Built-in camera

Color Collector (or Colour Collector for my fellow Canucks) is a really neat concept for a game that appeals to a wide range of ages.

This is another game offered by the fine folks at Tickle Tap Apps, is available from the iTunes App Store for a budget-conscious $1.99.  It’s rated 4+, (and now I’m starting to understand that “4+” actually translates to “everyone” — most people don’t trust their phone with a 3-year-old though!)

The basic premise for this game is to send your children on a scavenger hunt collecting each of the six colours represented in the colour wheel.  You do this by finding objects of the appropriate colour and snapping a picture of them (by tapping the screen).

Snapping a picture

It’s ridiculously easy to use, and pretty darn accurate.  Occasionally, it will get the colour wrong (my testing showed most problems with Orange and Purple — it doesn’t do well identifying dark versions of those colours), but I’d say that it gets it right at least 85% of the time.

When you tap the screen, it will instantly identify the colour for you, and play a short animation.  A star will then appear in the upper-left corner representing each of the colours you’ve collected.  Every 2 pictures, a short animation will play (nice touch, but gets a little pointless and repetitive after the first couple of times).

My only real gripe is that once you’ve collected all 6 colours, the game just resets.  There’s no “final animation” or some indicator to show that you’ve collected them all.  That’s one of my complaints though, my kids have never commented on it. -by Jon

The amazing Jonathan Lane is the founder of Industry Interactive and Discover Gulf Islands. He blogs at Flying Troll and tweets here. He has worked with my brilliant & incredibly hot husband and according to him, Jon is one of the nicest and smartest guys you’d ever care to meet. My husband is a damn good judge of character, so there you go.

Win it! Tickle Tap Apps is giving away a $20 iTunes gift card to one randomly selected T.O.P. reader who’d like to try Tickle Tap Apps. Just comment below to be entered. Due to technical issues, we’ve extended this contest to close at noon mst on FEB 24, 2010.

Counting by 2s

This game taught me a very important lesson: my 5-year-old son is more patient than I am.  But first, the details!

Count Caddy from Tickle Tap Apps is a great interactive game that teaches you counting skills.  You start off counting by 1s, then move on to counting by 2s & 3s.  Count Caddy will set you back $1.99 and is available from (where else?) the iTunes App Store.  It’s rated 4+, which in my experience is right on; my 3-year-old lost interest pretty quickly, but my 5-year-old (who has Good Will Hunting-like math abilities), got a kick out of it.  He really put the game through it’s paces, and ended up showing me that it progresses in difficulty (I got bored after counting by 2s).

Inter-level animation

The game progresses through a series of levels; on level one you count by 1s three times, on level 2, you count by 2s and so on.  As you pass each level, you’re treated to a short animation.

Count Caddy has proven to be highly re-playable; in fact my son is constantly asking me if he can play it whenever we’re out.  It’s simple, bright and lots of fun.  Everything that a children’s game should be. -by Jon




The amazing Jonathan Lane is the founder of Industry Interactive and Discover Gulf Islands. He blogs at Flying Troll and tweets here. He has worked with my brilliant & incredibly hot husband and according to him, Jon is one of the nicest and smartest guys you’d ever care to meet. My husband is a damn good judge of character, so there you go.

Another Tickle Tap App will be reviewed tomorrow, and we’ll be including an iTunes gift card giveaway so y’all come back now!

SnapHaven is guaranteeing the storage for life. They go on to explain in their FAQ section that they have a deal with the company that owns the servers in order to make such promises. I have had a scare, where my laptop died suddenly I was completely freaking out. Thankfully everything was restored to its former glory. Can you imagine not having your baby’s birth pictures, the first time they walked, or any of the many moments we capture in digital format?!?! I now have all my pictures backed up on an external hard drive as well as on disk. However having additional storage is so not a bad thing.

As for SnapHaven’s format, it is smooth and appealing. Their uploading client is nice, a tad slow and I could not find any desktop software to speed up the process. The uploader stretched out my browser window to the max width, which was dreadfully annoying. An iPhoto plugin would totally rock and would make it even easier to upload photos.

SnapHaven has a very easy print option, however the company that does the printing does not ship to Canada, as far as I could tell when I looked around. The prices are reasonable if you are in the US, at 19 cents for a 4×6. There is also the option to create photo gifts, which are always popular with family.

The ability to share your photos with friends and family is a plus with SnapHaven. You can send them an individual picture or a link to an album. You can also set the settings so that they can download the pictures, then print them themselves if they chose, or to make the pictures not downloadable.

SnapHaven has a new program where specialists at SnapHaven do the hard work, they will scan, sort, and upload your photos, wherever you keep them, even grab them from other photo sites if you keep your pics there. Making it easier for you, especially if you are storing your photos in more than one photo sharing site.

