Every year I tell myself that I should start my Christmas shopping earlier… but here I am again. If you are anything like me and are looking for a nearly last minute gift, and you happen to be shopping for a technically savvy 11-13 year old, I may be able to help! A few months ago I reviewed a 6 in 1 Educational Solar Kit (a great gift for younger kids) from OWI that I had a lot of fun building with my kids. OWI sent out their new 535 Robotic Arm Edge Kit ($53.95 retail but on great sale from OWI right now) for me to try. As the recommended age for this kit is 13+ , my 6 and 3 year olds were not going to be helping with the construction.  Read the rest of the story...

The days are shorter, the bad weather is coming and the children are stir crazy- what’s a parent to do? My six year old daughter frequently keeps herself busy writing and illustrating books on construction paper, so I was thrilled to find out about a website called Storybird. Storybird is a unique site filled with artwork of all kinds- funny animals, princesses, monsters, and many others. Some of the pictures are silly, others are breathtaking- they certainly have a talented pool of artists! (I’ve looked at a lot of the art, and I haven’t come across any picture unsuitable for my kids.) Using the artwork, children (and adults) can write stories of any length which are available to view online (but should be available to print in the future). Here’s the description from Storybird:  Read the rest of the story...

As the weather gets cooler and the days shorter, I’m starting to think about indoor entertainment for my kids. At a family dinner recently, an uncle pulled out the game Bananagrams. I had never played before, but was very curious about the banana shaped bag with all the little pieces. Turns out the bag is filled with letter tiles (similar to Scrabble, but with no letter values), and each person (or team, in our case- too many people) draws a certain number to start. Then, when everyone is ready, the fun begins! Players rapidly turn over their tiles and try to make a crossword pattern of any words they can come up with. Once all the letters are gone, the player who uses all their letters in real, correctly spelled words is the winner.  Read the rest of the story...

Little Red Hen gave us lots of great ideas for Classic Christmas Gifts and we also wanted to give you some recommendations for the latest gifts out there. We love the Nintendo Wii gaming platform because it is so good at getting your kiddos up off the couch and moving around. So, if you’re going to get a video game system this year, we highly recommend the Nintendo Wii. But, as we all know, the investment in a video game system is just the beginning. There is the endless barrage of games on store shelves to choose from. And for the most part, the back of the video game boxes don’t tell you all that much about the game. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I’m about to shell out $30-$50+ on a game, I’d like to know a bit more about them.  Read the rest of the story...