Of course, K-12 kids are going to respond with enthusiasm if their schools provide them each with iPads, but what happens when the initial excitement wears off? Touch screen devices are just part of a child’s landscape. In the same way that our generation takes email and digital photography for granted, by the time today’s 2 year-old gets to elementary school, touchscreen devices are going to be considered standard.

There is also the issue of children from certain socioeconomic backgrounds being left out. Many parents are required to buy an iPad for their kids in order for them to attend a certain school. In this case, the digital divide is going to be even more painful for kids. iPads are designed to be more personal than personal computers, and for schools it’s going to be hard to keep up with the expenses; how long will the tablets last before becoming outdated? How many iPads will go broken while used by the kids? With whose money schools are going to replace them, and how will schools in less well-funded districts stay included?

“It’s an expensive program to run,” said Dr. Joselyn Todd, who directs the Cary Academy instructional technology outreach program. “Schools may have the initial investment but don’t always have funds to continue long-term.”

The answer is, while the technology opens up many exciting opportunities for learning, tablets themselves are not going to improve education. The schools that had better results after having adopted tablets in their curricula are the ones who have designed a revolutionary curricula, radically different from the one they used to have. They embraced interactive cooperative learning as their only strategy. If iPads are simply replacing textbooks and notebooks, yet the educational philosophy stays the same, one cannot expect real change.

Tech enthusiasts may protest that schools need to remain up to date, particularly with a technology that is increasingly becoming a part of children’s daily lives. Again, this is not the heart of the issue. There is a greater problem in education demanding our attention.

Let me share with you a brief chunk of my high school memories.
When I was in high school, I took German. I loved the language, but there was something I couldn’t stand. To engage us, our German teacher used to take us to the video lab (yay!) to watch videos of horrific actors, dressed cheaply, exchanging inaudible conversations about irrelevant topics. The teacher considered it be cool and engaging, something our parents didn’t have. It wasn’t cool at all in our eyes; and it didn’t make any difference in our perception of German. I much preferred talking directly to the teacher, in the class (she was a great and really fun teacher) rather then watching those lame videos.

There’s an elephant in our multimedia classrooms, and it’s about time we look it in the eye. Educational materials are often weak from an editorial standpoint. How are these materials supposed to compare with the games these kids play on the X-Box? The common attitude is that they shouldn’t compare, because their value is precisely that those are educational materials, not necessarily meant to be aesthetically pleasing.

This is the elephant in the room. Tablets are not going to magically make school relevant to kids, if the content we distribute through iPads refuses to compare with the quality of entertainment industry. We as educators, as developers, and as parents have continued to make this mistake despite the fact that we can no longer hide behind the idea that educational materials lack the funding that the entertainment industry has. Although this fact may be true, technology has closed this gap. Education needs to be as appealing as entertainment.  Do we really believe that school is some kind of necessary evil and that all we can do to make kids swallow this uncomfortable truth is to have them do their homework on a tablet?

School should be an amazing adventure. Knowledge is one of life’s most precious gifts. Shouldn’t we figure out how to communicate this to children?

Here there are four goals that could massively improve school relevancy and make a giant leap forward in the way society considers K-12 education, not as a necessary evil, but as an incredible opportunity and a gift.

1) Make schools a truly cooperative learning environment.

School should be a place where students and teachers learn to share resources and experiences, and where the focus is on creating in a mutually supportive environment. Making kids responsible for the place where they study, and for the tools that they use, is one of the basic principles of many forward-thinking educational methods of the last century (from Montessori to Waldorf).

2) Shift towards liquid learning

After liquid modernity, it’s now time to start talking about liquid learning. In the Internet era, hermetically sealed subjects are nonsensical. It’s to be taken for granted that subjects are interconnected, and we need to find ways to teach them with unexpected overlaps. In this way, we may even incidentally solve the problem of diversity within industries: if grammar is mixed with math, we won’t discourage aspiring writers to dream of an engineering career.

3) Use the power of storytelling

It’s about time we raise the bar of the editorial quality of what we offer our students. Stories have to be engaging in order to pass on lessons to children. Great stories can have a dramatic impact on kids, and can kindle their passion for learning, making them feel part of a great adventure. Why shouldn’t we expect a great editorial quality from a character that helps our kid learn math? Why shouldn’t that character be as fun as Spongebob? And why should we expect kids to keep associating studying with something that’s *essentially* less fun than the cartoons and books they love?

4) Involve parents and create bridges between scholastic and domestic life

Again, we can’t expect parents to be involved and present just out of sense of duty. We need to measure how much the materials we publish engage them, retain them, and make them feel part of their kids’ learning journey.

We have metrics: we can measure almost anything that happens on tablets. Let’s use these metrics the way the entertainment industry uses them, and let’s get abandon the snobbish attitude that children don’t deserve good taste in the visuals and content of learning materials. Kids need us to change our perspective to improve their learning. We can’t pass on this opportunity.

Recently, though, the leadership of the Boy Scouts of America recommended to its governing board to cease banning gay young people from participating in Scouting. It may look like a turning point, but there comes the second part of the story. Boy Scouts’ ban on gay people should be dropped ONLY for young members, but NOT for adults. It means that a young person can be accepted in the organization if he/she’s openly gay, but they cannot become scout leaders when they grow up.

As you may expect, the proposal raised many critiques.

A very interesting project was launched three days ago by gay filmmaker and Eagle Scout Todd Bieber. It’s called Scouts for Equality. In their own words:

Scouts for Equality is leading a respectful, honest dialogue with current and former Scouts and Scout Leaders about ending this policy. By embodying the values of the Scout Oath and Law, we believe we can restore the social relevancy of one of this country’s great cultural institutions: the Boy Scouts of America.

Take a look at the project Todd realized bringing together a group of Boy Scouts and a group of gay filmmakers.

The idea here is that children learn better if they feel involved in a great story they can relate to. This is why we created a set of characters who live together in the city of Timbuktu. Each of our characters is related to a particular subject, and the relationships between them become a way to break the walls between different subjects and create an engaging environment where kids can learn through the adventures of their favorite character!

Today, we want to introduce you to Betty, a girl wiener dog, passionate about skateboarding, who keeps a diary on Timbuktu Magazine. The only problem is that Betty’s grammar is pretty bad. Children have to help her correct the mistakes she does on her diary, and help her improve the quality of her writing. What’s revolutionary about this?

Children feel like teachers, not learners. They feel responsible for Betty’s performance, thus more engaged than they are when they have to make exercises and fill out blank spaces on a worksheet.

What does this content look like? First of all, like every secret diary, children have to enter a password to open it (their name!).

Second, they read the diary and find the mistakes to correct.

And of course, they have to correct mistakes!

Try Timbuktu Magazine, download it now!

Do you want to find funny sentences with grammar mistakes that kids need to fix? Follow Betty on twitter!

If you want to try Timbuktu in your school, please email us! hello@timbuktu.me

[You guessed it, keep tissues on hand.]

1. Meet Joe Black (1998)

It’s almost at the end of the movie, Bill Parrish is going to die soon and he talks to his daughter Susan telling her how important she’s been in his life.

2. The Wonder Years

Kevin is down and runs into his father to comfort him over his breakup with Winnie. A great example of how important it is to take children seriously.

3. Glee

The tv show that airs on Fox features a character, Burt Hummel, who has a thing or two to teach to dads. He’s an amazing dad and you’ll excuse the poor quality of the video, because the message he passes is so great. This is the scene where he has “the talk” with his gay son Kurt.

4. My Life (1993)

This great movie starring Michael Keaton is probably one of the most emotional movies about fatherhood I’ve ever seen. Even if you don’t know the story, you’re going to appreciate this moment.

5. October Sky (1999)

Sometimes we feel discouraged because our kids look so different from us. We feel like we’re never going to understand them. That’s the moment when you should watch this scene from “October Sky”.

Please, share in the comments your favorite father and child scenes from tv shows or movies!

1) No social sharing

2) No Bubbles (a simple, very convenient subscription: $4.99 per month or $29.99 per year!)

3) A brand new Grown-ups zone to explain what the Timbuktu project is all about

4) A set of new amazing characters: each one of them is associated to a particular subject!

5) Common Core State Standards aligned activities

6) More interactive stories and games

7) Monthly issues, instead of daily updates (to give kids the possibility to go back to the stories they love, before publishing the new ones!)

8) A brighter, even more awesome design!

Take a look at this video for a sneak peek of the new issue!

We knew a few things:

- We wanted it to feature great illustration and design

- We didn’t want it to be too flashy, because we wanted the interaction design to help kids focus on the reading experience, without encouraging alienation and constant distraction

- We wanted it to feature news and current events, because we believe children have the right to be informed about what happens around them

- We wanted the magazine to be likable for both parents and kids, because the best learning experiences happen when children and grown-ups discover the world together

As a result, we built the first beta version of Timbuktu Magazine, that happened to be the first iPad magazine for children ever launched on the Apple App Store. It was April 2011, and Timbuktu Magazine was still a side project for us.

The first issue of Timbuktu Magazine, “The Ice Issue”, was full of mistakes! The interaction was messy, the technology still raw. Still, there was something that struck people. We never talked down to kids. The artists and designers we called as contributors were international stars (thanks Olimpia Zagnoli, Planeta Tangerina, Sarah Fotheringham, Miguel Porlan, Massimo Caccia, Jan Von Holleben, Annalisa Merelli): we thought kids deserved just as much beauty as adults do.

People liked it. And thy encouraged us to go ahead. We started designing the following issue. We wanted it to be more interactive, more playful, easier to navigate. In February 2012, “The Night Issue” was born.

It had improved a lot, but the navigation wasn’t quite there yet. Plus, it had many bugs, and it was incredibly “heavy” to download! By the time “The Night Issue” was out, we had decided that we wanted to make a job out of it. Timbuktu, with its unique approach to digital publishing for kids, needed to become a company. We quit our jobs, and moved from Milan to San Francisco! Now we only had to solve some issues:

- technology-wise “The Night Issue” had been a mess: beautiful, but not scalable! We needed a platform!

- most platforms out there were toasting pdfs for publishers who wanted to adapt their paper content to digital, but that didn’t work for us. We were a digital native company, all our content was designed to be interactive and we needed a platform that could support and make scalable interactive digital native content.

- we needed to find a revenue model

- we needed money to build the platform

We knew 500startups was the right place for us to start all of this and we did all that we could to get into the program. We found three amazing mentors (Tara, Christian and John), who introduced us to Christine Tsai and Dave McClure. We got interviewed, and we got accepted into 500 Startups. (And we got the money to start!). Now we just had to find a way to stay in the U.S. for more than 90 days! We flew back to Italy and started the painful Visa journey. We eventually managed to get one and flew back to California to start our adventure in Mountain View. We flew our team to California too! We were now 4 people working on Timbuktu full time, and sharing an office together for the first time.

