While we were searching for the right approach for Jin, PeNnY — who had been following the rise of AI with genuine fascination — suggested we try building an app just for her. And so began the fearless adventure of two liberal arts graduates (mainly one) taking on app development.
The first plan was simple: a vocabulary learning app. We selected four words for each letter of the alphabet and used AI image generation to create word cards in an illustration style we thought Jin would love.
The 104 word cards were finished first. While PeNnY wrestled with code and scripts, I couldn't bear to let those lovely images just sit on a screen — so I decided to make a physical set. I printed them small enough to fit in a child's hand, backed each one with coloured card to stop the image showing through, laminated them by hand to protect against water damage, trimmed them with a paper cutter, and rounded every corner with a corner punch so small fingers wouldn't get scratched or cut. Then I made a second set, so we could play memory games. Thanks to Mummy's little helpers — aka the big sisters.
When the cards were ready and we showed them to Jin, she was delighted. She seemed drawn to the soft, crayon-like illustrations, flipping through to find her favourite words. We tried going through them like flashcards, and it turned out she already knew forty to fifty of them.
We kept the card sets within arm's reach and played with them in every way we could think of — flashcards, memory matching, sorting by category, word chains. Sometimes with Mum, sometimes with her sisters. And just as Jin was beginning to tire of playing the same kinds of games with the same set of cards, she took things in a direction none of us expected.