Privacy, one-time fees, an attractive interface, guaranteed for life and they will even do the work for you, make SnapHaven a must for photo storage. -by Chelle

Win it! SnapHaven is giving away a package of credits for 10,000 photos valued at $129.99 to one T.O.P. reader. To enter, simply comment on this post. Due to technical issues, we’ve extended this contest to close at noon mst on FEB 24, 2010.

Illustration from The Queen Bee

In my last review I looked at an app by PicPocket Books: Sea Creatures.  This review is for a similar app; Storychimes – another sort of “enhanced storybook”.  The Queen Bee is a Brothers Grimm fairy tale.  It’s available from the iTunes app store, and will set you back $0.99.  It’s officially rated 4+ in the App Store, but truthfully, my 3 year old and his friends enjoyed the story way more than my restless 5 year old.
I’ve got a confession to make: I love this genre of app.  I live on an island and have to catch a ferry to go to “the big city”.  As a result, I frequently end up with time to kill with the kids in tow.  I’m your typical dad, so I’m never actually prepared with books or toys or games to keep the boys entertained, but I seem to always have my phone (go figure).  Short, simple apps that can grab the attention of the kids for a few minutes are lifesavers.

Simpleton searches for pearls

The Queen Bee is similar in a lot of ways to a regular storybook: there are great illustrations, and you swipe your finger across the screen to turn pages.  They provide a number of handy options like turning the background music on and off, and either showing the text of the story or hiding it and displaying illustrations full-screen.  There’s an option to Autoplay the book, so you don’t have to flip the pages.

I love that the audio is synched up with the story, so if you get interrupted you can just flip back to where you left off, and the story will start from that point (a bookmarking feature would be even better, but it’s not like we’re talking a 300 page book here!)

My 5-year-old has learned that I have games on my phone, so it’s hard to get him to sit through a story now, but my 3-year-old and one of his friends were completely entranced throughout the entire story, and then had great fun flipping the pages back and forth.

The production quality is great, and the story is a good one.  In my opinion, well worth the dollar. -by Jon
-
The amazing Jonathan Lane is the founder of Industry Interactive and Discover Gulf Islands. He blogs at Flying Troll and tweets here. He has worked with my brilliant & incredibly hot husband and according to him, Jon is one of the nicest and smartest guys you’d ever care to meet. My husband is a damn good judge of character, so there you go.

Win it! We’ve got TEN Storychimes codes to give away. To enter, visit the Storychimes site and comment with which book(s) you think the little people in your life would enjoy or make a suggestion for a Storychime you’d like to see added. Due to technical issues, we’ve extended this contest to close at noon mst on FEB 22, 2010.

We love paint programs. From the time my children could grasp a mouse (or their daddy’s PDA stylus), they’ve been asking to “draw pictures on the computer.” I realize that drawing on a computer screen is significantly different than drawing with pencil and paper. Different motor skills are necessary, and there is a different type of steadiness and patience required. But video games can be a great learning tool when you find the right one.

What happens when an easy-to-maneuver paint program becomes integrated with a problem-solving, creative challenge on top of an early reading practice tool? ItzaBitza happens, that’s what!

We were asked to review ItzaBitza by Sabi and jumped at the chance. Just one glance through at their website had me convinced. What I wasn’t expecting was how jovial and fun the music is, how utterly loveable the girl and boy characters (“Sketchies”) are, and how interactive (and smart) the game is!

The first time my son tested out ItzaBitza was right before bedtime (in lieu of a story one night). He caught on to the game rules immediately — and was amazed at how incredibly FUN it was! He giggled over little things (like how he could click on the mailbox to make letters come flying out). It was nearly impossible to convince him to put it away until the next morning, then settle down and go to sleep. Long after I left his room, I could hear himself talking to himself and laughing about what he’d seen in the game. I smiled. I really, really like ItzaBitza. And believe me, so does he.

With “living ink” technology, the simple shapes your child draws on the “paper” screen fill in and become “alive.” When asked to draw a house, your child draws a square and a triangle, then the Sketchy comes over to ask where are the windows and doors. Brilliant! It teaches simple following of directions while allowing for the flexibility of creativity and whimsy.

(And if your child draws something that doesn’t quite fit into place or isn’t quite was asked for, the line(s) simply cut up into pieces and fall away.)

The words that the Sketchies say to your child show up in speech bubbles. When your child mouses over the words, the Sketchy says them aloud. Early reading skills are thus sharpened in an unoffensive, gentle way.

Each time your child completes a task, a star appears. Click on the star to receive more challenges, which increases problem solving skills and divergent thinking abilities.

ItzaBitza is available for download onto your Windows XP or Vista computer. At only $19.99, it’s an absolute steal. For the price (and even a higher one), in my opinion, there aren’t many finer educational (all the while fun) games out there for preschoolers and early elementary-aged children.

ItzaBitza gets two enthusiastic thumbs up from our family! - By Meg

Win it! We’re giving Itza Bitza to one lucky family. Comment here before Friday 8/21/09 noon to enter!

CONTEST CLOSED & WINNER EMAILED

Looking for a distraction? (ed: Aren’t we all?)