After 6 months of hard work the beta version of our publishing platform was up and running! It was November 2012, and we released it to the App Store. Many improvements, an amazing platform and a standing O: “How can you possibly manage to come up with a new story *every day*?”. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we simply do. We love creating content to entertain you and your kids, and the fact that in each corner of the globe there are parents and children laughing at our stories and learning something on Timbuktu is enough to kindle our creativity and push us to produce great stories every day.

But what happened then? Kids like our stories SO MUCH that they want to read them over and over again. And it turns out that if we push a new story everyday, it’s hard for kids to keep track of their favorite ones.

So, here comes our latest release. Today we’re presenting the best Timbuktu Magazine you’ve ever seen:

- 9 amazingly interactive stories per month

- An incredible set of new funny characters

- A simple subscription model

- A kid safe environment

- One of most advanced edutainment projects on the iPad

All the stories, games and activities on Timbuktu are based on the Reggio Emilia Approach and designed to help children meet education standards while respecting their personal way of learning. Our international and interdisciplinary team has grown and now includes experts in learning sciences, animation, writing, design, music, theater, and software development.

It’s been an incredible journey so far. We listened to you, and we replied to your suggestions with all our brains, hearts, and bodies. We’re confident that your kids will enjoy this Timbuktu more than ever. Because we improved it with their help. And this is why we especially want to thank the amazing kids of the Child Development Center at the Cerritos College, and the wonderful teachers Daniela, Teresa and Elizabeth.

Please keep your feedback coming! And help us spread the word: tweet, email, and tell your friends about Timbuktu Magazine. Be part of this revolution. We don’t know if this is the best magazine for children ever, but we know we can make it with you, through listening, respect, and imagination. The values that inspire our work with you every day.

Last week we launched a competition to find a name to this red guy:

with your help, we found one! Let us introduce you to Oscar Forrester! The winner of the competition is Jennifer from Chicago. Congratulations, Jennifer!

But there is more! When we asked Jennifer what t-shirt she wanted to receive, she told us she was worried that the other participants would be sad if they didn’t get anything. So she asked us if we could give a t-shirt to all the people who tried to find a name for Oscar. Could we say ‘no’ to the winner? We couldn’t.

So, please: dear participants, thank Jennifer! She was very thoughtful. And send us an email telling us which tee you want (size and favorite vampire) and your address at hello@timbuktu.me, writing “Oscar Forrester” in the subject line.

Meanwhile, on Timbuktu, we’re starting to reveal the new characters, Oscar Forrester’s friends! Did you check them out? Do it now!

A couple of months ago, The Tallow Candle became an interactive app for iPhone and iPad by Timbuktu. The first mobile app ever made out of this jewel by Hans Christian Andersen. The app is usually sold for $1.99 on the App Store, but today and tomorrow we’re giving the app away for FREE!!! Hurry up and download it!

It’s an amazing interactive book for children 6 to 8 (and for grown-ups who love Andersen!) full of animations and great music. Discover it now.

Something like this.

Or this.

Or even this.

We know you want them badly. But they’re not for sale. You have to deserve them!

Here’s how it works:

a whole set of amazing characters is about to rock children’s imagination (and yours!) on Timbuktu Magazine. We found names for almost all of our new characters (expect some anticipations in the magazine in the next days!). But we’re struggling to find a name for this red guy! WOULD YOU HELP US? The best 3 names will be awarded with a t-shirt of their choice and be wrapped in glory and fame for the rest of their days.

Post your name idea in the comments!

Today, you can read the story also here, on our blog. The story was written and illustrated by Scott Dubois.

Enjoy it!

Rhy uses a platform called Gamestar Mechanic to design his own videogames. Named one of the 2012 Best Educational Websites by the American Association of School Librarians, Gamestar Mechanic is one of the most popular solutions for the teachers who believe that game design can have a dramatic impact on their students engagement at school, and at home.

Designing games, the company says, builds:

• Systems Thinking,
• 21st Century Skills,
• Creative Problem Solving,
• Art and Aesthetics,
• Writing and Storytelling,
• and creates a motivation for STEMlearning.

Their video tutorial on their homepage is extremely clear and engaging. Take a look:

But what’s your experience with education and game design?

Apparently, the main problem is that it’s extremely hard to prove what kids are really learning when designing games. This is one of the most controversial parts of the debate around games and education. Even a guru of game design like Jane McGonigal says it in this great TED presentation.

So, you would have heard of his theory of success,the 10,000 hour theory of success.It’s based on this great cognitive science researchthat if we can master 10,000 hoursof effortful study at anythingby the age of 21, we will be virtuosos at it.We will be as good at whatever we doas the greatest people in the world.And so, now what we’re looking atis an entire generation of young peoplewho are virtuoso gamers.

So, the big question is, ”What exactly are gamers getting so good at?” Because if we could figure that out, we would have a virtually unprecedented human resource on our hands. This is how many people we now have in the world who spend at least an hour a day playing online games. These are our virtuoso gamers, 500 million people who are extraordinarily good at something. And in the next decade we’re going to have another billion gamers who are extraordinarily good at whatever that is.

If you’re interested in Videogame design and STEM, or better if your students or your kids are designing games there’s an event you CAN’T miss. It’s 2013 National Stem Video Game Challenge, a national competition that motivates interest in STEM learning among America’s youth by tapping into students’ natural passion for playing and making video games. You can submit your game till April 24th! Hurry up!

Well, the folks at BabyList agree and created a Baby Registry Checklist. How does it work?

Expectant moms take a fun, zippy quiz about where they live, budget, laundry, parenting plans. The responses are then crunched with over 600,000 items that have been added to BabyList baby registries and the result is a custom registry checklist, ready-to-go. And, with one click, you can turn your custom checklist into your baby registry on BabyList!

Want to give it a try? You can take the baby registry checklist quiz here.

Oh, and maybe this is your first time hearing about BabyList? BabyList is an online baby registry that works like Pinterest. Users may add any store to one baby registry. Want to register for items at Target, Babies R Us and Amazon? Great! Etsy too? Yes. What about personal favors, e.g. home cooked meals, dog walking, doula? That too! Maybe you wish BabyList were here a few years ago…tell your friends!

We can’t stress enough how important this could be for America. Common Standards alone, of course, are not going to do the job. It’s still the teachers, the principles, the policy makers, the developers, the students that have to make the tough job, but now they are united in the goals they have to achieve.

Are Common Standards perfect? Of course they’re not.

Nevertheless, they are important because they represent a bottom line that can keep us all focused. With different standards for every state, for publishers it’s been incredibly hard to produce top quality resources for education. Now we know in which direction we have to experiment, to research. And for sure, this is going to have a positive impact on the development of educational materials.

We’d like to share with you some resources we’re finding useful and some tips. We’ll be more than happy if you tell us what you think about CCSS and whatever advice you feel like sharing to keep pushing education forward.

RESOURCES

1) The Official Website of Common Core Standards 

We found the FAQ Section particularly useful. The website lacks examples, though, and it doesn’t help you understand what’s concretely going to change.

2) The Twelve Shifts

Curated by EngageNY.org, it’s a useful recap of the 12 main shifts required for teachers in terms of curricular materials and classroom instructions.

3) Sample lessons for Common Core Standards

- Wiki-teacher provides useful videos to understand how to concretely adjust your lesson plans.

- Learnzillion provides 2000+ high quality lessons all build by the Common Standards.

4) A Principal’s point of view

We found Principal Eric Sheringer‘s approach particularly wise. He writes about the importance of seeing Common Core Standards as a whole, instead of focusing on single parts of a standard. Principal Sheringer points out the importance of grasping the interconnectedness of CCSS and we couldn’t agree more with him.

5) FLAME!

If you’re interested in reading posts that are *extremely* critical towards Common Core Standards take a look here and here.

TIPS

As we said, Common Core Standards are not perfect. To get the most out of CCSS, if you live in one of the 45 States that have already adopted them, you need to add some “content meat” to your curricula. But does every teacher choose for him/herself what the students actually need to know? Not exactly. This is what CCSS’s website replies when questioned about content:

Do these standards incorporate both content and skills?

Yes.

In English language arts, the Common Core State Standards require certain critical content for all students, including:

 

• Classic myths and stories from around the world;
• America’s Founding Documents;
• Foundational American literature: and
• Shakespeare.

The remaining crucial decisions about what content should be taught are left to state and local determination. In addition to content coverage, the Common Core State Standards require that students systematically acquire knowledge in literature and other disciplines through reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

In Mathematics, the Common Core State Standards lay a solid foundation in:

• whole numbers;
• addition;
• subtraction;
• multiplication;
• division:
• fractions; and
• decimals.

Taken together, these elements support a student’s ability to learn and apply more demanding math concepts and procedures. The middle school and high school standards call on students to practice applying mathematical ways of thinking to real world issues and challenges; they prepare students to think and reason mathematically.

SO YOU’D BETTER:

1) Prepare a curriculum that’s complete, but yet not too rigid.

Teachers, you’re on your way to becoming true DJ’s! Probably, teachers who will be able to mix classics and pop culture to engage students will shape the new wave of education. Before opening a Dead Poets Society circle in your school, though, read this post about the risk of giving too much space to self-expression by Robert Pondiscio.

2) Avoid the traps

Robert Pondiscio wrote a great post titled “Six Traps that Could Snare the Common Standards” and we found it very useful. (Hint: interconnectedness again).

3) Cooperate!

Share resources with other teachers, let technology help you and give feedback to app developers. We’re eager to receive feedback about our app, because we want it to help you as much as possible, and so are many other app developers.

Teachers can have a huge impact in the development of appropriate technologies to support education. Help us understand how to engage kids and how to help teachers see love for school and knowledge blossom in children’s hearts and minds. It’s not impossible, with your help! Today we have so much more experience, and so many tools to fight this battle, that we’re probably in the best position ever in the history of education. Email us at hello@timbuktu.me if you want to join our beta testers group.

Next: Pinterest for educators. How to leverage Pinterest to create and share great lesson plans.

Since we develop apps for children and one of them uses IAP,  we took some time to clarify a few points. We’re pretty passionate about what we do, and we don’t like poor simplifications.

1) Designing the right purchase path for your users is one of the most difficult part of the app development process and you never get it right the first time. In other words, you need to make several experiments and several changes before you really understand what’s the best purchase option for your users. Unfortunately, experimenting in the Apple environment is not as easy as on the world wide web. Every time you want to change something, you need to submit a new release to Apple and then, if you’re lucky, wait for at least two weeks to see it live.

2) When demonizing developers, detractors usually say they prefer paying upfront for an app instead of downloading it for free and dealing with IAP later. Well, this is simply not true. Most people only download free apps for their kids. And only if they see that their children are really engaged with the app, they will “consider” an upgrade. Which makes sense: there are tons of things to choose from in the App Store, and parents want to try something before buying it.

