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At iMagine Machine we are always trying to push the boundaries on what apps we can make to enhance learning and creativity. As parents we all know that getting children to focus and concentrate will be paramount to their success in the future. So how can apps help with this when so many of us see our children trying to do so many things at once? It’s not unusual to see a child playing with an app while the TV is on. It’s called media multitasking some have started to question and explore how all this affects children’s learning.

The key finding on media multitasking is that American kids are spending 6.5 hours a day using media but packing in 8.5 hours of media within that time. Brain scans show that children who are multitasking are absorbing and processing less information. On the other hand, we know that kids who multitask can do things more quickly and have quicker reaction times.

At iMagine Machine we have decided to create apps that can promote focus. We are calling this the ‘slow app’ movement. Every app we make has to fulfill this criteria. As someone once said, just because you have a hammer doesn’t mean you have to smash everything. It’s the same with apps. Not every character needs to be swipe-able and tap-able with everything singing and dancing.

Our newest app, The Monsters Family, is a case in point. It has been designed so that preschoolers must focus on a single game with no distractions. Even the voices of the characters within the app speak slowly and calmly. We built in lots of great rewards and virtual prizes to keep it exciting but it isn’t manic in any way.

Faces iMake, our multiple award winning app has received rave reviews from parents of children with special educational needs. Their feedback is that it is a calming and immersive app and they are amazed by the focus it promotes as well as the fantastic and beautiful creations their children make. With Faces iMake the child sets the pace and not the other way around.

Our next app to come out is going to take the idea of ‘slow apps’ even further. With Wince – Don’t Feed the WorryBug, we have created an app that is all about getting children to explore their feelings about worry. We can’t wait to see the reactions and discussions from teachers, parents and hopefully professionals working with children.

So my advice to parents of younger children is to choose apps that are designed to keep kids engaged and not because the app is packed with overwhelming choices. Is the app engaging because it is trying to ‘hook’ them with unnecessary elements? Or is it engaging because of the amazing things your child can do with the app.

Andrea Dinnick is a partner at iMagine Machine. She started her career as a broadcast journalist and television producer; she eventually moved into children’s television. Each of the apps from iMagine Machine are designed to increase focus; the developers distracting elements when designing their apps.

Back to school can be an exciting time for kids. They have new backpacks, shoes and are joyfully nervous to meet their new teachers – the adults they will spend their days with. This excitement is normal and a healthy part of going back to school.

Just as the first days of school are exciting for kids, the days that follow can often be the most challenging. This is not unusual but we at KinderTown, were curious to why this happens.

Thankfully, Dr. Mark McKee had some insights into this behavioral progression kids go through. He calls it, “The Kindergarten Freakout” and any parent going through it understands how difficult this transition can be.

After dealing with a kindergarten child’s excited anticipation of beginning “real school,” parents are often confused and shocked after the first two weeks of school have passed and their previously “excited about school child” now states, “I hate school!” and/or resists leaving the house or getting on the bus or out of the car. Parents are also shocked to hear from their child’s teacher that there is a beginning concern of emotional and/or behavioral problems.

The most common reason for such dramatic changes is simply that “reality” has set in. Whereas previous to school beginning, children are excited about their own self-created (and sometimes parent, sibling, and peer supported) fantasies of what school will be like. While most kids have attended pre-school and have likely been in some type of daycare, kindergarten is still a new experience with new expectations and demands for performance not previously encountered.

Routine sets in and what were once (not so long ago) days filled with freedom of choice in terms of activities and perhaps who one spent time with are now filled with a “morning routine” and “circle time” as well as introductions to materials not of one’s choosing and perhaps peers that “don’t fit.” Such experiences are not entirely uncommon and children react with emotional and behavioral responses which may at times be responded to critically. When this happens, a child may feel that they’ve lost the support of parents and teachers which they desperately need during this fragile transition from early childhood to “student.”

Tips for Helping Kids Deal with the Back-to-School Transition

1. LOVE LOVE LOVE
Take time for reading books, singing songs and extra hugs. Your little one has probably never experienced this level of uncertainty and stress before and you need to help them cope. That means Dad and Mom might have broken hearts, but you are giving your child skills for coping with the unknown. There is not too much love to be given in these situations!

2. Routines
Create a very structured routine from morning to night for your little one. This routine will help him have confidence in what is happening from moment to moment. Even if he struggles with going to school, the routine will provide a stable environment for the other moments of the day. You might even consider printing out images and organizing the routine on a poster so that your child can check and you can talk with him about what is happening throughout the day.