Be careful, because if you try out one of Pop Cap’s many seek and solve games, you may find yourself distracted for hours. Pop Cap games created Bejeweled – one my all time favourite puzzle games – so I was excited to experience these new ones. Pop Cap is the leading developer & publisher of G-rated, family-friendly word, puzzle and action games.

The first two that I tried were the Mystery P.I. games, Vegas Heist and The Lottery Ticket. Both are hidden object games in which you’re tasked with finding particular objects in an extremely cluttered scene. Once inside the game it is hard not to want to find all the clues and solve the game. Although a little repetitive at times, still allows the players hours of challenging fun.

Then I tried The Wizard’s Pen and Amazing Adventure: The Lost Tomb, which are very similar to the above games but with new challenges and more levels. Because they are so involved they are perfect to sit down for a couple of minutes, seek and solve then return to your housework.

Being that I get a little obsessive with puzzle games, these seek and solve games have been awesome to play, simple fun yet challenging! The games sell for just $20 each and a free trial is available for all of them at the Pop Cap site.

Pop Cap offers a large selection of both downloadable and online games, as well as games for your phone/iPod/iPhone and a shop full of goodies under $15. – by Chelle

Win it! We’ve got TWO copies of EACH of these games to give away. Each of two randomly selected winners will receive boxed copies of Vegas Heist, The Lottery Ticket, The Wizard’s Pen and Amazing Adventure: The Lost Tomb,. To enter, leave a comment on this post before noon mst on July 10, 2009.

CONTEST CLOSED & WINNER EMAILED

What is Bothering Carl? from Story Fort is a super neat dully digital video game/online interactive story book for kids. In fact, it is the perfect “video game” for beginners to begin to develop their computer skills. Carl is a cyclops which unnerved my toddler a little. He kept asking “Other eye? Other eye?” but my preschooler was totally cool with Carl being who he was. It gave us an opportunity to discuss diversity and acceptance of others. The story is the tale Carl, whose laid back life is disrupted by a single nuisance. The book includes 19 illustrated scenes that come to life with the simple click of a mouse, with optional full audio narration by the author.

In the game there are three options. You can Read the Book, where the words are highlighted as they are spoken. This is great for beginning to introduce sight words. Then there is Play the Game and Listen to the Songs. My book worm preschooler really enjoyed listening to the story and picking out words that she recognized throughout the story. The three original songs are played throughout the story as well.

The game is a matching game, which is great for building memory skills. It has three levels so the kids can build up to the hardest level. My daughter is used to the old fashion memory game that is more hands on, however it was great for her to use her mouse skills to flip over the cards on the screen.

What is Bothering Carl? is both entertaining and educational and is now requested regularly during our computer time. It regularly sells for only $15 and is on for the recession-friendly price of $9.99 for the summer. It’s available for purchase or free trial from their website. – by Chelle

Win it! We’ve got a full copy of What Is Bothering Carl? for one T.O.P. reader. To enter, comment on this post before noon mst on July 8, 2009.

CONTEST CLOSED & WINNER EMAILED

Does your child love animals? Maybe they aspire to become a veterinarian when they grow up or maybe you always wanted to be a vet? My daughter adores animals and would gladly bring strays home whenever she can. However, she is just beginning to understand some of the responsibilities of caring for pets.

Pet Pals: A New Leash on Life from Legacy Games is a challenging, educational and fun way to learn all about all sorts of animals as the new vet at the Pet Pals Animal Shelter. The graphics are amazing and the game play was perfect for her to follow along. My daughter adored nursing the sick animals back to health. We started with the tutorial, so we helped Sunshine, a stray kitten.

The game is packed full of information about not only animals but also many career options for those who want to work with animals. We spent a lot time in the tutorial, as my daughter is new to the computer and she really wanted to spend time with the kitten. With 35 unique cases to diagnose and treat, the game has lasting power. The cases were written by real-life veterinarians and introduce children to 15 different animals.

Our favourite part was once our kitten was healthy, and we were able to put the little guy up for adoption at the shelter. We adopted both our family cats, so my daughter was really into the process. All in all, a really fun game to play with your children (or once they have gone to bed!) Pet Pals: A New Leash on Life is available for both PC and Mac, and is rated E for everyone. Get it here for under $20. My five year old needed assistance & some explanation but enjoyed playing the game a lot. - by Chelle

Win it! We’re giving away a copy of this game to one lucky reader. To enter, leave a comment on this post by noon mst on June 11, 2009.

CONTEST CLOSED & WINNER EMAILED

We have only owned our iPod Touch for 2 months, but are amazed by the quantity and quality of apps available. What has really impressed us is how great a device it is for children. The size and the touch interface are perfect for kids and easy for them to master.

Letters A to Z from True Learning is a flash card alphabet game for kids that runs on the iPod Touch and the iPhone. Each ‘card’ shows a large letter and a cute drawing.