3) If you’re working on a quality app, you obviously want as many parents/children as possible to discover it, and to start paying for it. This is why you make it free to download: you think people will give it a try, since it’s free, and then, as soon as they realize how awesome it is, they’ll eventually start paying for it. To have them buy it, the purchase needs to be easy and simple. If you put the buy option somewhere that’s impossible for children to find, probably it will be impossible to find it also for parents. And you’ll have lost everything you did, even if what you did was awesome.

In other words, the amount of trouble any developer has to deal with when making a good app is enormous. And the fact that some developers use or have used IAP to push children to rack up charges by buying add-ons to games doesn’t mean that IAP are evil by definition. That’s why we can’t stand developers who try to build their reputation writing everywhere from their website to their iTunes description “NO IN APP PURCHASES!”. IAP are just one of the many ways you can buy digital things in the Apple Store. It’s how you implement them and how you deal with them that builds your reputation, not the fact that you don’t use them!

Join us in a morning orange juice toast to a future where women and girls will have the same opportunities that men and boys have; to the men and women that are contributing every day to build those times; to the parents that are helping their kids get over stereotypes that hurt and limit children’s imagination; to the teachers that spend all their energies to build a better society where everyone is free to express themselves and encouraged to look for fulfillment and love.

We are app developers for children, and we try to contribute every day to this change. This is why we thought it could be a good idea to share with you 5 rules to keep empowering girls, one app at a time.

1) Don’t generalize.

It’s important not to give kids the ideas that boys are supposed to like certain things, and girls are supposed to like another kind of things. Of course, boys and girls are different, but running after pink and blue won’t make your product innovative (no matter how cool is the technology behind it).

2) Create brave female characters that can be a role model for girls

Enough of princesses that just wait for the prince to go save them!

3) Don’t follow the mass, interpret the change.

What would you think of a coder that just copied another developer’s source code without providing any added value, any improvement, any innovation? Out there, it’s full of apps that reinforce stereotypes not because they want to, but because they kind of “go with the flow”. Many people will try to convince you that innovation is all about technology, but that isn’t true.  The stories you create, the colors you use, the characters you give birth to can have a huge impact on our future. Embrace the risk, experiment an innovative approach and let your app be the change you want to see in the world.

4) Don’t be ideologic.

Children don’t understand ideologies. They don’t need to know why you’re doing something.

5) Study, study, study.

Why is it important not to project gender based expectations on kids? How have educators before you helped kids to fully express their potential? Amazing pedagogs like Loris Malaguzzi, Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner, Jean Piaget can inspire you to find your own way to make this world a better and fairer place, one app at a time.

At the end of the day, it all boils down to this: every time you start working on a new app, ask yourself if it’s going to help girls and boys gain freedom, confidence, and knowledge. Will your app help them discover something new about the world and about themselves? Will it widen their horizons? Will they have fun? Then look for something that make the answer “yes” to all three questions.

Happy Women’s Day!

In an increasingly technological world where 75% of the population owns a cell phone, it makes sense to utilize this common technology in order to help push back against the rising rate of illiteracy. The strategy of mobile learning therefore holds great potential. Also known as “m-learning,” mobile learning makes education readily accessible to students all over the globe, regardless of time and location. Within seconds, students can be connected to an international web of nearly infinite resources and tools geared towards making education more engaging and entertaining.

It is this combination of accessibility and affordability that makes m-learning such an attractive solution for both domestic and global literacy. Whether used as a classroom aid or an independent program, m-learning utilizes the best parts of technology in order to reach a widespread audience of students from all levels of experience. Institutions like MIT are even offering to help innovative educators who want to produce academic apps by providing them with a platform off of which they can design their own programs.

M-learning as an affordable, accessible reading tool
The Sesame Workshop reported in 2009 that 93% of kids aged 6-to-9-years-old had access to a cell phone at home, and the number since then has continued to escalate. With cell phones in the hands of so many kids and innovators constantly on the lookout for new ways to make learning fun, m-learning naturally stands out as a unique and fun approach to educating the future leaders of tomorrow.

In addition to being portable, educational apps for mobile phones are also usually a great deal cheaper than more traditional educational tools, like textbooks and workbooks. Whereas textbooks and workbooks can cost an average of $20-$50 per book, mobile apps can be purchased for around $1-$5. E-books are also substantially more affordable, due to the fact that there is no production cost per book and downloads can be instanteously available to millions of users.

M-learning also provides a more personalized educational experience for each child, particularly for those who don’t receive enough assistance from their teachers or their parents. Flexible instruction, thanks to prefigured programming, allows for each student to receive the help they need immediately and progress at a level which best suits their learning style. M-learning also helps socioeconomically-disadvantaged children and parents establish academic relationships that work for their own schedules. The PBS KIDS Ready to Learn Cell Phone study used text messages as a way to teach busy parents how to encourage their kids to become better readers; studies proved that parents who participated in the program were much more active in their children’s academic life afterwards, thanks to the tips provided by PBS KIDS.

M-learning as classroom aids
M-learning can be used as an aid for teachers who want to implement technology in the classroom in order to keep students interested in the material. Some apps allow teachers to check in on how much information the students are retaining from class lectures; Poll Everywhere, for example, allows a teacher to poll or quiz up to 40 students at a time via text message and can even track students’ progression over the course of multiple quizzes if the students register their numbers. Other apps, like Backchanneling and Twitter, allow students to interact during class presentations without interrupting the speaker and also help quieter students find their voice in class discussions behind the safety of a screen.

M-learning can also help students to organize their materials outside of the classroom. DropBox, Kindle eReader, Nook App, iBooks, Google’s Play Books, and many more all allow teachers to upload readings and handouts for distribution to students in addition to in-class assignments. These apps also have tools that let students annotate and highlight the text itself in order to foster dialogue between students and their reading material. Research-focused apps, like Evernote, Genius Scan+ and Google Docs, also help students organize their research material collected independently.

iPad apps as an alternative to mobile phone-based programs
Though mobile phones do provide a cost-effective solution for illiteracy, the small screens and limited internet capabilities of non-smartphones present more problems in and of themselves. iPads then become an interesting alternative: they are still cheaper than computers, but they have more engaging and diverse apps than most non-smartphones, due to their interactive design and user-friendly appeal. What’s more, iPhone apps can also double as iPad apps, thus doubling the amount of available educational apps that an iPad user can choose from.

In order to test the efficiency of reading-oriented iPad apps, three professors at Iowa State University decided to let a fourth-grade class experiment with five different apps so that they could compare each program’s success rate. Each app targeted a different reading skill: independent reading (iBooks), sequencing (Popplet), visualization (Doodle Buddy), retelling (Strip Designer), cause and effect (Sundry Notes), and main ideas and details (Doodle Buddy). The researchers deemed the trial-run an overall success and noted that “we found that using the iPads for literacy instruction not only supported student learning, but students were also highly engaged and able to demonstrate unique and creative ways of reasponding to text.”

iPad reading apps have also been met with similar enthusiasm from older students. Educational publisher Pearson recently announced the launch of their new program, iLit. The program has already been initiated in the Miami-Dade Public Schools, the fourth-largest school district in the country, in order to help English Language Learners improve their literacy and speech. Pearson has also agreed to sponsor the district’s iSummit, a brief conference geared towards teaching students how to use their mobile phones as educational tools. Over 450 students have been involved in the project since its launch in late January.

M-learning as tool for adult literacy
Kids aren’t the only ones who could benefit from m-learning. According to The New American, 32 million adults in the United States can’t read and 48 million adults can only read up to a 5th grade level. Many organizations are now advocating for literacy program apps on mobile phones as a feasible solution for reducing this staggering statistic in innovative new ways.

The obvious disadvantage of teaching illiterate adults using mobile devices is the lack of a physical presence of an educator in order to help adults read instructions for the exercises. However, some organizations, such as Cell-ED, have cleverly designed programs that rely on the phone’s audio facilities to communicate the lessons to the students. Cell-ED’s system also takes advantage of the phone’s SMS so that even adults without SMART phones and/or internet capabilities can access the program. Though the company is still in its beginnings, Cell-ED reports that it will be posting a report of its success rates over its first five years by the end of 2013.

International opportunities afforded by mobile learning
Due to the fact that m-learning encourages cross-cultural learning and communication, many new initiatives are proposing to use m-learning as a tool for students in developing countries as well developed countries. Unlike other forms of technology, which remain expensive to buy and maintain, mobile phones are becoming much more affordable and available to people in these countries. According to the World Bank, out of 6 billion phone subscriptions worldwide, 5 billion accounts currently belong to individuals in the developing world. World Bank also reports that sometimes, it is easier for people in these countries to access a mobile phone than it is for them to access a bank account, electricity or even clean water.

Since May 2011, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), a long-time frontrunner in the initiative for m-learning, has teamed up with Nokia to supply more phones to more students worldwide. UNESCO recently held its Second UNESCO Mobile Learning Week in order to raise awareness about the possibilities provided by m-learning and facilitate conversation between government officials and education policy reformers. UNESCO has taken a great interest in promoting m-learning as a solution for global literacy and is currently sponsoring over a dozen programs worldwide in order to analyze their varying strategies and success rates.

International initiatives are met with great initial success
Many of the programs sponsored in part by UNESCO have shown great success thus far. For example, the “Let’s Go” project, which ran from 2008-2011 in the USA and Sweden, allowed for students to combine geo-positional data, multimedia and Web 2.0 tools in order to share their scientific findings with other students across the Atlantic. In addition to field-based activities and collaborative learning that utilized the cell phones, these students also became well-versed in the scientific methods of research and inquiry.

Mobile phones have also stimulated youth interest in South Africa through the Yoza Project, also known as “m4lit” (mobile phones for literacy). Yoza provides its users with access to free novels, stories and poems, and allows them to both comment and vote for their favorites. In providing both access to literature and an innovative forum for discussion, Yoza achieved 470,000 complete readings and 47,000 comments in only 18 months.

Similarly, in Pakistan, the Mobile Based Post Literacy Project allowed for 1500 adolescent girls in the rural province of Punjab to take a basic literacy course for the first time in their lives. After the initial course was complete, the girls were rewarded with mobile phones in order to continue their courses and text their teachers with questions. In addition to promoting literacy amongst the young girls, the results reached a much larger audience: the girls frequently shared their knowledge with their friends and families, thus extending the influence of the project to the whole community.

UNESCO’s Mobile Phone Literacy Project
The young girls in rural Pakistan are unfortunately not the only women who have limited access to education. The motivation behind the UNESCO Mobile Phone Literacy project derived from a simple, yet tragic, statistic: “women and girls constitute the majority of the 793 million illiterates in the world.” In many developing countries, women do not have easy access to literacy programs and are further discouraged by a lack of reading material and social prohibitions that limit women’s exposure to education. In response, UNESCO joined forces with ten initiatives focused on promoting female empowerment through literacy worldwide. UNESCO plans to release a comparative analysis of these projects later this year.

