With holiday shopping in mind, I compiled a list of my favorite children books about coding. They are a mix of nonfiction books, fiction books and activities books.
I wish there were books like these when I was a kid. In fact, I wish there were books as awesome as these 10 years ago. Now that they are a few, it’s important that kids have access to them.
Who doesn’t like to live amazing, unique experiences? This is why I share with you the latest promotion of The Art Institute of Chicago. To promote the current Van Gogh’s Bedrooms exhibit, they built a copy of the famous bedroom. A bedroom where you can stay in for the night. Cool!
We went for a weekend getaway last weekend with our 4 years old boy. I didn’t plan for anything except for meeting friends on Sunday and visiting the Canadian Children’s museum. Whenever I’m in vacation, I rely on Yelp to find restaurants. Once again, I was reminded of how practical Yelp is.
The filtering options make it easy to cut down on the number of reviewed restaurants. As a rule of thumb, I focus on restaurants with 40 reviews or more. I also take the time to read the most recent reviews to get a feel of the place, to see if it fits our criteria, what we’re craving for at that moment. Then, I check the food pictures and visit their web site. Frankly, I rarely made bad choices with this technique.
What if I told you that there is an iPad app where kids interact with physical objects instead of the screen. It’s exactly what the makers of Osmo did. Their educational game set bridges between the physical and the digital world. By doing so, Osmo pleases kids, educators and parents.
Once you downloaded the apps, you simply insert your iPad on the stand and place the red reflective mirror over the iPad camera to be ready to play. This is when the magic of Osmo is revealed. Kids use real objects instead of the iPad screen to draw, write words or solve puzzles. They draw with any pen and paper. They play Tangram by positioning actual pieces with their hands to reproduce the shape displayed on the screen. They write words with cardboard letters. For me, it’s a must-have play set if you own an iPad.
When we bought a house this summer, making our house smarter was on our agenda. The idea is to ease our life by controlling many devices from anywhere in the world with our iPhone. Since I know that many advancements will happen in the next few years, I don’t want old technology in my home. Unfortunately, it meant that I had to delay the addition of some convenient features.
The first tech thing that we installed was the Nest learning thermostat. We love the ability to control the heating and our A/C with our iPhone, even when we are not at home. We’re pleased with our Nest so far. If you aren’t familiar with it, the Nest thermostat does more than save on our energy bills. After a 1-minute setup, Nest starts to learn your schedule. Over time, it’ll program itself according to your habits. It’ll help you manage your energy savings while keeping you and your family comfortable when you are at home. There is also an auto-away and an away function. My husband likes to check the stats on his iPhone.
Every toddler child has one doll that he can’t sleep without at night. I always admired the modern rag dolls designed by Erica Perrot of Raplapla. The fact that I can put it in the washing machine was a bonus. The decision was a no brainer when it came to buy Zack his first doll, it had to be Mr. Tsé Tsé. As I called her about making repairs toTsé Tsé, Erica proved again that she understands and cares for the needs of her customers, i.e., the kids.
It took Zack a while but eventually he adopted Tsé Tsé. We never called him Mister; it’s too formal. Zack loves Tsé Tsé so much that a year and a half later I bought a second one in case we lose the original. We couldn’t fool him. So, we called the second one Yéyé. Now Zack falls asleep with both of them.
Almost 3 years later, Tsé Tsé showed wear and tear. He started to bother Zack a lot. I wanted to act before it couldn’t be saved. So I called to inquire about the repair service of Raplapla. Let me tell you that their doll hospital is a treat for parents and kids!
After successfully blogging about stylish living and entertaining since 2005, I needed a new challenge. I want to write a blog that fits my current life and work situation.
I closed At Home with Kim Vallee last year. Every time I attend a blogging or social media conferences, people ask me about At Home with Kim Vallee or ask me why did I stop? I’m extremely proud and glad of what I accomplished with my previous branded blog. At Home with Kim Vallee enabled me to build a reputation that far exceeds my local circle.
I care about the future of our education system. I follow what is going on because I want my son to be in an education system that will prepare him for the world of tomorrow. For that to happen, we need to change the design of the classrooms, the methods and the tools that we use to teach our kids. We need to take a fresh look at how we do it.
This is why I watched the talk given by Logan LaPlante at TEDx University of Nevada. For the record, I don’t think that home schooling is the viable solution. Since I’m is open-minded to other ways to teach our kids in a school environment, I wanted to hear what he had to say.