The controls are simple:

* Intuitively scroll to the next letter with a flick of the finger.
* Tap the large letter to hear the name of the letter.
* Tap the object to play a fun animation and hear the phonetic sound as part of a word.

Our family had the perfect age ranges for testing this app. After showing the game to all 3 kids here’s what we found.
Ethan, 6, was at the older end of the target audience for this app. We liked practicing the letters with him, but it didn’t hold his interest. He knows there are other games on ‘daddy’s iPod’ and wanted to move on. We liked using it as flash cards to work on letters he’s had difficulty with.
Ben, 4, will go through the whole alphabet and likes seeing the animations.
Jamie, 2, loves this app. She will sit in my lap and loves going through the alphabet over and over again.

What I love about Letters A to Z is that it makes reviewing the alphabet with your children so easy and fun. We have the alphabet letters on the fridge, but if the kids aren’t using them as hockey pucks, the dogs are launching them across the room with their tails. We tried flashcards, but haven’t had the full deck since we opened them.

With Letters A to Z we not only have a complete flash deck available anywhere we go, but it is more engaging for our kids than traditional flash cards and letter games. Ethan and Ben understood the controls immediately, while Jamie needed some coaching. Once we had helped her through the first few cards she had a blast using the touch screen. At first she eagerly zipped from card to card, but now she is going through more slowly, playing the animations, and learning to identify the letters.

Overall, we couldn’t be happier with this app. With 3 kids in various levels of school, we had been working on letters on and off all year, but our efforts had stagnated. The addition of this game to our teaching tools gave us the boost we needed to keep teaching our kids and improving their letter comprehension and early reading skills.

Letters A to Z is available for 99 cents from the iTunes App Store. - by John

Win it! We’re giving away the Letters A to Z app AND an awesome jam-packed-with-educational-fun True Learning CD to one lucky winner. To enter, leave a comment on this post before noon mst on Friday, April 24, 2009.

CONTEST CLOSED & WINNER EMAILED

Like most people who own a computer, you likely have some type of anti-virus and anti-spyware software. The geeks among us know that’s not enough. Most of the popular protection suites available today have a major flaw in that they require constant updates and maintenance. Even for those of us who are on top of that stuff (and how many of us really are?), critical time passes between the moment a new threat is unleashed on the Internet and the moment your provider offers an effective response to it. Once there’s a quality fix, there’s far more time between that and the moment your security software is updated against this new threat. …If you remembered to activate the automatic updates.

Often there are several days or more that you and your personal information are completely unprotected.

I won’t be running my computer any more without Buffer Zone. No glove, no love. Or something like that.

“Go Anywhere, Download Anything, Stay Protected. Freedom to do whatever you want on the Internet.”

BufferZone’s patented “breakthrough virtualization technology” (available for XP & Vista but not Mac at this time) compliments your software by creating an “isolated zone” on your PC, effectively separating your operating system & data from unknown programs, downloads and files. It requires no updates at all – ever – and protects your entire PC against spyware, adware, and viruses – even new and yet unknown ones. When you use BufferZone your sensitive data and personal information are actually immune from theft or damage.
You can work with any program or downloaded content that you normally would, but the difference is that you’re protected against vulnerabilities from all sources, known or unknown, such as “external devices, Web browsing, P2P, email, instant messaging, network shares, and much more.”

From start to finish, installation took about two minutes plus a reboot, and it runs in the background without requiring any extra effort on my part. If only everything were so easy.

When you’re running BufferZone, you’ll notice a red border around any program running inside the protected zone, and that’s pretty much all you’ll ever see from it. Once in a while there’s something that won’t work inside the BufferZone (such as logging in to certain sites…I’m not sure why), but it takes just a second or two to unload it.

Protection like that for $40/year sounds like a great deal to me.

Save 10% with the code BZ001SG

Win it! We’ve got a copy of BufferZone Pro (valued at $40) to give to one reader in need of protection. To enter, leave a comment on this post before noon mst on Wednesday, April 15, 2009.

CONTEST CLOSED & WINNER EMAILED

Kutoka Interactive has some awesome options for kids of all ages (we reviewed one of the games in their Mia series here)

We’ve now been playing a game from the grade based learning series, Didi & Ditto, with my three year old for a few weeks now and it’s something he asks for every day. The subtitle of the preschool game is Mother Nature’s Visit, and it’s targeted at children ages two to four years old. Didi & Ditto is also available for kindergarten and grade one.

It caught my 3 year old’s attention instantly (while still in the box, even) and kept it for a long time. There are sixteen engaging activity options related to pre-reading, pre-math, science, music and art.