3. Pocket Parents
It’s important to acknowledge your child’s feelings and help her understand that she is feeling sad or angry and that she can help herself feel better. Give her a tool, like a family picture or a kiss on a piece of paper, that she can take to school with her. During the day when your little one feels sad, she can look at the picture or give a quick kiss to help her cope.

A wonderful book for helping kids cope with the “Kindergarten Freak Out” is The Kissing Hand.

Dr. Mark McKee is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and author of Raising a Successful Child: The Manual. His private practice provides a range of psychological services for children, adolescents and their families, serving the Naperville, Illinois and Chicago-area suburbs since 1992. He enjoys running, gourmet cooking and spending time with his family.

Montessori Geometry

Can you draw a quatrefoil? How about an acute angled scalene triangle? Well today you have the opportunity to give your kids a play filled experience with these shapes (or you can use it yourself to brush up on your geometry knowledge).

Montessori Geometry is one of the most comprehensive geometry apps we have seen to date. The app is filled with games, free exploration activities and other learning gems in the traditional style of Maria Montessori.

8 Features in Montessori Geometry

• A detailed shape glossary for seeing and reading about each of the 23 geometric shapes. Tap any of the boxes and listen to the shape name.

• Free discovery activity for interacting with 3D shapes (tap on the pencil). Touch, turn and resize each shape to count the sides, edges and vertices.

• A geometry cabinet that organizes the 30 shapes into 6 categories. From the cabinet kids can play with puzzles and one of our favorite activities…

• Explore shapes in the real world with the “Shape-Finding Cities.” A personal favorite! Kids tap the shapes found in 6 cities from around the world. Haven’t found them all? Explore with the “Magic Paintbrush” to reveal all the hidden shapes.

• Games for matching, comparing, sorting, patterning and seeing how much you have learned.

• As kids play they earn points that translate into medals. The app restarts the point record each time you play. That’s okay, they made points very easy to earn and don’t put much emphasis on earning points during the game.

• Play in one of 8 different languages! Find the language options in the setting page.

• A 2 player game where multiple people can gather around the iPad and help in sorting shapes. Fun for the whole family!

There are so many advantages for kids to using the app. Kids see, listen, play, move and engage through dynamic interactions with 23 shapes. It is a wonderful resource for teachers and parents to help older kids who are learning more advanced shapes. Start young kids with Montessori Geometry to expose them to the variety of shapes that they (CAN!) will be learning.

We realize that teaching 5 year olds about “right angled trapezoids” is not something that is common place. Having taught 5 year olds, I know first hand how they love playing with “adult” vocabulary and that they enjoy playing with shapes they don’t know the names of (yet).

As the developers put it, there are very young kids who can easily identify and learn dinosaur names like “Brachyceratops” and “Velociraptor.” We say – Why not let them be exposed to the real names of shapes!

There is so much more to Montessori Geometry than we could cover in this single review! Read more by tapping on the post-it note on the main screen. It contains a detailed and informative “note to parents.”

Doing geometry requires the ability to visualize relationships of objects in space. Early experiences help develop these skills. We use them throughout life in such things as reading, sketching maps, following directions when putting toys together and playing Tetris. These activities today will provide experiences in moving and visualizing geometrical shapes.

Activity: Create a Puzzle

The objective of this activity is to give you child a simple, playful opportunity to build and solve a sequenced series of puzzles.

What You’ll Need:
• Scissors
• Heavy Paper cut into a square

Make one straight cut in any direction on the paper. Then, make a second straight cut on one of the halves. Fit the pieces together to solve this 3 piece puzzle. Continue to add additional straight cuts to make a more complicated puzzle while continuing to use your original square. Have your child share the puzzle they made for a sibling to solve.

If you want to make the puzzle easier to solve you can color the backs of the pieces a different color than the front. You can copy and print a picture from your photo library or take a new one. I have found that this usually takes away from “shape” objective. But I leave that up to you.

Is back to school causing an unwelcome transition? Ease angst by creating end-of-summer traditions.

Traditions and rituals serve an important part in developing cherished memories for children and families. They provide a sense of identity, serve as a means for measuring the passage of time, create and deepen family bonds, and offer experiences to anticipate and remember.

With summer ending and our children starting a new school year, we have a perfect opportunity to introduce a new family tradition that puts a “positive spin” on this time of year. For many, this “in-between” time presents an unwelcome transition. So why not make the most of it?

