May’s Playland
Creating a place where children, educators, and families can thrive together.
May’s Playland is an in-home childcare program built on a simple belief: when educators feel supported, children flourish. While the program provides high-quality childcare for local families, it’s also become a place where I continue exploring what helps children learn, what helps educators thrive, and how thoughtful leadership can create environments where everyone feels valued.
What May’s Playland is Building
I don’t believe exceptional childcare happens by accident. It happens when passionate educators have the support, resources, trust, and freedom to do what they do best. My goal isn’t simply to provide childcare. It’s to build a workplace where educators love coming to work, children feel safe to explore, and families know their children are genuinely cared for. When those three groups thrive together, everyone benefits.
What I Do Here
This project is still growing, but it’s becoming the place where I explore topics like:
- Education and lifelong learning
- Curiosity and creativity
- Independent thinking
- Character and values
- Emotional resilience
- Play-based learning
- Family culture and traditions
- Engineering thinking for kids
My story of how I got started
The idea for May’s Playland didn’t begin with a business plan. It began with an incredible daycare provider. When my oldest son was a baby, I found someone who loved my children like her own. She gave me peace of mind while I pursued my engineering career, and she showed me just how profoundly one educator can impact an entire family. When she was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, I began thinking about what our community would do without her. That’s when I wrote my first business plan for a daycare. At the time, I wasn’t ready to make the leap, but the idea stayed with me.
A few years later, after the birth of my third child, she passed away just weeks before I was scheduled to return to work. Like so many families, I found myself desperately searching for childcare, joining waitlists, relying on friends, and trying to hold everything together while balancing work and motherhood.
That experience changed the way I viewed childcare. I no longer saw it as a service that allowed parents to work. I saw it as essential infrastructure for families and communities. Eventually, when another childcare provider announced she was closing, I knew it was time to act on the business plan I’d been carrying for years.
If you’d like to read the full story, you can find it in my essay, “From Struggle to Solution.“
Owning a childcare program has reinforced something I’ve seen throughout every stage of my career:
- People flourish when the systems around them are designed with intention.
- Children need safe, engaging environments where they can explore and grow.
- Educators need trust, support, meaningful professional development, and the freedom to use their unique talents.
- Families need dependable relationships with people who genuinely care about their children.
Whether I’m working with engineers, nonprofit leaders, educators, or community organizations, I keep coming back to the same idea: when we intentionally invest in people, extraordinary things happen. May’s Playland is one place where I get to practice that belief every day.
Related Projects
Exploration becomes application.
Want to work with me? Here’s how:
Speaking
Keynotes and conversations on intentionality, systems thinking, work, flourishing, leadership, and community.
View speaking topics →
Strategic Advising
Helping leaders hear the people inside their systems and build exceptional organizations, programs, and communities.
Explore consulting →
Frameworks
Clear models for turning complex ideas into practical decisions, systems, and next steps.
See the frameworks →
Explore Writing
-
How Motherhood Changed My Ambition
By May Anderson, PE • June 24, 2026First Written 2018. Updated 2026 My whole life I knew I wanted to be a career woman. As a child when I was asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Many of my friends responded enthusiastically, “A MOM!” I however, never understood this. I always wanted to be a career woman…. -
Introducing My Whole World
By May Anderson, PE • June 24, 2026My whole world is my family. They give my life purpose, meaning, and direction. For much of my life, I was ambitious because I tied my worth to productivity. I chased accomplishments, checked boxes, and measured success by what I could achieve. Over time, that changed. Today, my ambition is fueled by something different. I… -
What I hope to build
By May Anderson, PE • June 23, 2026Several years ago, I started a project called My Intentional Life. At the time, I was overwhelmed, juggling work, family, responsibilities, and a growing realization that life wasn’t slowing down. I kept asking myself a simple question: Am I building my life intentionally, or am I just reacting to whatever comes next? Shortly after pondering…
Still curious? That’s the point. See you in my notebook 🙂