From Kenya to Afghanistan, Argentia to Cambodia, these initiatives aim to reach illiterate girls and women who do not have access to education, particularly those in marginalized populations. In addition to making primary and technological education available to these women, these initiatives also seek to teach women about a variety of other important topics that are vital to their daily lives, such as “civil and human rights, health and hygiene (including HIV and AIDS), nutrition, agriculture, or banking.”

Obstacles against both domestic and global mobile learning
Although the technological trend seems to be leaning in favor of implementing more initiatives based on m-learning in the developing world, there are still quite a number of obstacles that must first be overcome. In addition to issues with privacy and security, the phone devices themselves often are not sophisticated smartphones and do not comply with the majority of available educational apps. Vuclip, a mobile video company, handled this problem by creating software that automatically adjusts its resolution and features for the needs and capabilities of each individual phone; however, many other app companies have yet to jump on the bandwagon and access to apps remains limited for non-smartphone users.

Likewise, the cost of data in developing countries is still much higher than it is in developed countries, which limits the accessibility of m-learning to more impoverished communities. The International Telecommunication Union released a report last October that said that the price of data had decreased 30 percent internationally between 2008 and 2011; yet, this significant drop had more of an effect in developed countries than in its developing counterparts.

Still, the potential for effective m-learning is great and is definitely a worthwhile venture to be explored. As Nickhil Jakatdar, founder of Vuclip, stated, “I still am not sure whether a full-blown education on mobile (technologies) is going to be on the cars in the next few years. But I can definitely see mobile being a greater supplement to education taking off.”

What’s the Reggio Emilia Approach?

It was founded by Loris Malaguzzi, a teacher and by the parents of a village near Reggio Emilia, at the end of World War II. It’s a philosophical and pedagogical philosophy focused on preschool and primary education that is based on respect of children as individuals, responsibility and sense of community. One of the most advanced issues of the Reggio Emilia Approach is the concept that each child learns and expresses him/herself in a different way. Most schools usually priviledge only one or two ways to learn and leave behind all the kids that learn in a different way. Through creativity, children can learn more about themselves and about the world around them, they can establish healthier relationships with the children and grown-ups with whom they live. The Hundred Languages of Children is a beautiful poem written by Loris Malaguzzi, and it’s considered a manifesto of the Reggio Emilia Approach.

The dreams project

The Timbuktu family worked for two weeks with the kids and the teachers of the Reggio Emilia Approach center, and we realized a series of short videos aimed at exploring dreams: what are dreams? How do we dream? Where do dreams come from? Do animals dream? These are all the questions that we explored with the kids, not only interviewing them, but actually shooting a video together. The children confronted themselves with the challenge of shooting a video that could “look like a dream”. So we tried to explore how dreams are different from reality, and many other aspects of dreams. We respect children, and we didn’t just want to place a camera in front of them expecting them to say something cute. This is why, we worked with them involving them in the filming process and explaining every bit of it. Kids learned how to use a microphone, how to shoot underwater images and produce sound effects. Also, they were in charge of managing the set. Take a look here at the first episode and at the making of! If you want to watch all the 5 amazing short videos, find them on Timbuktu!

First episode:

And here’s the making of!

Take a look:

“Experts in literacy and child development have discovered that if children know eight
nursery rhymes by heart by the time they’re four years old, they’re usually among the
best readers by the time they’re eight.”

[Fox, M. (2001). Reading Magic. San Diego, CA: Harcourt.]

Rhymes are important for language development, cognitive development, social/emotional development and physical development. Let’s explore this in detail.

1) Language Development:

Rhymes make it easier for kids to learn new words. Learning new words appears effortless, because the rhytmical structure of the stanzas creates a familiar context for unfamiliar words. Moreover, reading rhymes aloud or repeating rhymes helps them practice pitch, voice inflection, and volume. It may seem trivial to a grown up, but the level of coordination required to master all the variables of voice is extremely complex.

“Poetry provides a relaxed and pleasent way for students to practice language skills”

Source: Nancy L. Hadaway, Sylvia M. Vardell and Terrell A. Young. The Reading Teacher Vol. 54, No. 8, Embracing Pluralism Worldwide, Part 2: Classrooms in the U.S. (May, 2001), pp. 796-806

2) Physical Development

This brings us to the impact of rhymes on physical development. Breath coordination, tongue and mouth movements, are made easier by the musical structure of the rhyme. Rhymes create a perfect environment for children, because it looks like right things happen easily. Rhymes help you understand when you need to breath, and for how long, with no need of theory of explanation. The physical awareness developed through rhymes can be naturally applied to prose as the kids grow older.

“Phonemic Awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and use the individual sounds or phonemes in spoken words.

Helping children understand rhyming is one key skill of phonemic awareness” (Block & Israel, 2005)

3) Cognitive Development

Through rhymes and poems, children understand that there are words which are similar in sound but with different meanings. They learn what a pattern is, and become capable of recognizing patterns. They understand, through patterns, what a sequence is. They have fun memorizing rhymes, thus practicing their memory both linked to audio and visual events. (Listening to someone reading rhymes, or reading themselves). Memory, patterns, and sequences are also extremely helpful for approaching math and new languages.

“Working with teachers in sharing poetry across the curriculum have shown us that students need to practice developing their oral fluency and that they find poetry a particularly unintimidating and fun way to do it “

(Hadaway, Vardell & Young, 2001)

4) Social/Emotional Development

This is a dimension that we particularly care about. Our apps‘ goal is to help kids not only to become passionate and proficient readers, but also to know more about themselves, and about their emotions. We want them to be able to establish healthy relationships with kids and grown ups around them. Rhymes encourage kids’ sense of humor, and sharing rhymes with their family creates space for inside jokes, and for an emotional attachment to the stories kids read together with their parents. When children feel lonely, or need comfort, they can easily recall the rhymes they shared with their parents and feel cherished, also if they’re not with their family in that exact moment.

For Valentine’s day, we featured “Romeo and Juliet” in rhymes on Timbuktu Magazine. It’s an ironic, interactive version of William Shakespeare’s tragedy that will give you a great opportunity to discover this timeless story with your kids, to have fun learning the rhymes, and to change its finale to a much happier one! Here’s how the story begins:

One day, in the streets of a city

Well known for being savage and pretty

Two gangs made a very big mess,

that caused all their neighbors distress.

The Prince of Verona declared:

“Just stop now or, well, be prepared.

I’ll kill those who will break the peace,

all fight must immediately cease!”

Read more

Today, The Tallow Candle becomes an interactive app for iPhone and iPad by Timbuktu.

The story has been re-written to make Andersen’s themes shine even more in present days. The writer probably wrote The Tallow Candle when he was still a teenager. Yet, his passion, faith, and language  make this story a small jewel in the history of fairy tales. Enjoy it with your kids through this beautiful interactive book, available in English and in Italian.

Today, we’re happy to tell you that the Timbuktu team started producing some new amazing titles both for iPhone and for iPad, both in English and in Italian! We’re pretty excited about them, and you should be too, because they are *amazing*. Let’s start with The Nutcracker, a great way to discover Tchaikovsky’s amazing masterpiece, and to enjoy a timeless story. Download it now at the special launch price of $0.99!

Stay tuned for the incredible new titles.

This is something that we’re trying to change with our titles. We believe that taking kids seriously, and being able to laugh with them, not of them, can have a huge potential to make the world a better place.

One of the difficult things to do is not to cross that thin, important line between facts, and imagination. If we give too much information, too much importance to facts, we risk to kill children’s ability to imagine things differently.

This is why from tomorrow you’ll find “News of the week” on Timbuktu.

A new section where kids can read the news, and draw them. A weekly space to work on that important intersection between reality and imagination, that could make us all happier, healthier people. We said it’s for kids, but that doesn’t mean you can’t give it a try! We did it…

Starting from tomorrow, weekly, on Timbuktu.

Every student in the United States can participate. 53 days missing! Are your students doodling for Google?

Many people consider childhood like some sort of waiting room for your adult’s citizen life. But kids are citizens. They should be listened to, taken care of, consulted, because no one more than a kid can help the world rejuvenate each day. They should have a publication that represents them, that respects them, while offering them a combination of information, education and fun: a key to access the world. This is not an easy mission to accomplish, and we are working with our readers to improve Timbuktu (you can download it here).

Today, we want to talk about two great magazines for kids that have been our source of inspiration while bulding our iPad magazine for kids and parents: one of them is Italian and it’s called “Il Corriere dei Piccoli”, and the other one is American, it’s Highlights.

Il Corriere dei Piccoli (“Courier for the little ones”)

It was a weekly magazine for children published in Italy from 1908 to 1995. In Italy, it was the first periodical publication featuring comic strips. It had amazing graphics, and it launched some very important Italian artists. In its golden moment, it sold 700.000 copies per week. “Corriere dei Piccoli” had a huge impact on the imagination of several generations of Italian kids. We’ve been inspired by its graphic quality, by the combination of fun and information, and by its aspiration to be the magazine through which the kids approached the news. “Corriere dei Piccoli” was irresistible for grown ups too!

Highlights

“Highlights” was longly dreamt, and then created by an extraordinary couple who grew up in Pennsylvania farming families in the early 1900s: Garry Cleveland Myers and Caroline Clark. Garry was a PHD in Child Psychology at Columbia University, and Caroline was a committed teacher. They wanted to create a magazine that helped kids have “Fun with a purpose”. That’s the quality we admired in Highlights. The joy transpiring from Highlights’ games and activities has been a precious source of inspiration for our iPad magazine for kids. Highlights has been a childhood changing publication for generations of American kids.

Which are your favorite magazines for kids and why?

1 0 Rules for Students and Teachers by John Cage and Sister Corita Kent

Part of a project for a class the artist and educator Corita Kent taught in 1967-1968.

Which are you 10 rules for next week? Comment!

We remember that morning well. We had been talking a lot about going to California, and all of a sudden we were about to make our journey there.
Since then, we’ve been through a lot. We moved to San Francisco, we were part of 500 Startups’ accelerator program, raised our seed round, won Best Design Award at LAUNCH Education and Kids, built a team and launched a brand new version of Timbuktu. If you don’t have it on your iPad, you should get it now!

We made many mistakes and, thankfully, learned from them. Here’s a shortlist of the 10 biggest lessons we learned.

1 – Just Do It.

Building a startup is hard, especially when you’re a perfectionist. There’s always a slide that could look better, some data to add, or a feature that’s still missing. But if you wait for everything to be as clear as water, you’ll never have a product.

Instead of thinking about what you want to do, just start. Meeting customers and investors will help you better understand your product and market. If you wait too long, you won’t get precious feedback that will help you improve, and you’ll fail before starting.

2 – You Have a Dream. Tell People about It.

Don’t ever be afraid of speaking your heart out about your startup. By repeating your story, you’ll get better at telling it, which will help you attract investors. Fundraising isn’t just about business plans – it’s also about telling a story that people want to believe in. How did you and your co-founder meet? How did you come up with the idea? Why is your product going to change the world?

Usually, angel investors don’t base their decision purely on results and data. Since data is often partial or incomplete at an early stage, they’ll look at your team and story. Ultimately, people invest in your story, your passion, and the fire they see in your eyes.

