The Well Connected Mom » Kids

Valentine’s Day Gifts for the Loves in Your Life

Lori Cunningham — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:37:04 +0000

by Lori Cunningham

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It’s hard to believe that Valentine’s Day is already coming up again…didn’t we just celebrate Christmas???

I love Valentine’s, it’s a great reminder to show those you love a little extra lovn’ that day. I especially like all of the parties my kids have in their classrooms – everything is red and pink and it’s a great excuse to get into their classrooms and see them having fun.

If you’re looking for something a little different this year to give your sweethearts, the Well Connected Mom has a number of different gadgets and accessories that are sure to be appreciated…

Sony Bloggie

Now this is a fun camera. The Sony Bloggie is lightweight, the size of a smartphone, and takes both video and still pictures. I’ve never understood the popularity of the Flip, other than the fact the pictures were easy to upload, because it did not take still shots. I’ve always liked the Sanyo Xacti because of it’s dual camera/video camera, but they’re not being made anymore after Panasonic bought Sanyo.

Fortunately, The Bloggie takes pictures…and good ones too with its 8MP camera. The video is 1080p and is of very high quality. Want to get your holiday videos up in a flash? The Bloggie features a Live Video feature where the videos are uploaded to the Interet via Qik so others can join in on the fun of the moment. The Sony Bloggie is also Wi-Fi enabled for easy uploads and ive streaming as well as contains a flip-out USB plug for uploading and or charging The Bloggie sells for $199. Looking for a great camera extension accessory? See this blog article on the XShot and how it works with the Sony Bloggie.

SmarTouch Gloves

I love these warm SmarTouch gloves. They allow you to still use your touchscreens while you wear them due to the special touchpads woven into the fingers of the gloves. Have you ever tried to operate your iPad or smartphone with normal gloves on? Nothing happens. Not so with the SmarTouch gloves. They also have a rubberized webbing across the palms so they can better grip onto your smartphone. At CES, I saw a new pair that are lined with a stuffed animal type fleece. Boy are they toasty! Even though I live in Southern California, I find I wear my SmarTouch Gloves often in the morning while dropping my kids off to school. I absolutely love these gloves and can’t recommend them highly enough. They also come in leather. SmarTouch gloves are available in men and women sizes. Although there are no children sizes, there is an XS/S size that might fit older children. SmarTouch gloves run from $13 up to $35 depending upon the fabric.

AFTERSHOKZ Headphones

AFTERSHOKZ is a new headphone set I discovered at CES. What I like about these headphones is that they DON’T cover your ears! Intriguing, huh? They claim that there is “Nothing In, On, or Covering Your Ears,” and they’re right. Interestingly enough, the headphones are placed on the top of your cheekbones, just outside your ear. Why is this cool you ask? Well, for one, the music is not as damaging to your ear canal. Secondly, it allows you to hear more of what it going around you — the phone ringing, your son screaming in pain after your other child bopped him, or allowing you to hear cars and impending traffic during your jogging or cycling routine.

AFTERSHOKZ is based on bone conduction which means sound waves are converted to vibrations and transmitted to the inner ear, bypassing the eardrums. This is how you can actually hear your own voice. AFTERSHOKZ uses pretty fascinating technology to produce a great sound. I know, I’ve tried it.* You can buy AFTERSHOKZ at Barnes and Noble for $56.90.

Newer Technology Power 2U AC/USB Wall Outlet

Any sweetheart would love this gift. OK, it’s a little unusual for a Valentine’s gift, but I think everyone will agree it’s super handy. Do you remember that handy AC phone adapter plug you got with your phone? Don’t you wish you had more of them? One for your bedroom, one for your bathroom one for your kids’ rooms, one for your kitchen, one for your family room, one for your mudroom, etc. But what if you already have lamps, appliances, electric toothbrushes, etc. already using the plugs? This is where the Power 2U AC/USB wall outlet comes in handy. Now you can use your plugs as normal for other things AND plug in two mobile devices to charge them, such as your smartphone, tablet, etc…anything that uses USB technology to charge. I installed one* in my mud room so now I can charge my phone with a USB cord only – no AC adapter needed. I love it. Just think of where your sweethearts could use this gadget? Ideally, you can find a place where everyone can use it because it has two USB outlets. Think “gift for hubby with benefit for you!” Fortunately, Newer Technology just lowered the suggested retail price by 25%, which means that you can find the USB wall plug for as low as $22.99 if you look in the right places. Right now, you can buy it for $27.88 from Amazon.com.