Didi and Ditto are brother & sister twins who are preparing to welcome Mother Nature’s visit to their hometown. Smart Valley is a crazy place where spiral trees and goofy folks are everywhere you look. “Zolt, a sneaky purple wolf, is trying to ruin the party by breaking all of the musical instruments and hiding all of the food. He then plans to step in and be the hero when Mother Nature arrives. Didi and Ditto notice that Zolt is acting strange and decide to keep an eye on him. It is up to the player to decide which beaver will watch Zolt very carefully while the other one helps Hootdini get ready for the festivities. In the game, children will work on recognizing letters and numbers, counting, classifying, identifying shapes and sounds, as well as developing observation abilities, understanding oral instructions, and more. These skills are seamlessly incorporated into the game play as the player helps Didi and Ditto.” Children can choose to play the game as either Didi or Ditto which, though a simple choice, is a very big thing for a three year old.

The suggested retail price is $20 U.S. and $30 CDN. I would never have thought to buy my three year old a computer game, but now that we’ve played this one we’ll definitely be buying the subsequent ones when the time comes and wouldn’t hesitate to buy another Kutoka game at any time. -by Betty

Win it! We’ve got a game of Didi & Ditto Preschool to give to one T.O.P. reader. To enter, simply leave a comment on this post before noon mst on December 24, 2008.

CONTEST CLOSED & WINNER EMAILED

Kids love computers and they instinctively want to push all those buttons on the keyboard and click on all those icons on the desktop. Even a well-meaning child can accidentally click on an important document, an older sibling’s school assignment, financial documents, treasured pictures, or more and – UH OH! – KidDesktop.com

KidDesktop is a kid-friendly Windows desktop alternative that makes it simple and safe for the kiddos to use the computer without the worry of accessing harmful web content or deleting your files or applications. With KidDesktop, your child can visit only child-friendly sites, watch videos from a personalized YouTube playlist, play games, upload pictures from a camera and view pictures locally.

When your child logs onto your computer he or she doesn’t even see the Windows desktop. Instead, the child sees a child-friendly, customized start screen and an activity bar with their own favorite activities. The desktop is icon-driven with spoken help: The start screen and Activity Bar are completely icon-driven, and even include spoken help, to make it easy for even non-reading preschoolers.

As both a teacher and a mother (and a blogger and a non-verified internet addict) I know there is great value in the web as a research tool among other things, but so much of what’s out there is unsafe for children. Instead of saying which pages or sites your child CANNOT visit, KidDesktop allows you to designate sites they CAN visit so you don’t have to know about all of the bad ones in order to block them. Each site has its own icon on the child’s activity bar. With each site you set up access for, you can decide if your child can leave the site, view pop-up ads from the site, print from the site, or download from the site.

With KidDesktop, your files are safe. Your child can’t purposefully or accidentally open, change, or delete any other files or programs installed on your computer because your child doesn’t even see those items. Children only see the KidDesktop screen with their own customized activity bar.

Even my 2.5 year old can safely use the computer now that we have installed his KidDesktop. He feels like a big kid and we aren’t worried about him downloading a virus or getting a flash of porn while he’s trying to find the next hidden letter in his online game.

Anyone can try it free for 15 days, but if you have kids that access the computer, you’re going to want to buy the full version.

Save 10% with the code TOP$10

Win it! We’re giving away a fully licensed copy of KidDesktop to one lucky reader. Simply leave a comment before noon mst on December 15, 2008 to be entered in the random draw.

CONTEST CLOSED & WINNER EMAILED

Everyone I know who’s ever been pregnant has experienced preggo-brain to some extent. Sadly, it only gets worse once the kid is out. My brain hasn’t been the same since conception, quite frankly.

As with any other part of our bodies, our brains need exercise. The sudoku craze has to be doing something great for our species, but what do you do if you aren’t a fan? Or can’t figure the damn things out?

Check out Brainiversity. It’s one of the best brain training games I’ve tried to date. Edison the talking light bulb accompanies you as you play, and he can be muted at any time (which can be a very good thing). There are a huge variety of games to play and more are unlocked as you progress. If you play daily, you’ll take a quiz each day composed of 4 tests which is recorded on your personal graph.

Many games in this genre are ridiculously easy for the intelligent among us (ahem) but this one is neither simple nor repetitive. It’s incredibly enjoyable, actually. It would be too easy for advanced brain trainers, but for kids, the average adult (particularly those with kids) or seniors, Brainiversity is fabulous! We talk a lot about baby shower gifts here, but I think this would make an awesome retirement gift.

Buy it for less than $20 at Amazon.

Win it! We’ve got a copy of Brainiversity to give away. To enter, leave a comment on this post by 11:59 mst tonight – August 7/08.

Additional entries available – up to four per person. See contest entry information and rules.

CONTEST CLOSED AND WINNER EMAILED

My two and a bit year old son is an incredible risk taker. Since he learned to log roll repeatedly and quickly at the way-too-early age of four months, much of my time has been spent keeping him from harm. Harm that he is inexplicably attracted to. Now that he is feeling the urge to be more than arms-length from me, it’s becoming more important to teach him listening skills, boundaries and to start a healthy fear of danger.