3 – Build Relationships.

Do this with customers, but also with other startups. Promptly reply to people who email you. Be open to their advice and requests, even when they’re demanding. If you make your customers feel like they’re part of what you’re building, they’ll become your advocates.

It’s the same with investors, present or potential. Respond quickly and be open to feedback, and keep them up to date with your results. Once again, practice storytelling. Everyone loves to feel like they’re part of a great adventure.

4 – Break the Rules.

Don’t stay within the lines. Rules are made to be broken. Try to make those rules better, and don’t give up when you hear “no.” If you’re disrupting a market, you’ll get many “no’s.”Get used to it. Be prepared to fight for what you think is right.

5 – Don’t Ever Think You’ve Made It.

It’s cool to be happy for an article in a newspaper, for an award, or for closing an investment. Nevertheless, to build something that can change the world, you need to dream big. It’s great to close a seed round, but at that point you’ve only just started.

We spend 14/15 hours per day trying to understand how to change the face of digital publishing for kids. And we won’t be happy until we do it. There’s a lot of work to be done if you want to make your dream a reality, so don’t ever rest on your laurels.

6 – Question Yourself.

It’s easy to fall into the average company mindset. As soon as you get a bit of success, you’ll stop feeling the need to reply to emails from people you consider below your level. Or even worse, you start acting like you’re an expert. All of this stops your growth before it’s even started!

7 – Learn to Say No.

This one of the hardest things to do since a startup is hardly in a position of strength, and in most cases it faces 6 to 8 months where it has to prove itself. But the skill of saying no is fundamental. You need to learn to say no to the offers that could bring you money immediately, but will distract you from your core business.

Say no to investment offers that are too much in favor of the investors. Say no to those who believe they can always set the rules. It may seem incredible, but being able to say no not only helps you stay focused on the most important goals, but will also earn you the respect of the people you work with.

8 – Set Short-Term Goals.

Investors like long-term projections, but for a startup, the most important results are those that can be measured short-term. And you’re not a startup unless you grow week by week (Paul Graham wrote a beautiful post about this).

Things changed for us when we started setting goals that we could measure every week. Accomplishing short-term goals will buy you the time you need to demonstrate you can achieve things in the long term.

9 – Build a Team.

Think like a team. Build great relationships with the people you work with. Never get tired of explaining your choices, and don’t be afraid to look vulnerable or to lead.

If you instinctively put a capable colleague in a corner, ask yourself why. If the reason is fear, find a way to resolve it.

Talent is rare and must be cherished. It’s one of the most important ingredients to win the startup game.

10 – Have Fun.

The stakes are high, but don’t let you responsibilities crush you; being an entrepreneur is a lot of hard work, but don’t forget to have fun, too. Otherwise you’ll get stuck in a job you don’t like – and you won’t even have your boss to blame for it.

1 – The picnic basket building

This is the Longaberger Company main office building. They are in Newark, Ohio, and you guessed it: they make baskets.

2 – The Piano and Violin Building

In Huainan, China this is, rather appropriately, a music centre.

3 – Gate to the East

The function of this building in Suzhou, China, doesn’t really have much to do with blue jeans. But it does resemble a pair of them, can you see it?

4 – The Happy House

Designed and decorated by artist James Rizzi in Braunshweig, Germany, this house is clearly happy! Who wouldn’t want a little apartment in here for a holiday?

5 – The Dog House

Welcome to the Dog Bark Park Inn, Idaho. It looks just like a dog, from whichever side you look at it.

6 – The House with Tentacles

Oh my, the Library House in Islington, London has tentacles! Green tentacles!

7 – The Elephant Tower

Bringing a touch of fun to Bangkok’s skyline, the Elephant Tower really does look like a Thai Elephant.

8 – The Black Cat Hotel

This hotel in Miami has been transformed by artist Desi Santiago, in collaboration with charity organization Boffo, into black cat. Are you brave enough to enter?

9 – The Mad House in Vienna

Perhaps the most famous out of all these building is the Hundertwasser Haus, built by artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, surprisingly not in Wonderland but in Vienna, with trees coming out of windows, wavy shapes, colored walls and more.

10 - The Shell House

If you have ever wondered what a snail feels like, living in a shell, you are served. The Nautilus House, built by Javier Senosiain near Mexico City is all curvy and cozy, check it out in the gallery.

1 – Bruno Munari

How not to open with Bruno Munari, an artist who contributed greatly to education and didactic, and whose work, for kids and otherwise, will always be a source of inspiration for us! Remember the series of activities for kids inspired by him we sent out with our newsletter last summer? The list of his work for children is long, but this poster of speaking forks (and the images in the gallery) can give you an idea of his intelligent and playful approach to design.

2 – Gertrude Stein

Can you believe Gertrude Stein wrote a book for children? And furthermore, can you believe it’s a rather pink thing? A few images should be enough to make you believe it’s a true wonder: serious writers take children’s writing seriously, with lightness.

3 – Pablo Picasso

We’ve heard a few times that Picasso used to make toys for his daughters, and we thinking of the artist as a dad who builds toys for his little girl – of course he would, right? For instance, he may have built the toy boat Maya is holding in this amazing portrait, just like he built a tiny guitar for Paloma: you can see its picture in the gallery – the toy guitar is held by the police who found it after it’d been stolen.

4 – T.S.Eliot

The Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats is a collection of poems for children (and us all) by T.S. Eliot. They are fantastic, you can read them here.

5 – Igor Stravinsky

The great XX century composer didn’t only work to revolutionize the music world. He also found the time to compose L’Histoire du Soldat, a story in music “to be told, played, and danced.”. For children of all ages, clearly.

6 – Alexander Calder

Looking at Calder’s work, and especially his mobile sculptor, it doesn’t surprises that he would draw inspiration from childhood for his work. And make art that children would love, like the amazing Circus he designed, built and would play with.

7 – Sergei Prokofiev, David Bowie and Dario Fo

You probably know Sergei Prokofiev’s musical tale Peter and the Wolf, but it’s always great to hear it again: it’s a fantastic example of a children’s story that has profound meanings for grown ups too. Here, the story is narrated by David Bowie – not to shabby, right?

And if you happen to speak Italian, here’s a bonus for you: the story, in Italian, narrated by Nobel-prize winner Dario Fo.

8 – Yayoi Kusama

Aside from having illustrated a wonderful edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama is often doing art for, and with, kids. During her recent show at the Tate, she held a workshop where kids were given thousands stickers to decorate a room. This is what happened.

9 – Salman Rushdie

The author of the masterpiece Midnight’s Children sure has all the imagination it takes to charm kids, so it’s not a surprise that he wrote not one, but two children’s book. Luke and The Fire of Life, the story about a boy who had two pets – a bear named dog and a dog named bear – is the second. Here’s a brilliant reading, with the author and kids.

10 – Mark Twain

Mark Twain’s Advice to Little Girl is, as you may expect, hilarious. This is not the kind of book you necessarily want your daughters to base their manners on (but then again, why not?), but is certainly a great piece of genius you will much enjoy.

1 – A tree bookcase

Creatd by Korean designer Shawn Soh, this tree-shaped bookshelf would look fantastic in any child’s room. Maybe your kid will let you keep one or two of your books on it too, if you ask nicely.

2 – A tiny bright armchair

Made by Italian furniture company Adrenalina, this funny-shaped, bright couch comes in different colors and just the right size for a child to sit comfortably on it (the company makes a version for adults too, but we’re afraid it’s not this adorable).

3 – A chest of drawers with a funny face

Designed in eco-friendly materials by Japanese designer Hiromatsu, this chest of drawers is a little tired of being opened all the time! Don’t you want to take it home right away?

4 – A wave chair

This modern-looking, stylish child-sized chaise longue by Danish company Utzon Kids comes in different colors to match it to your home: it’s a proper piece of adult furniture in tiny size.

5 – Bunny chairs and table

Again by Hiromatsu, these chairs with rabbit ears and table are made with the best eco-friendly materials and are possibly the cutest, most fun place for your kids to sit at and draw, or play with Timbuktu!

6 – A soft colorful chair

Again by Adrenalina, this collection of soft, colorful chairs is fantastic. The hardest part is probably choosing what color to pick – we quite fancy the yellow, and you?

7 – A skyscraper closet

Made by Dutch company Kast van een Huis, these dressers are fun, colorful and can easily be made modular: as your kids’ wardrobe grows, so does the city in their room!

8 – Something playful

Are these stools, mattress, cushions or pieces to learn geometry? Either way, having these pieces designed by Agati in their room will greatly stimulate your kids imagination and creativity.

9 – A jungle

This set of tables, chairs and shelves inspired by the jungle made by My Own Super Studio can be a great game to play for grown-ups too. The neat, modern design is great, and what’s even worse is you can compose the pieces as you wish –  like a furniture LEGO of sorts (see gallery).

Here are a few of them: let’s dream of a trip around the world in 7 playgrounds!

1 – Japan: Woods of Net

Designed by Toshiko Horiuchi Macadam, this wonder is in Hakone, Japan. It’s a knitted playground which we first discovered here.

2 – United States: Tom Otterness Playgrounds

Look at this guy in New York City!

This fun and beautiful playground by Tom Otterness has a few friends around the States (in the gallery). Wonderful, right?

3 –  Spain: where the sky ends and the playground begins

This playground just makes it look like there is more sky, more blue, more joy. Designed in Boadilla del Monte, by Eduardo Navadijos and Csaba Tarsoly, it’s an ode to sunshine, and summer days.

4 – India: everyday playground

This picture has been taken in Varanasi, India. The caption says “My mom creates the most beautiful playground every day.” Hard to say that is not true.

 5 – Denmark: Monstrum all the way

We’ve already written about Monstrum’s playgrounds: they are still some of the most imaginative creations we’ve ever seen, and we want to see more of them, everywhere in the world. This one is beautiful even in winter!

6 – Chile: ex mining town turned playground

We can’t imagine a better second life for an abandoned mining town than being converted into a playground. That’s the story of Chuquicamata, in Chile. It’s so beautiful how they used machines and metal pieces to make something fun and beautiful.

 7 – Canada: The Museum of Possibilities

Finally, although this was only a temporary installation in Montreal, we are including it in the list in the hope someone makes it again somewhere else! This balloon forest needs to happen again!

Ancient, new, designed by architects, made by artists and moms: here are five amazing ones, for you to dream of them in utter awe.

1 – Queen Mary’s Dollhouse

Sir Edwin Lutyens was one of the most prominent architects in the 1920s. So much so that he designed and planned a city, and not just any city: he planned built New Delhi, in India. But he wasn’t only interested in huge cities, he could work very well in small spaces too – very small, like Queen Mary’s Dollhouse.

You know what’s the best part of this amazing dollhouse? The library! It’s full of real, tiny books. The dollhouse is at Winsor Castle and can be visited through a virtual tour here. 