Karotz Internet Bunny

I couldn’t resist this one. Karotz is a plastic bunny gadget that you can place anywhere in your home. The company that makes the bunny, Violet, claims that Karotz is the world’s first intelligent Internet companion. Can a tablet do that? I have never thought of my tablet as a companion. Karotz can assist you in all sorts of ways. It can surf the internet for you, play your favorite music, check the weather, news, sports, etc, play webradio stations, update or check your social networks, even provide video surveillance of the room it’s sitting in and when it detects movement…from you phone! Karotz can even record your audio message and post to Facebook or Twitter for you! Now that’s something!

But there’s more, you can even control it remotely from your smartphone to take pictures, play music, or send a message. The Karotz bunny sounds pretty cool huh? One is being sent to us to review, so I’ll let you know if Karotz can deliver all it says it can. I know my daughter can’t WAIT for Karotz to arrive, she has a home all planned for him…in her room! Karotz sells for $129.

Some fun different Valentines gifts, huh? There are SOOOOO many gadgets out there…and new ones hit the market everyday. The WellConnectedMom.com will continue to attend tech and video game tradeshows to keep you apprised of what’s out there and how it is relevant to your family. Curious is there’s a certain gadget out there to help you with something? Let us know and we’ll keep our eyes posted for you.

Have a wonderful Valentines with your sweethearts!

* I was provided with all of these items in exchange for my honest opinion and review. I have tried all of the products so far except for Karotz, which is forthcoming , and because of my very favorable opinion of these products, I have decided to include them in our Valentines Gift Guide.

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Puzzled Over the Mystery

jwiersma — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:18:29 +0000

By Jamie Wiersma

Our family tried out “Mystery Case Files: The Malgrave Incident” without knowing anything about what we were getting into. After doing a little research, I found out that “Mystery Case Files” are quite popular with PC gamers and that this is the first of the “Mystery Case Files” for Wii. I hope that they make more of these – it is a great adventure!

“I Spy” Game

The game is broken up into two different segments. There is the “Multi-player” mode that is basically an “I Spy” game. You enter a room that is filled with objects. You need to find all the listed objects as quickly as you can – attempting to find more than the person/people that you are playing against. As long as you read the words to them, even kids as young as my almost 5 year old can easily play this mode. It WOULD be hard for a child that is unable to read to be able to play by himself.

The Adventure

The other segment is the “Adventure” mode. This is the mode that really gets to the heart of things. There is one main player that controls the remote. At certain times throughout the game, additional players can join in and help. The basic premise of the adventure mode is a mystery that you need to solve. As you navigate the twists and turns, you will come upon some “I Spy” rooms (once you find all the hidden objects you will earn objects that will help you as you continue in your journey), pick up clues that will help you solve things and you will run across challenging puzzles that will allow you to move forward in the adventure once you solve them. We found that working as a family was extremely helpful. Different people saw things in different ways and through the help of everyone, we were able to solve all of the puzzles.
This is a game that takes many, many hours. We spent about 2 weeks tackling the game, playing a couple of hours most evenings. The game is VERY addicting. We would look at the clock, say “Ok, once we solve this puzzle, we’ll be done for the night.” But, after we solved the puzzle, something new opened up , we would get excited and want to keep playing. We also found that if you get super stuck, you can Google “Malgrave Incident Cheats” and there is a website where people ask questions and other people give helps. I don’t think we would have finished the game without the website! While the first time through will definitely be the most challenging, because this game is filled with so many elements, you can easily enjoy the game time and time again.

As a side note, as you move forward in “Adventure” mode, you open up additional rooms in the “Multi-player” mode. This is great – when we first started playing, I was worried that the “I Spy” portion would get boring because you would know where everything is. Once we solved the mystery, there were a ton more options as far as the rooms that you could find objects in. If you like brain-teasers, puzzles, mind games and mysteries, this challenge is for you. Big Fish Games hit a home run. I hope they do it again for Wii. Our family is now a big fan! Have fun and good luck!