The Safety Tots software gift pack ($32) from Tick-A-Too is a great help in our quest to teach him what’s safe and what’s not. It’s intended for children 3-8 but my son is old enough to enjoy it with a lot of guidance. He knows the meaning of the words “danger” and “safe” and that’s really all he needs to begin the learning process. In this program, the cute little SafetyTots invite your child to join them as they learn how to safely react to situations that they may encounter. With the help of their “guardian angel”, Betsy The Butterfly, will squeal with delight as they explore the 35 scenarios which are fun and completely non-threatening. The software addresses many safety issues such as drowning prevention, poison control, stranger awareness, firearms safety, drug and alcohol prevention and fire prevention. Though I don’t want my children to go through life afraid, I think a healthy dose of safety education and a guidance toward listening to their conscience can only be good.

The gift pack also comes with 30 colourful accompanying flash cards that are an ideal visual aid for this or any safety related program. Perfect for at home or in the classroom, they depict potentially challenging situations for the SafetyTots (as seen in the software but there’s no need to have used the game to use the cards.) On the back of each card are questions for the adult to ask to help stimulate further discussion about the issue addressed, and like the software there are a wide variety of safety topics covered.

Tick-A-Too is a mom-run shop that guarantees the lowest total price. (Wow!) If you find an item cheaper elsewhere, just let Molly know and she’ll match or beat the price. She also offers free shipping or cheap shipping, which is a huge bonus for me!

Win it! Tick-A-Too is giving away a Safety Tots gift pack including the software and cards to one reader. To enter, visit the Tick-A-Too site and then come back and leave a comment on this post indicating what other items you think are cool. Contest closes at noon MST on June 24/08.

Get up to three additional entries into this contest!

1. Blog about this contest using one of the top three images found here. Leave a comment with the direct link to your post (not to your main page, and in a separate comment from your other entry).

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CONTEST CLOSED & WINNER EMAILED (Congrats Melanie!)

Kidnexions has developed a children’s money management program called KidsSave. I love the idea of teaching kids to manage their money while they’re young and guiding them in a way that will encourage financial success when they’re older.

From the website:

KidsSave is a kids’ savings and money management software program designed for ages 6 and up. KidsSave helps you and your child keep track of money, encourages saving through Reward incentives, and helps your child set and track goals. With KidsSave, kids can make deposits and withdrawals, receive automated allowances and Rewards (interest and/or matching funds), count money, and view their statement history over time.

The KidsSave program handles all Account management automatically so once the Account(s) has been set up, the Banker (typically the parent) has little to do. Unique features allow the Banker to have access to all Accounts, define interest, allowance, and/or matching funds, enable savings locks and require confirmations of all transactions.

Check out what some opinionated parents had to say about the program.

I am always looking for great ways to help teach my kiddos about money management. It’s important to teach them how to set financial goals and track their progress. Kidnexions has a wonderful program called KidsSave, a money management software program for the 6 and up crowd.

The account was super easy to set up and my twins have had fun tracking their savings, which to be honest, hasn’t been much. They currently do not receive allowance here at home, but they do each receive $2 whenever they loose a tooth… Something that is happening quite frequently these days! Every little bit have they added to their account, watching their balance slowly increase. It will be a happy day when they reach their financial goals!

This program has some wonderful features. Your child sets up an account by depositing his current stash. He can then make additional deposits and withdrawals, as well as receive his allowance and rewards, count his money, and view his statements. Mom and Dad act as Banker and can set KidsSave to automatically deposit allowance and rewards, including interest, so it’s easy for us, too.

Just the other day, we went through the twins current savings bank. They took turns adding bills and coins in to their KidsSave account using the money counter to help sort and count their money. They had a blast and learned so much at the same time. What a great way to reinforce what they have learned in their math classes. I love it when it works out that way!

Another feature with which we had a lot of fun was in the “What if?” section where we have played around with the endless possibilities… What if they earned this much allowance? What if they made this much in interest? It’s been neat to see what would happen should things change and what their little minds can fathom!

The Kidnexions KidsSave program would be a great addition to any money management system you currently have set up. And if your kiddos don’t currently have a plan, this would be a great place to start!

By Christine

I’ve been trying out another software program for The Opinionated Parent. This one is called KidsSave from Kidnexions. It’s REALLY cool!

Designed for ages 6 and up, it helps you, and your child, keep track of THEIR money. You can also set up numerous accounts so the program is good for more than one child. There is no limit to the amount of accounts the banker (parent) can set up! It has an allowance feature that you can set to automatically show the amount that they receive each week/month.

While kids don’t actually deposit their real money, they do make deposits into the program and statements are given each month to keep track of what they’ve saved. Kids can also make withdrawals and set goals. Goals can be for saving enough to buy something, save a certain amount, or reach a certain account balance.

There is a neat money counter to help kids know exactly how much they are depositing. All they have to do is click on a picture of the bill or coin they have in hand and the money counter adds it for them. But don’t worry, there is an “undo” and “clear” feature in case they mess up!