2 – Roominate

Much more than a simple dollhouse, Roominate is one of our favorite educational toys from 2012. A dollhouse that will turn girls into future engineers, Roominate doesn’t only have tiny furnitures and pink things: it has wires to put together. It’s a great exercise in making something that will get the children who play with it passionate about how things work.

3 – Frida Kahlo Studio Dollhouse

Cuban artist Elsa Mora wanted to teach her daughter about Frida Kahlo, so she built a dollhouse reproducing the famous artist’s studio. It has a tiny gorgeous lace bed, paintings, books and other wonders. It’s pretty awesome.

4 – A dollhouse inside a guitar

Lorrain Reddit of Fairy Meadow Miniatures has built this dollhouse inside an acoustic guitar. Say wow.

Right?

5 – The Hobbit hole dollhouse

Not only someone created a dollhouse reproducing Tolkien’s Hobbit’s hole, but that someone is a mom (of twins)! She handmade the entire hole following the details in the book; the dollhouse is now for hire, and the profits go to charity.

Flipboard is a beautiful app that allows you to easily create your own personal magazine and flip through your favorite content, from social media and other online sources, on your mobile devices. The amazing, minimal design manifests well the level of attention Flipboard pays to details and quality, which makes us even more proud to have been selected as content partner for the Living section, where we join great publications such as The Atlantic Cities and Esquire.

Adding Timbuktu’s blog to your Flipboard magazine is simple. First, download Flipboard here (or here for Android) if you haven’t yet (it’s free). Then tap on the search icon on the top right and select the Living section.

Tap on Timbuktu, and when the page opens add it to your magazine. That’s all, and now you can enjoy Timbuktu’s blog is part of your own magazine, happy reading!

1 – Oz: The Great and Powerful

This new Disney movie tells the story of what happened before The Wizard of Oz: the cast is great, the story seems fantastic and Oz, well, there isn’t any place quite as wonderful, is there? Release date should be on March 8th.

2 -The Croods

“My family has always survived by my dad’s one rule: never leave the cave.” The premise of DreamWorks’ new movie talks about a caveman being forced to leave his cave, and the story of all of us when we leave what we know behind – often, luckily, to find something amazing ahead of us. The movie release date is March 22nd.

3 – Monsters University

…AND THEY’RE BACK!

Save the date because June 21st Pixar’s Mike and Sulley are back to tell you the story of how they met. We think this is going to be the most exciting family movie this year and seriously cannot wait, this especially after seeing the brilliant website Pixar has created to promote the movie! The site says application for next fall at Monsters University aren’t being accepted yet, but you should defintely keep an eye  - or three – on the page.

4 – The Little Mermaid 3D

A 3D version of a classic wouldn’t normally be such an excitement, but The Little Mermaid is one of the best Disney movies ever and the very idea of seeing these guys on the big screen again bring pure joy! Let’s dance under the sea!

The movie will be out on September 13th.

5 – Dorothy of Oz

After finding out what happened before The Wizard of Oz, we’ll see what happened after: Dorothy of Oz looks at what happens after Dorothy goes back to Kansas (only to get back to Oz right away). It’s a musical feature movie, and we are curious to see how it compares to the other amazing Oz movies: do you think it’s going to be good? The release date is not yet official but should be sometime this year.

1 – Gender equality, children and parenting

From this video of a little girl questioning gender stereotypes generated by toy makers, to the dollhouse that will make girls like STEM, to the petition that got Hasbro to produce a gender-neutral Easy Bake Oven, the discussion about the importance of raising kids without enforcing gender stereotypes has been rather alive. We feel that the understanding of how important the first few years of life are in building your expectations for the future is growing, and many more initiatives have been taken lately to ensure gender stereotypes aren’t enforced on kids. Which is great, because we need more girls like this:

2 - Mothers and work-life balance

With her article “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All‘ Ann-Marie Slaughter definitely brought the issue of the limits society still puts on working mothers at the centre of attention. For weeks after the article was published in The Atlantic thinkers, writers and opinion leaders from all fields discussed the matter, and it seems to us that this brought a lot of attention on what needs to be done for women to truly have equal possibilities. We strongly believe that if men can “have it all” (a family, and a career), then so should women, and society needs to work to ensure that happens.

3 –  A family is a family

1012 has been a great year for LGBT rights, and steps forward have been made toward the understanding that – no matter if you have a dad and a mom, two dads, two moms or a single parent – what counts is that you have love in your life. We all need to work so that this becomes something so normal we don’t even need to talk about it. Because love is pretty simple really. And kids get it:

 4 – Raising our kids in a gun-free environment

In 2012 there have been too many episodes of shootings involving kids, and the tragedy of Newtown was just the most shocking, unacceptable event. We never want to read of similar news again (just yesterday an armed man tried to enter a suburban New York school) and we think that gun control is, at this point, a parenting issue. We hope the debate doesn’t die until the next tragic event and that we manage to prevent any other absurdity from happening.

5 – Education, technology, innovation

Technology is bringing amazing developments to the world of education, and we know that there is an incredible potential in using gaming and interaction to help learning. Many initiatives (GameDesk, for instance) are being successful, helping especially the kids who would traditionally have more difficulties at school. We want to hear of many many more projects focused on using technology for education, and even more we want the debate to be alive: only by discussing the best practices, successes and doubts we will be able to create the very best products for our children.

1. Groupe Scolaire Joséphine Baker, La Courneuve, France

Designed by Dominique Coulon et Associés, who also designed a few other amazing school buildings, this building uses the orange color in an amazing way to bring warmth into an otherwise white, clean space. We love the contrast with the snow, and how despite the clean lines, the place is all but cold.

 2 – Nursery in Serreguemines, France

First of all, how beautiful is this?

This building designed by architects Paul Le Quernec and Michel Grasso has an immediate calming effect, as it looks immerse in nature – even if this is actually only a front garden. But with the low and wavy lines, and bright colorful interiors (you can see them in the gallery), this building is capable of keeping a sense of calm and tranquillity without losing any playfulness.

3 – Maria Grazia Cutuli Primary School, Herat Afghanistan

How not to love the splash of color this school is bringing to the area. And how not to smile at the thought that this primary school, the result of a collaboration between 2A+P/A, IaN+ and MaO was a low-budget, charity project, which used local materials and technology: it’s a testimony to how much can be done with good will, and that such a beautiful primary school is in Afghanistan fills us with hope.

4 - École Maternelle Pajol, Paris

Remember the most colorful school ever, designed by Palatre et Lecrere? It’s still one of our favorite, and we are still pretty jealous of the parents who get to walk their kids there every day!

5 – Écolle Maternelle, Dalles des Olympiades, Paris

Another one in Paris (we told you France was leading): this building designed by Eva Samuel Architect Urbanist & Associates is wonderful not only because of the pink touch, which of course we love, but because each of these “windows” is in reality a mini room for the child to play in! It’s their mini home with a view, full of colors (see pictures in the gallery), and we totally wish we had one of our own too!

6 – Kindergarten Kekec, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Imagine you could change the color of your school whenever you wanted. Well, this is exactly what the kids of Kindergarten Kekec, designed by Arhitektura Jure Kotnik can do: the vertical panels on the exterior of the school can be easily turn around, allowing kids to play with their own school building.

7 - Crèche de la Girafe, Boulogne, France

You’ve probably seen this school designed by Hondelatte-Laporte Architects on our blog already, but how could we leave it out? It’s just too awesome!

8 – Centro Infantil Municipal in El Chaparral, Granada, Spain

Then there is this building, designed by Alejandro Muñoz Miranda, which looks like it’s in a painting. Instead, it’s real and the kids of a small town near Grenada get to enjoy all its colors. Seriously, look at this:

9 – Bailly School Complex, Saint Denis, France

This school in the banlieu of Paris, designed by Mikou Design Studio shows a great combination of glass to get light, color, and art (can you see the silhouettes behind the glass?). A wonderful example of redevelopment, it brings modern, clean lines to an otherwise unappealing industrial area.

10 – Ring Around a Tree, Fuji

A kindergarten that is a playground and tree house too! We just could not dream of anything more exciting! Designed by Japanese firm Yui and Takaharu Tezuka, this is the actual dream and we want one in every city, that’s what.

Do you know of any amazing kindergarten we have left out? Let us know!

Resolutions can be good or bad for kids. I remember that some of my resolutions as a kid were not good for me. I was a rebellious kid, and I often felt really guilty about it. My resolutions was that I would be a good kid, otherwise I’d go to hell. (Don’t underestimate sense of guilt in kids). Of course, that was such a generic resolution that I never managed to accomplish it. Eventually, I just stopped thinking about it – lucky me!

Lesson learned #1: do not try to encourage your kids to have resolutions that are too big for them. Help them be specific instead.

My parents – God bless them – didn’t take my resolutions seriously and this was very good for me. Actually, they considered my resolutions like something they didn’t even need to know, like something personal.

Lesson learned #2: do not use your kids’ resolutions as a weapon against them. You will make them feel unsafe, and maybe push them to lower their expectations in order not to disappoint you.

I read a great article by KJ Dell’Antonia about family resolutions. It made me think that, even if resolutions should be personal, it’s ok to have a couple of shared resolutions with your family of with your friends. After all, our happiness is all about relationships, and if we have common resolutions to make relationships work better, I don’t think that can harm. Plus, it can make it a bit easier to stick to them.

Lesson learned #3: encourage your kids to have some shared resolutions along with personal (and even secret) resolutions. It may mean shared with you, but also with their friends. Actually, it’s a great idea also for a classroom.

You could also make everything simpler and think with your kids about the words of the year. That’s what Cathy of Nurture Store did with her kids.

[If you want to combine nice resolutions for kids and syntax, don't miss "Unscramble 2013!" on Timbuktu: an awesome free syntax game for second and third graders.]

1 - Azza Abdel Hamid Faiad, 16, Egypt. Scientist. 

Egyptian teenage scientist Azza has found a way to turn plastic waste into fuel. Using an inexpensive catalyst, she is hoping to create $78 million worth of bionfuel each year. The economic impact of his discovery could be great of Egypt, considering that the country currently consumes one million ton of plastic every year.

 2 - Julia Bluhm, 14, USA. Activist.

As a teenager, Julia is aware of how the modified pictures on magazines skew young girls’ perception of human body and beauty. So, in June she initiated a successful campaign on change.org against altered pictures in Seventeen magazine. In just a few days, she had 84,000 supporters, and less then a month after she started the campaign she was meeting with Seventeen’s editor in chief, who agreed to a “Body Peace Treaty,” pledging the magazine would not change girls’ body and face shapes in the published pictures, as well as to share the work in progress behind photo shoots, so girls can see how images look before they are photoshopped.

3 – Martha Payne, 9, UK. Food Blogger.