Mystery Case Files: The Malgrave Incident is available for the Wii. It is available through Amazon.com for $28.99 and is eligible for free super saver shipping.

* I was given a copy of Mystery Case Files: The Malgrave Incident in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

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Stimulate Your Child’s Interest in Reading Biographies

Lori Cunningham — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:30:42 +0000

by Lori Cunningham

Thank you to who?Comics for sponsoring this post and encouraging my child to read biographies in comic book form! Please click here to learn more about the app. And follow who? Comics on Twitter for updates.

While at a great Clever Girls Collective event, during BlogHer ’11 in August, I met with some folks from Podotree. Podotree told me about a new app they were launching soon called Who?Comics. Who? Comics is an iPad app that showcases biographies various influential leaders of today and yesterday but they do it in a unique way. To capture kids’ interest, they wrote all of the content in cartoon form. As a child reads the speech bubbles from various characters in the biography, they can better visualize and understand the personality and emotions of the people involved.

I knew this would be a perfect app for my 8-year-old daughter, who LOVES learning about famous people. Recently, when I was given the opportunity to review Who? Comics and I jumped at it. I was pleased to see the biographies they have already compiled, namely:

Oprah Winfrey

Bill Gates

Hillary Clinton

Steven Spielberg

J.K. Rowling

Barack Obama

Warren Buffett

Stephen Hawking

Nelson Mandela

Jane Goodall

Louis Braille

Martin Luther King

Walt Disney

Nelson Mandela

and 14 more!

Here’s a brief video that gives you a glimpse on what the biographies look like and how they work:

I couldn’t wait to start reading some of the biographies with my daughter. We learned that Bill Gates’ mind was a sponge and as an elementary student and he read his entire encyclopedia set. He could memorize verses from the bible, after reading them only once! He had an appetite for learning. When his parents transferred him to a new school he was like a fish out of water. He didn’t fit the mold of the popular kids. But he found like-minded kids who were fascinated by computers. It was at this school that Bill met Paul Allen. Together they embarked on an adventure to learn all they could about computers and programming. Both Bill and Paul would stay up all night coding games to play on the computer and learning how to code. Bill envisioned that one day they would start-up a software company together. And they did.

I have to say, seeing the funny cartoon expressions on the characters’ faces and how they react to things really adds to the story. I think back to the many other biographies we’ve read with no pictures and how dry they can get sometimes.

Two days later we read the J.K. Rowling biography. My daughter is a BIG fan of Harry Potter, in fact, we all are. She has read the first three books…two times! To our surprise, we learned that Rowling loved to spend time in the nearby church cemetery. It was quiet there and she found the names on the tombstones so fascinating, some of which made it into her Harry Potter series. J.K. Rowling’s mom passed her love for books onto her daughters. J.K. Rowling couldn’t get enough of her books and she loved to write her own stories. Her creative imagination was the impetus of many fun games she would invent for her sister and friends. Rowling tried to take a traditional job route after school, but she’d often get distracted and begin writing stories. She never lasted long at her jobs. When she finally gave herself permission to write down her encompassing thoughts about a wizard name Harry, she began to live. Though her manuscript was turned down by numerous publishing companies, it only took one to say yes for her to realize her dream.

What I loved best about both biographies is that they taught my daughter that often our life-long passions are discovered during childhood and it reminded me to really

encourage my childrens’ interest and support them early on. I also liked how that the life dream that Bill Gates and J.K. Rowling had as a child came true as they grew into adulthood. These stories are teaching important lessons to my children…and to me.

The who? Comics app is available in the iTunes Store for $9.99 and includes two free biography comics – Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates. Each additional book is $4.99 but you can buy collections (Activists, Politicians, Artists in sets of 6) for $9.99 each set.

Right now Podotree is offering the opportunity to buy the 29 book comic series for only $29.99, which is a fantastic deal since buying each of these books separately would equal $149.99.

Thank you again to who? Comics for sponsoring my post. Please click here to learn more about the app. Visit who? Comics for updates.

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