There are 6 fun colors that kids can choose from to make their account more eye appealing. Positively Pink and Posh Purple being my girls’ favorites!

Also included is a “What If?” feature that allows your child to see what would happen to their account over a year if they were to get a raise in allowance, deposit “x” amount of money each month, withdraw money, or earn “x %” interest. I, personally, LOVE this feature. It really lets a child see what they are able to save.

We have thoroughly enjoyed using KidsSave. It is well worth the $29.95.

By Gina

The KidSave program by Kidnexions is a great tool for teaching youngsters how to manage their funds. My seven-year-old son really enjoyed using the program!! We found it very user friendly and fun to use.

By Andrea

You can download a free 35 day trial of this program from the Kidnexions home page to try before you buy.

Win it! Kidnexions is giving away a fully licensed copy of the KidsSave software to one lucky T.O.P. reader. The program is valued at $30. To enter, leave a comment on this post by April 18 @ noon MST.

Get up to two additional entries into this contest!

1. Blog about this contest using one of the top three images found here.

2. Leave a comment with the direct link to your post (not to your main page, and in a separate comment from your other entry).

AND/OR

Subscribe to our RSS feed. Leave an additional comment to let us know that you did this for your extra entry. Be sure to leave a valid email address so we can confirm your new subscription.

Maximum three entries total per person.

CONTEST CLOSED – Congratulations Reiza!

Scrapbooking is one of my favourite hobbies, but you’d never know it to look at our office. There are drawers and bins full of supplies and stacks of pictures just sitting there silently tormenting me. My son is two next month and I haven’t scrapbooked a single page since his first birthday montage. Pregnancy, moving, returning to work, birth, living with two monkeys and a busload of badly behaved pets…it all adds up to no free time for my hobbies.

I’ve tried a bit of digital scrapping and there’s some great stuff out there but the time it takes to Photoshop everything all together and make it just right is more than I have. And then when I do finally complete a page, how the heck do I print a quality 12×12 inch page to fit my albums? My printer isn’t that large, and none of the local stores offer a 12×12 option.

Enter How Fast They Grow, a mom-owned full service digital scrapbooking site. With their patent-pending Digi-scrapbook program, you can scrapbook if you can upload photos, drag & drop, choose colours and type. There is seriously nothing to it, and the final product is amazing! There are a ton of templates to choose from and more are being added all the time.

I was getting down on myself when my daughter was 2 months old and I hadn’t even scrapbooked her newborn photos. Not one single page. It was shortly after that when I received an email from founding mom Cathy Bennett about How Fast They Grow and I decided to give it a shot.

Within 2 hours I had a dozen pages completed. The one pictured at right took me approximately 4 minutes! I ordered them online and they were on my doorstep within a week. If I had to do those 12 pages sitting at my craft table, it would have taken me a dozen or more hours spread over several months when I could find a few minutes here and there. At $7.50/page, it’s hardly more costly than an embellished scrapbook page I’d make by hand. Yes, it sounds expensive, but when you consider the thousands of dollars sitting unused in my scrapbooking area I’m actually saving money! (At least that’s what I plan to tell my husband.)

Membership in the site is free. I suggest you join and make some pages to see what it’s like. You don’t pay anything unless you place an order. It’s fun and more than a little addictive!

The pages are true 12×12 and will fit in any standard album, but albums are also available from their online shop. And gift cards! Say hello to my dream baby gift. (Or stocking stuffer. Hint hint, husband.)

How Fast They Grow is currently only shipping to the US but there are plans to add Canada and Europe very shortly. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear. In the meantime, MyUS, Ship Happens Sumas or another such site can get your pages to you anywhere. (Disclaimer – I’ve never tried either of those sites but they sound cool to me. Let us know if you have any experience with them or know of another one. We’d love to check them out. I’ll open comments on this post.)

Save 20% with the code TOP until Friday, April 18, 2008. At just $6/page, you can’t beat it!

From the time they wean, our babies start to grow further away from us in good ways and in some not so good ways. One of the biggest concerns for many parents comes when their child starts to venture out in the world and isn’t always within arms reach.

Whether it be daycare, field trips, a trip to Grandma’s or just a swimming lesson sans parents, there’s always a risk that something may happen when you’re not there and your child won’t be able to communicate. If your child is taken to emergency and is too young or is otherwise unable to tell the doctors his or her medical history, valuable time may be lost while they try to identify your child and then contact you.

Identity Pal is an all in one USB data storage device that speaks for your child when you can’t be there. It comes pre-loaded with completely customizable software. All you need to do is plug it in to the USB port of any computer and plug in any information you’d like your child to have in the event of an emergency? Contact information and allergies come to mind, but this software is so comprehensive that nothing will be left out. There’s space for legal documents, travel information and more. You can delete and add as necessary and the program is incredibly easy to use.