Tired of the poor quality of the food her school in Scotland was serving, Martha opened a blog, Never Seconds. On the site, she would publish pictures of her school lunches and rate if for taste, healthiness and (ew) number of hair found. Her blog drew a lot of media attention and became really popular, so much so that she and her dad (who helped her with the blog) managed to have a meeting with the local council, who agreed to serve the kids in schools unlimited amounts of salad, fruit and bread, and gave them overall better meals.

4- Caine Monroy, 9, US. Entrepreneur.

While most kids stop at dreaming of owning their own game arcade, Caine went a step further and made his happen. With cardboard, in his dad’s used auto-parts store, he built a full arcade, tickets, fun passes, prizes and all. Caine became a bit of a celebrity, and inspired many kids to build their own games.

5. Malala Yousafzai, 15, Pakistan. Education activist. 

At the age of 12, in 2009, Malala wrote a blog for BBC detailing her life and struggles under the Taliban, particularly speaking about her difficult condition as a female student. She then became Chair of District Child Assembly Swat, an assembly where youngsters from her region can express their concerns about the issues that affect them, and bravely spoke up against the Taliban rule and in favor of female education. In October 2011 she was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize and won Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Price. In October 2012, Malala was victim of an assassination attempt by a Taliban gunman: the act was meant to punish her for publicly criticizing the Taliban rule. Although her conditions were critical, Malala did not die, and is slowly recovery. November 10, 2012, was UN’s first World Malala Day.

By superimposing the sky outside urban spaces to the cities we know, the photographer shows us how the sky would look, at night, if it weren’t for light pollution. It’s completely mind-blowing: we bet looking at a sky like this any wish would come true! What would you ask the stars?

Let’s make looking at the stars more often a new year’s resolution, together with getting out of the city once in a while, to be able to see the starry sky better. It’s important that we teach our kids how wonderful our planet is, and to respect nature: showing them what impact we have on it (with light pollution, for instance) will make them understand the importance of not being careless when it comes to the environment.

And next time you are under a starry sky, try to recognize constellations with your children. They don’t need to be “traditional” ones, you can be creative and find new star signs, like the ones you can draw in the sky today on Timbuktu with the special horoscope game! Each of our fun signs comes with a wish for 2013 that you can share with your friends as a card.

We hope the stars bring you and your family the best 2013, full of everything you desire and a lot of fantastic family time. On our part, our wish for the next year is that we help you have fun with your kids – because happy families makes us the happiest.

So here is to a wonderful 2013 together, cheers!

1 - Funniest letters to Santa Claus ever!

This was it! Our selection of 10 really funny letters written by kids to Santa Claus was a holiday success, proving that all the parents and adults reading this blog still remember they were children once, and enjoy a laugh.

2 – Amazing collection of rare children’s books

The Library of Congress has an amazing collection of rare children books, and they can all be seen online – page by page! It’s absolutely incredible, check it out.

 3 – 12 golden rules to design awesome apps for kids

The more we work on Timbuktu, the more we learn about the world of app for children. After being at 500 Startup for a couple of months, we felt we had a few tips to share: from being courageous to respecting parents, here are our guidelines to make great apps for kids.

4- Best. Playgrounds. Ever.

Discovering these amazing playgrounds just before the beginning of summer made our day, week, maybe month! They are designed and built by Monstrum in Danmark and may well be every child (and parent)’s dream. You all enjoyed reading about them too, so here you go again.

5 – All the colors of learning!

France isn’t only the home of the school with the giraffe inside, but of the most colorful school we’ve ever seen. We dare you not be a little jealous of the kids who learn in there, and of the parents who get to pick them up from color-land every day.

6 – Timbuktu wins Best Design at Launch Conference!

So many of you supported us with enthusiasm when we announced our participation to Launch conference, and maybe even more shared our happiness when we were awarded the Best Design prize in June. It was absolutely fantastic, as you can see by our happy faces in the picture!

7 – Meet the World’s Best Father

In September we discovered someone who was going to quickly become a bit of a celebrity, and cause a few issues in all the dads out there: the world’s best father. Him and his daughter now have a calendar, so you can look at them all year if you need parenting inspiration.

8 – Healthy illustrated recipes for parents and kids

After months of work and research, the brand new Timbuktu came out in November! The new app has a lot of surprises, included the many delicious and fun illustrated recipes to cook with your kids we presented here.

9 – What are you doing to promote gender equality in your family?

When Hasbro decided to give in to the demands of 13-year-old petitioner and make a gender-neutral Easy-Bake Oven, we discussed the role of toys in reinforcing, or changing, gender stereotypes. It’s something we are very interested in, and we received some really interesting opinions from the blog’s readers.

10  - Timbuktu hit the top 5 in the US App Store!

This is when Timbuktu was featured as one of the new and noteworthy apps in education by the US app store! It was pretty sweet.

11 – 5 things you need to know about kids and iPads

And finally, we wrote about something we are quite familiar with: children and iPads. We know iPads are very popular Christmas presents and we share with you five things you need to know before letting your kids use the iPad (which you most definitely should do!). This has already become one of our readers favorite posts, we are curious to know what are your experiences with kids and iPads!

12 – Top 15 parenting blogs

This is our selection of 15 favorite parenting blogs – as usual, we are keen to know which ones you prefer, do tell!

13 – Best indie songs for kids

Everybody let’s rock! This selection of kindie songs – indie songs for kids – was a total hit, check out these tunes.

14 – 25 things your parents said to you, and you’ll say to your kids

From “What did I tell you?” to “You’ll understand when you’ll have kids,” a collection of some of the things your parents told you when you were kids and you’ll definitely, at some point, tell your kids too.

15 – In Chicago, kids build their own Christmas gifts

We like cardboard and we like imagination and so do our readers: this video showing kids making their own toys out of cardboard at Chicago Children’s Museum shop was one of our – and your – favorite this year and deserves to be watched again!

A yellow giraffe as a pillar! Who wouldn’t want to go to a school like that?

This school, in Boulogne, has been designed by Hondelatte-Laporte Architects with the aim of animating the public space through elements inspired by children’s imagination. And the giraffe is not alone: a polar bear hangs out in the terrace, while a few ladybugs cross the garden!

It’s a wonderful sight which brings a little joy to the daily routine: we can imagine the kids being really (and understandably) excited about going to school, as well as passers-by smiling at the surprising sight of the yellow giraffe in the middle of the city. Not only, but the building has been made with the lowest possible environmental impact, and it’s a “zéro energy” project, with photovoltaic and solar panels.

Happy children and happy planet: we want more schools like this!

You already know they love it: apparently, 48% of American kids asked Santa an iPad for Christmas. You saw them fighting to get it, you heard them asking for it first thing when you’re back home. You may have seen them hiding behind the sofa to get some extra iPad time before going to sleep (true story). The question is: is the iPad bad for your kids? No. At least, not necessarily. Follow these simple guidelines, and you’ll make the most out of this expensive tablet!

1) Don’t *ever* give them your iTunes store password.

Kids are super smart, and they will buy unautorized apps if they know your password. It’s a golden rule that to purchase something they need to ask you to do it for them. This way you can have control of how much they spend, and what they’re buying. Would you send your 6 year-old with your credit card in a toy store?

2) Download quality educational apps.

They probably know how to use the iPad much better than you, but that doesn’t mean they can choose top quality apps themselves. It takes your help and research to choose nice games, and cool educational apps. The App Store is full of apps, but not all of them are good for your kids. Some kind of games may foster alienation, and a solitary (and compulsive) use of this wonderful device.

3) Get games you can play together.

Our favorite game is “Ready, steady, bang!” Wonderful graphics, irony and the possibility to play with your kid, or to have your kids play against each other in a funny Far West duel. As a rule of thumb, get games that encourage them to share the experience they’re doing with you or with their siblings.

4) Use your digital experience as a starting point for off screen games and activities.

Too much screen time is bad for health, it can cause cognitive diseases and it deprives your kids of something that is extremely important to their development: multisensorial experience. Use apps that encourage them to move, to explore nature, to cook, and to play with others. If it’s a screen only experience, it’s not going to turn out as good as it could be.

5) Teach them some touch-screen politeness.

Did you notice kids tend to be unpolite when they are in front of an iPad? If somebody wants to play with them, they roughly try to take others’ hands off the screen, or cry if someone tries to play with them. Don’t give up. Explain them it’s not polite, and that they need to behave (even in front of an iPad!) or they won’t be allowed to play with it at all. This can be a powerful way to protect them from being totally absorbed by the screen, and to develop a more balanced relationship with their digital best friend.

- Do you use conditioner for your beard?

- What day is your birthday?

- What does Mrs. Claus think about you staying out all night on Christmas Eve?

- What kind of things do you feed your reindeers to help them to fly?

These are just four of the seven questions addressed to Santa in this exclusive interview. You can find it today on Timbuktu, but you can also listen to it right here!

See the whole story on Timbuktu, and draw your Santa Claus! You can create amazing Christmas cards for your family!

MERRY CHRISTMAS from the Timbuktu team!

[Thanks Giovanni, Matilde, Frederick, Rose, James, and Paula!]

To get in the Christmas spirit, you can try watching these commercials, or doing some of these things (it’s not too late!).

1) Mac Donald’s gifts certificate, 1975

2) Lucky Strike, 1950 (Who would ever give cigarettes as gift now? Things are getting better!)

3) Folgers Coffe, 1970s

4) Atari, 1981 (E.T. Christmas)

5) Nabisco Oreo Cookies, 1987

6) Kellogs’ Cornflakes, 1989

7) Hallmark, 1990s

We wish that you all can be with your families this Christmas. Tomorrow, on Timbuktu AND on this blog, an exclusive interview to Santa Claus, with the kids who took part to the #interviewSanta contest.

1 – Decorate the house together

There are endless options when it comes to Christmas decorations for your house, and shops are full of them. However, few ornaments will give you the joy of the ones you make yourself. We already shared the recipe to make fantastic cinnamon and appleasauce ornaments (not for eating, mind you!), but something else you can do if you don’t have much time are these colorful paper ornaments – use a stapler instead of the hole punch and thinner paper, so they are easier and the whole family will enjoy making these decorations.

2 – Prepare sweets for the neighborhood

One of the best things about Christmas are all the different sweets that you only get to eat once a year. How about making some to share with the neighbors too? It’s a great way to spread the Christmas Spirit all around you. We recommend you involve the kids too: they will love to use Timbuktu’s  illustrated recipes (remember, they are all FREE this month!) and make orangettes, or gingerbread cookies.

3 – Organize a Christmas karaoke session

Christmas songs are great fun, and so is singing them! Get the family together, invite friends and neighbors and let the karaoke show begin: not only will you have great fun singing, but this is a great way to help your kids exercise reading!

4 – Stage a Christmas play

Get your kids and their friends to act and prepare a play with them. You can use the wonderful kit to stage your own Nutcracker you will find on Timbuktu in a few days. And speaking of which, have you seen the first two episodes of The Nutcracker on Timbuktu? Check them out here and here, if you haven’t yet.

5 – Play, play, play!

