Girls Gone Gadget

My girls love Sesame Street.  Pretty much everything about it keeps them entertained.  And, since I am usually stuck watching it with them, I so much appreciate how Sesame Street writers use their creativity to entertain the parents as well!

One of my favorite Sesame Street skits is their version of Law and Order: SVU.  I believe it’s ‘Special Letters Unit’.  They capture my favorite personalities from that show so well!  You know Sesame Street has to be doing something right when they get hundreds of actors, musicians, and celebrities to come on their show!

When I came across this short video from Sesame Street I knew I had to share it here.  It’s not exactly a gadget but, well, it’s just too fun:

Spend one day in my house or go on one quick road trip with my girls and you’ll have the song “Old MacDonald” stuck in your head within minutes. Actually my 3 year old sings it as “Old McDonalds”…she likes her Happy Meals!

Anyhow, however you sing it, it is a favorite in my house. My 3 year old sings the main part of the song while my 17 month old chimes in on the “E-I-E-I-O” part. It’s adorable…the first 25 times.

Needless to say, I was very excited when asked to review the new iPhone/iPod Touch app Old MacDonald by Duck Duck Moose.

The Old MacDonald app features 12 colorful and musical pages based on the popular children’s song. Not only are all of the illustrations fun and colorful but they can be manipulated! You can do everything from watch a cow get abducted by aliens to helping Pig-casso paint a masterpiece (of sorts). My daughter’s favorites are sheering the sheep and helping the bulldozer carry away the dirt!!!

The song itself is offered in five different languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian, and German), four different instrumentals, or choose to record your child singing! That’s right, you can actually record your child singing each line of the song and then that recording will play back as they are on that specific screen. My daughter loves hearing her own voice as she gets the little dog to eat the double-double decker sandwich!

Grade: We are definitely giving this app an A+! It is both fun and educational, as it allows children to hear the familiar song in a variety of languages. I love that it is interactive and can be personalized with your child’s voice singing the song lyrics. The younger kids will love the cute characters and variety in the song lyrics. The older kids will love that everything is interactive and that the characters themselves are not your run-of-the-mill cow, sheep, pig, or duck. The animals have style! And they let you know it!!!

This is another very affordable app, priced at just $0.99, that any child is sure to love!!! You can purchase this app now at the iTunes app store or head over to Duck Duck Moose to learn more about their other available apps!

A few weeks ago I was asked if I would try out the new Little Lala iPhone apps. I happily agreed because I’m always looking for fun iPhone apps, especially for my kids! Yes, my daughters have their own ‘screen’ on my iPhone with apps just for them! So, after downloading my complimentary apps, I let my daughters go to work…or play! And here are their/my thoughts:

Little Lala: My 3 year old loved this! She loves books and she really enjoys when books are read to her (since she hasn’t quite learned to read). Little Lala is an adorable audio book app that takes your child on a journey around the world with Little Lala as she collects ethnic food for her upcoming party. For older children you they can chose to read the story themselves but, for the younger ones, you can opt to have the book read aloud. While in “play” mode the pages automatically “turn” or you can swipe the screen left or right to turn to the previous or next page. My daughter found that, while in “play” mode, the auto-pageturn didn’t more quite fast enough for her so she swiped the screen and turned the page herself. Grade: This is a great app. It has worked flawlessly and, even after a few weeks, my daughter still loves to hear the story. At just $0.99, Little Lala gets an A+!!! You can purchase this app now on iTunes.

Little Lala’s ABC’s: This is another great iPhone app from Little Lala. My 17 month old has latched on to this one. My three year old thinks it’s cute but, since she already knows her ABC’s pretty well, she gets a little bored with it. Each screen shot acts as an alphabet flashcard, featuring a letter of the alphabet in both uppercase and lowercase, an adorable animal drawing corresponding with that letter, and the name of that animal spelled out. Turn the audio on to have the letter, sound, and word read aloud or turn the audio off to test your child’s alphabet knowledge. You can also chose to have the alphabet go in order or have the flashcards go in a random order with the “shuffle” mode. The only trouble we’ve had with this app is when my daughter gets into the “index” view, showing all of the cards. It is difficult for a child to get out of that mode. Grade: Again, I would give this app an “A”. The illustrations of the animals are darling and I love some of the animal selections! I’m always curious as to what animals they will choose for letters like “I” and “X”. This app is sure to keep your toddler entertained while educating them and is well worth the $0.99. You can purchase this app now on iTunes.

At the end of July I attended the annual Blogher conference, this year being held in Chicago. My intentions for attending was to further develop my blogging. I really was not expecting to see any new gadgets while there but, to my surprise, gadgets were definitely there!

The gadget that most caught my eye while weaving my way around the expo floor was the new Disney Netbook — The Disney Netpal.

The Netpal is the result of a collaboration between Disney Consumer Products and ASUS, maker of the Eee PC netbook. Of course, coming from Disney, the Netpal was developed with kids in mind. The durable netbook is small (8.9″ screen and weighing approximately 2.5 pounds), comes in two stylish designs — Disney Princess Pink and Disney Magic Blue — and is packed with a ton of fun features for kids:

          *  Disney Desktop featuring a 2D “gadget tray” that displays bold visual application icons
          * 15 easily-accessible widgets
          * More than 10 customizable desktop themes from Disney Princesses and Toy Story to
             Hannah Montana and JONAS The Series.
          * Disney Mix – music and media management
          * Disney Pix – photo customization and organization
          * And tons of games!

The Disney Netpal was also developed with parents in mind! The durable design includes a spill-proof keyboard and ShockShield data protection. They say the battery life is 5 hours but that will all depend on what applications your child is running. You can also create a web-safe environment on the Netpal with 40 parental control options, allowing you the option to limit what sites your child as access to, pre-select email correspondence options, and even pull data to see how your child is spending their time online.

The Tech Specs:

          * Operating System: Genuine Windows XP Home
          * Display: 8.9″ LED-backlit WSVGA screen
          * CPU: Intel ATOM N270
          * WLAN: 802.11 b/g/n
          * Memory: DDR2 SO-DIMM 1GB
          * Storage: 160GB HDD (SSD on some models)
          * Interface: (1) VGA port, (3) USB 2.0 ports, (1) LAN RJ-45, (2) audio jacks
          * Camera: 0.3 M Pixel
          * Audio: Hi-definition audio CODEC, built-in audio stereo speakers, analog mic
          * Dimensions: 248mm (W) x 173mm (D) x 28.7mm (H)
          * Weight: 1.2kg with battery (1kg with battery on some models)

All in all, I think this is a pretty cute and functional portable computer for kids. They are marketing the Netpal to kids ages 6-12, although I think my 3 year old would navigate it just fine. They are currently priced at $349.99 and are available at Toys”R”Us and Amazon.com. The price seems a little high to me but you are paying for the creativity and uniqueness that Disney had injected into the netbook.

I think the Disney Netpal is going to be on the must-have list for most kids this Christmas!