When a medical professional plugs it in to their computer, it will simply ask them if they own it or if they want to access the information and if they can click a mouse they can access what they need to help your child. The unit is waterproof and shockproof and retails for $50. If you’d rather use your own jumpdrive, you can download the full version of the software for $30 or a very bare bones version for free. I’d suggest hanging one of these on every school aged child’s backpack. Let the
Identity Pal speak when your child cannot.

Win it! We’re giving away an Identity Pal to one lucky TOP reader. To enter, email theopinionatedparent@gmail.com with identity pal in the subject line before midnight MST on March 21, 2008.

Get up to two additional entries into this contest!

1. Blog about this contest using one of the top three images found here.

2. Email theopinionatedparent@gmail.com with identity pal in the subject line and the direct link to your post (not to your main page, and in a separate email from your other entry).

AND/OR

Subscribe to our RSS feed. Send an additional email to let us know that you did this for your extra entry. Be sure to leave a valid email address so we can confirm your new subscription.

Maximum three entries total per person.

Contest Closed

School Zone has done it again. They’ve managed to produce yet another great kit that entertains kids while they learn (and have no idea that they’re learning because they’re having so much fun) for a great price. The Preschool/Kindergarten Super Scholar pack contains four educational computer games on CD Rom and retails for just $34.99.

The four games are a great mix of the skills that children need when they’re making the transition from preschool to kindergarten.

Alphabet Express Letter Recognition teaches beginning sounds, letter/sound association, alphabetical order, problem solving and vocabulary.

Pencil-Pal Preschool Creativity Skills focuses on the alphabet, letter/number sequencing, classifying, colour, shapes, numbers & counting.

On-Track Transition Math Visual Discrimination teaches numbers from 1-20, shapes, patterns & sequencing, matching and telling time.

Finally, Flash Action Wonder Words Beginning Sight Words teaches word recognition, beginning sounds and categorizing.

We had a sibling pair try this set out for us sitting side by side at the family computer. The kids are 2.5 and 4.5 years old. The older one has been in preschool for a year and a half and is entering kindergarten in the fall. The younger is in her first year of very part-time preschool now. Both kids loved the games and, though the youngest was too young to grasp most of the concepts, she was able to “help” her brother with finding letters and numbers, and enjoyed watching him complete the games. She actually learned quite a bit by watching him and each time he repeated part of a game she’d pick up on more and start telling him what to do next! The 4.5 year old boy was the perfect age for this set. He learned many new skills and reinforced many that he was already familiar with. Their mother is very glad to have these games at her disposal for those times when her son was “bored” and normally may have wanted to watch TV because now she can allow him a more active screen time where he’s doing something more valuable than sit passively on the couch and stare.

These games come highly recommended and would be a great investment for your 3-6 year old child.

Win it! Enter to win the featured set for your kids by emailing theopinionatedparent@gmail.com with SUPER SCHOLAR in the subject line before midnight MST on 2/15/08. In the body of the email, tell us a little about the child(ren) you want this for and why you think it would be good for them. Please include your full name and mailing address for prize shipment if you’re selected.

Get an additional entry into this contest by blogging about it!

1. Blog about this contest using one of the top three images found here.

2. Email your link (in a separate email from your other entry) to theopinionatedparent@gmail.com with SUPER SCHOLAR in the subject line.

Congratulations SJ!

By Angela, Contributing Writer

My kids, ages 3 and 5, have more toys now than they will ever need. More than they ever play with. So what did I ask for them for Christmas this year?

Books and software. Things that will help them learn (and things that won’t clutter my living room floor!).

But the problem with “learning” toys? The fact that most children would rather play than learn. How can you overcome that hurdle?

The JumpStart Learning System™ gives you the best of both worlds. Your kids are having fun while learning – how cool is that?

JumpStart World has been described as “educational software game based on national and state curriculum and research regarding how play can help children learn. Colorful and fun, JumpStart World is filled with hundreds of games with 3-D adventures that build reading, math, and critical thinking skills while instilling a love of learning and confidence, two of the key ingredients in academic success.”

How does it work? A series of 12 Adventure Packs for each grade level teaches your kids critical thinking, reading and math skills. The adventures take place in a 3D world that grabs your child’s attention and each Adventure Pack can be personalized with artwork, photos and custom rewards. The packs include over 30 learning games and missions with over 15 skills, progress report e-mails for parents (so you can keep track of how your child is doing), “Parent Tips,” access to the Member’s Website and online access to educational experts, and access to the Super Gems Reward Center (you customize the rewards your kids receive – ice cream anyone?).

Ed: Every child I know who has played these games has loved them and had no idea that they were learning!

Use the code JSW5TR for $5 off every game! (That brings them down to $12.99. Totally worth it.)

You can also try it free for 5 days.

We’ve got a 3 pack to give away to one lucky T.O.P. reader – Kindergarten, First Grade and Second Grade! To enter, email theopinionatedparent@gmail.com with JSW in the subject line and tell us one of the awards that this great program has won. Contest closes at midnight MST on 1/4/08. Congratulations Leah!