“End of Summer Traditions” can take on as many forms as a family’s imagination and creativity allow. The important point is that like other traditions, such as hosting the Thanksgiving dinner and baking holiday cookies, everyone’s involved. Here are some suggestions to spark ideas:

End of Summer Traditions

1. Plan an end of summer picnic with activities/games that involve everyone and inspire friendly competition. Sit down to a special meal where everyone plans and picks their favorite dishes—and helps cook too. Nothing beats grilling in your own backyard!

2. Go on a family outing to celebrate the end of summer. Depending on your budget and interests, this could range from a movie and ice cream, to a nature hike, zoo or aquarium, a local festival, a family friendly museum, planetarium or your favorite recreation park.

3. Plan a family game night which, depending on the ages of your children, could include an in-home movie, popcorn and build-your-own ice cream sundaes. Make it an all-night pajama party!

4. Break out your sleeping bags for an end of summer camp out! Pitch a tent in your own backyard or build a fort in your family room. Tell ghost stories and serve up campfire-inspired treats.

5. Finish the summer family photo album or scrapbook. Here’s a chance to get crafty with the kids or simply organize your photos and relive the memories of your summer family vacation.

This school year, you may have children entering kindergarten to college and anywhere in-between. So be creative in coming up with your family’s meaningful, end of summer tradition—it will go a long way in not only easing any transition angst your children may be experiencing, but in connecting as a family and creating memories to last a lifetime.

Dr. Mark McKee is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and author of Raising a Successful Child: The Manual. His private practice provides a range of psychological services for children, adolescents and their families, serving the Naperville, Illinois and Chicago-area suburbs since 1992. He enjoys running, gourmet cooking and spending time with his family.

We live in a remarkable era where technology assists us with just about everything we do. As a parent, it’s sometimes difficult to know where to draw the line – in the sand, or on the iPad “Etch A Sketch” app. How much tech is too much for your preschooler? What is the value of 2D digital vs 3D real-world experiences?

Rather than putting “tech” experiences on the other side of more natural experiences, why not think of them as “Apples and Oranges.” They are different, but they are both fruit with benefits to your well being. There is so much that technology affords us. However, it should not out weigh three dimensional, real-world experiences, because there is an awful lot that the real world affords us and it is paramount for human development (child) and maintenance (YOU).

5 Things You Can Do With Your Child to “Keep it Real”

Grow Something Together

Grow a garden, plant a seed on a windowsill or plant a tree with your community. Watching tiny little seeds grow into tall plants with food you can eat is one of most amazing scientific wonders of this world. And sharing a discussion with your preschooler about how even the tallest, strongest standing tree began it’s life as fragile little seed can help them understand their own journey on this earth.

Keep Kitchen Items in Reach

We spend so much of our family time in the kitchen. Rather than have your little one in another room with their toys, make the kitchen part of their exploration and learning. Instead of cutting them out of your world with child-proofing and locking all the lower cabinets, consider rearranging your set up for a year or two. Put containers, pots, wooden spoons, colanders, etc. in your lower cabinets and surprise them by switching items around every two weeks or so. You can also put dry cereal in one container and raisins in another. Watch as they experience the sound it makes when they shake it or hit with a wooden spoon. Eventually, they learn to get the lids off the containers and later learn to match which lids go on which containers. Allowing your baby and preschooler to experience their own world within your world is a beautiful way for you to be together, while still getting things done.

Picnic in a Wide, Open Space

Ask your child to assist you while packing a lunch. Seeing the fruits of their own labor later in the day makes lunch taste that much better and also teaches them what they need for their own survival (i.e. “we’ll be out for a long time so we will need some good food and lots of water because it’s a hot day”). They can do the simplest things like put blueberries into a container or put sandwiches into the cooler etc.

Leave the electronics at home for the day and bring some activity-based toys, like balls to kick and butterfly nets. Ask them what else they think you will need for your picnic and then take them to BIG, wide open, space with trees, water, petting zoo etc. Stay “in the moment” as long as you can, you will be so re-energized and happy that you did as you watch them in wonder at the natural beauties of our world.

Take a Trip to the Library

There is a feeling everyone gets when they enter a library that simply cannot be put into words; for preschoolers, it is positively magical. Even the ritual of bringing home and returning borrowed items teaches them so many skills: sharing and responsibility, for example. Listening to storytellers, learning fingerplays and singing songs with other children, exploring all the various colors, shapes and textures of each book is one of those experiences that creates a imprint in a child’s mind for the rest of their life.

