists tells rather than shows. A leaflet saying "engage in back-and-forth interaction with your baby" is no use if you have never seen it done. So this is a catalogue of short clips of adults actually playing with children, described in plain words and indexed by the things you actually know: how old they are, what room you are in, what is within reach, and how much you have left to give.

Who it is by

James Alvarez, in the UK. It is free, there is nothing to buy, and it is run at cost rather than as a business. If it ever needs money to keep going, that will be said openly here.

The channels it draws on

Every clip comes from someone else's work. These are the channels whose videos are currently used, with our thanks.

Institutional

• BBC Bitesize for Teachers
• City of York Council
• Scouts
• West Sussex Libraries

Practitioner

• Emma Hubbard
• Fun & Active Playgrounds
• The Curiosity Approach
• Toddler Talk

How it is built

How entries are chosen, checked and turned down is set out in full on the curation and safety policy. What is stored about you, which is almost nothing, is on the privacy page.

Suggestions for games that are missing are genuinely welcome, particularly for babies under three months and for children of five to seven, which are the thinnest parts of the catalogue.