Build a Fort

Pillows, blankets, chairs, refrigerator boxes… pretty much anything can be used for fort making. Just make sure the fort is big enough for YOU and TWO. Not much point having a fort if you can’t invite friends in. Watching what preschoolers make without the assistance of adults is so fascinating. You can assist them along the way when necessary, but it’s pretty special when you leave them to engineer their own structure and design the interior to their liking.

KinderTown is very pleased to welcome Laura James from Mulberry Media Interactive, and developer of “Mulberry FingerPlays” as a guest writer on our blog. Laura is passionate about enabling parents to become their child’s best toy. Mulberry FingerPlays connects parents with 25 fingerplays that we all knew and loved as kids. Now parents can share these timeless stories, songs and play with their kids. Today she is sharing 5 ideas for parents to set up “real” spaces where kids can blossom.

Monster Physics

What makes the iPad so amazing is how it lets kids engage in activities that are either traditionally too expensive or too difficult for little hands. Monster Physics is a perfect example of how touch screen play benefits our kids.

Our parent review team was the first group to get their hands on this app. Both a 4 year old and 8 year played alongside Mom. Amazingly, the 4 year old was able to set up strategies and help in building machines to solve each mission. As we read her review we got our first glimpse of all the value in Monster Physics.

What happens in Monster Physics?

Start your game play with a supportive tutorial. The tutorial teaches and progresses you through each of the physics rules and tools you use in the app. Spend some time in the “Learn” area of the app to read kid friendly definitions and modeling of physics terms.

Play 50 challenging problem solving missions that may stump any engineers you have in your home. Strategically use over 60 different parts to complete missions. You don’t have to play in any specific order so encourage kids pursue their interests and challenge themselves.

For the kids who love to invent and create, the “Build” area will be their favorite place. Customize your own invention with the vast amount of tools in the app. Even choose your own scenery and how much gravity you want for your environment. The possibilities are endless!

Design and create your own monsters (up to 5 profiles) that play the leading role in each mission. You can get completely absorbed in the monster making features! Listen for the funny eating sounds these adorable little creatures make.

Overall, the open ended play is both challenging and entertaining. Kids persevered to complete missions that were at first attempt too difficult. We encourage you to play as a family as there are no hints provided. Beyond the missions this app has an area that gives kids the tools to create their own inventions. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself replaying many of the missions and creating your own rocket powered vehicles after your kids go to bed.

Activity 1: Sequenced Movement Cards

Try out this sequencing game with your young child who is just getting ready for manipulating gears, pulleys and rocket engines on an app. Sequencing play encourages kids to apply strategies for organizing multiple steps like those found in Monster Physics.

What You’ll Need:

• Construction paper
• Markers
• Pictures
• Kids poems, songs or stories

We recommend starting with the story The Little Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.

Other good stories for sequencing:

• The Napping House
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Read through the story to get familiar with the order and animals that the little old lady swallows. Draw pictures or find pictures online for each of the swallowed animals in the story. Clearly write a label for each picture. Once you have your cards created you may want to laminate them so they last a bit longer.

There are many ways that you can use your sequencing cards now. For quiet play your child can lay out the cards in order they are presented in the story and retell the story. For more active play kids can lay out the cards on the floor and jump between characters retelling the story and acting out each part. Leave the cards with your child and watch a brand new literacy experience emerge.

We also highly recommend the storybook sequencing activity with The Very Quiet Cricket that comes with printable cards.

Activity 2: Gears!

What You’ll Need:

• Potatoes and a sharp knife
• A box of toothpicks
• Nails or drinking straws
• Boxes, cardboard, or foam board

If you don’t have a box of awesome gears, we suggest making some of your own. Start by slicing the potato into rounds about ½ inch thick. Place the nail (or a small segment of a drinking straw if you need something safer) through the middle of each round to act as an axle. Insert 6 toothpicks, evenly spaced, deeply around the edge of each potato round. Now you have a set of potato gears!

Place your gears onto cardboard so that the toothpicks are interlocked. Make sure each axle is secured into the cardboard (which is why nails work well). As you spin one potato gear the other interlocked gears will begin to turn. Consider adding a vertical gear attached to a cardboard box to add complexity.

Feeling really inventive? Try building your own gears from junkmail and cardstock.