Playing games is fun all the time, and particularly at Christmas during family reunions! It’s a great way to involve both kids and grown-ups in the same activities, and we promise you that even those who will initially resist playing will have great fun if you push them to join! Of course you can play charades or pictionary the entire time, but if you get bored you can also take funny pictures using Christmas props – if you do, share them with us too!

A screenshot of today’s Google Doodle

The Grimm Brothers’ stories have become the classics of children literature, and the stories have been told so many times that, as it happens, sometimes a few details have been changed in the telling, or parts of the stories have been forgotten. Here are a few of them.

1 – Cinderella’s ball didn’t happen the way you think…

Cinderella wasn’t invited to one ball, but to a whole tree days festival, and she manages to go to three balls in a row, each time wearing a wonderful dress, but without getting there in a pumpkin-turned-carriage. Also, there was no midnight spell cast on Cinderella, she just wanted to go home after each ball.

2 – … and she didn’t wear glass slippers.

On the first ball, Cinderella wore “a pair of slippers embroidered with silk and silver. There is no mention of what kind of slippers she was wearing on the second ball, but in the third “the slippers were golden,” and she famously lost one of them.

3 – Hansel and Gretel’s witch’s house were not made of gingerbread, nor marzipan.

Although the German tradition of building gingerbread houses for Christmas (this recipe is great to do just that) originated from Hansel and Gretel’s story, in the original version of the story the witch’s home was actually “built of bread and roofed with cakes,” with windows “of clear sugar.” No marzipan, nor gingerbread, sorry about that. Also, Gretel’s name was originally spelled Grethel.

4 – Snow White fell for the evil Queen’s disguises three times.

Pretty she was pretty, lovely she was lovely, but Snow White was perhaps not the smartest cookie. While living with the seven dwarves, she opened the door three times to the evil Queen who wanted to kill her. The first time, the queen tried to strangle her with the “good wares, fine wares” she was pretending to sell, but the dwarves saved her on time; the second, she offered to brush Snow White’s hair and poisoned her with the comb, but again the dwarves saved their friend; and then the third time Snow White actually let the Queen in and ate the red half of an apple that was half red half white. Let’s make sure we teach our kids Snow White is not a role model.

5 – Snow White’s evil queen had a horrible death.

The tale of Show White ends with the evil Queen’s death – not quite the “happily ever after” one may imagine to read. The Queen, who went to Snow White’s wedding to see her beauty for herself, was given “ready red-hot iron shoes, in which she had to dance until she fell down dead.”

6 – Little Red Riding Hood was not Little Red Riding Hood’s real name…

Nor the title of the story. Her correct name is Little Red Cap, which is what the story is called too.

7 – … and there were two wolves in Little Red Cap.

Once the story we all know is over, and the first wolf is killed with his belly full of stones, a second wolf makes an appearance. He tries to stop Little Red Cap, like the first wolf did, but this time she is smarter than him – which makes her a much better example for our kids than Snow White. She goes to her grandmother’s house and the wolf eventually follows, pretending to be Little Red Cap again: but he has bad luck, as this time no one falls for his wicket tricks, and he ends up drowning in a bucket full of the water that the grandma had used to cook sausages.

8 – Rapunzel was a single mother.

We’ll admit we had a few troubles remembering what happened to Rapunzel, aside for her letting down her long tresses so the prince climb up to her tower. And we sure didn’t remember – in fact we did not know – the end of the story. So here is what happened: after the witch who’s keeping her locked in the tower found out Rapunzel had let the prince come visit her, she sent her to a far away desert. Subsequently, she made the prince  blind, and he wandered for several years in misery until he got to the “desert place where Rapunzel lived with her twin-children that she had born.” That is right! Rapunzel raised her kids as a single mother for several years before she and the prince met again – kudos to her. As soon as they met, he could see again, leading to a proper happy family ending.

9 – Snow White had a sister. 

In one of the Grimm Brothers tales, Snow-White has a sister named Rose-Red (the story is called Snow-White and Rose-Red). Not only, but in that story she ended up marrying a prince who had been bewitched by a wicked dwarf and made to run around the forest as a bear (she married him after the bearskin had fallen off). This mix of Snow White, spells and dwarves has us a bit confused, however perhaps Snow White was just a very common name in the early XIX Century, and so were dwarves (good and evil), so the protagonist of this story is actually someone else.

10 – And about Sleeping  Beauty…

… well, sleeping beauty happened exactly as you think it did. The king’s son woke up the beautiful princess, who had fallen asleep after pricking herself with a spindle, because of a spell a witch had cast on her. Furthermore, this is the one story that actually ends with: “and they lived very happily together until their lives’ end.”

The debate around Gender Neutral Education is vivid. While it is widely accepted we need to do more for gender equality (and certainly Sweden is one of countries doing more about it) the Egalia approach sounds too ideological to many.

A while ago we talked about an adorable little girl complaining about a pink hoven and about the fact that pink toys are considered for girls only. Well, she’s not alone. McKenna Pope, a 13-year-old girl from New Jersey, launched a petition on change.org asking that Hasbro make his Easy-Bake Oven gender-neutral, so that his little brother, and all the other boys who liked cooking, could use it without feeling it “wrong.”

Her petition was a success, showing there is a critical mass of people who care about the issue (44 000 signed the petition), and Hasbro created a black-and-silver prototype of the oven, which is expected to go on sale on February.

Toys and games play a great role in shaping our image of society, and we believe it’s time we stop reinforcing the gender stereotypes through the way we market toys. Some little boys will become chefs, and some little girls engineers, and the toys they use should reflect the steps society has done towards gender equality.

It all starts with children, and so toy makers, publishers, educators and parents play an extremely important role in promoting an equal vision of society amongst new generations, and there is a lot they can do, for instance applying an excellent method such as Montessori’s, like Persephone Magazine suggests.

What are you doing to promote gender equality in your family? We’d love you to share best practices.

Since then, The Nutcracker has been staged innumerable times in prestigious theaters as well as in school gyms, by professional dancers as well as by toddlers. Children all over the world performed The Nutcracker as their Christmas Play. We selected for you the best kids’ performances we could find on youtube. Enjoy, and let yourself be overwhelmed by cuteness.

1. Ain Yoon, 10 years old, playing “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”

2. An off stage interview with the kids of Miami City Ballet about their performance stress for The Nutcracker.

3. Preschoolers practicing at home.

4. Second graders marching!

5. Last but not least, two amazing 4 year-old twins performing The Nutcracker on ice.

To honor this theater masterpiece, we produced an amazing interactive story in 4 episodes, featuring the original music by Tchaikovsky, you can find it for free on Timbuktu. In the forth episode, which will be published on December 26th, you’ll also get the printable masks to stage your family’s version of this awesome story.

1) Talk about it.

Don’t try to hide it. It’s everywhere and they sure have heard something about it. It’s better to bring it up and make clear that it is something that they can talk about.

2) Don’t give too many details.

Especially if your kids are preschoolers, you should try to explain what happened in the simplest possible way. Younger kids may get attached to details and their imagination could make them bigger, thus feeding their fears. Keep it simple: “a man holding a gun entered a school and started shooting, causing injuries and the death of some people in the school”.

3) Emphasize positive models.

The teachers who sacrificed their lives to protect their students; the kids hidden in the bathroom, who kept silent not to be found by the killer; the boy who proposed to attack the killer since he knew karate: they are incredibly valuable models of courage and honor and can help kids get over this terrible event.

4) Listen to them.

While it could take a while before your kids feel like saying something about it (it’s different from kid to kid) it’s extremely important that you listen to them: what do they think of what happened? What did they understand from the news? They have to know they can talk about anything with you. If they’re scared, they’ll tell you and they will give you the opportunity to reassure them.

5) Make them feel safe.

This may be the hardest. As parents, we are scared to death about what happened. But it is very important that our kids don’t think they are not safe in their schools. School is like a second home to them, and they need to know that their parents and teachers do their best to keep them safe, and that they shouldn’t be afraid of anything.

(This fancy Santa Claus has been created with the fantastic Dress Up Santa game you find on Timbuktu.)

Well, if you did send a question then maybe yours is one of the shortlisted questions you’ll find here. Have a look: you will discover the winners on December 25th, when you’ll hear their questions asked to Santa Claus in person!

Dear Santa, you travel a lot. How many vaccine shots will you take before Christmas? #interviewSanta

— Ari-Matti Rytilahti (@RytiMahti) December 4, 2012

#interviewsanta Dear Santa, please reveal us what kind of things do you feed your reindeers to get them fly (Giovanni, 6 years old)?

— Angelica Dadomo (@AngelicaDa) December 5, 2012

@timbuktumag Question to Santa – What does Mrs Santa think about you staying out all night on Christmas Eve? What’s your Xmas Day breaky?#interviewSanta

— Mandy Ward (@CassyKindly) November 30, 2012

 

Santa, what do you bring yourself for Xmas? #interviewSanta

— Ariela Caglio (@Arica5) November 29, 2012

#interviewsanta How does the sled fly?

— Jordana Adler (@MaconPilates) November 28, 2012

Hey Santa, what do you do the rest of the year, do you chill out on a Barbados beach ?#interviewsanta

— Diego (@dtrinciarelli) November 29, 2012

Dear Santa, What day is your Birthday? Babbo Natale, quando è il tuo compleanno? #interviewSanta

— silvia casali (@adartee) November 28, 2012

@timbuktumag Dear Santa Claus, where do you park your sled? #interviewSanta

— Buongiorno Italia (@BuongiornoIT) November 30, 2012

Are the other reindeers jealous of Rudolph? #interviewSanta

— kilodrammi (@kilodrammi) November 27, 2012

What’s the worst injury you’ve ever received on the job? #InterviewSanta

— Sneaky Vegetables (@sneakyveg) November 27, 2012

1 – Sylvia and her Super-Awesome Makers Show

Sylvia has few tutorials on Youtube, and she’s been working on them for the past couple of years: from copper etching to screen printing to – brace yourself! – arduino projects, Sylvia will coach you step-by-step though all sorts of fun activities.

2 – Mathrain.tv

Mathrain is an entire site dedicated to kids teaching maths and other school subjects to each other (and as always, many of these lessons are useful to refresh adults’ knowledge too). Here is the founder presenting the project.

3 – Adora Svitak

In this TED talk, Adora explains why the world needs more “childish” thinking made of bold ideas, optimism,  wild creativity: essentially, the value that inspire us at Timbuktu every day.

4 – Jack Andraka

Jack Andraka was 15 when he found an effective and innovative way to detect pancreatic cancer. In this talk, he explains how he made that discovery.

5 – Sugata Mitra’s kids teaching themselves

Sugata Mitra’s TED talk on Indian children teaching themselves English is one of our favorites ever. It shows what fantastic successes kids can achieve if given the right stimulus, and what incredible potential they have.

From Miracle on the 34th Street to Home Alone, from Scrooge to Meet me in St. Louis, we selected a few of our favorite Christmas scenes and movies.

Watch the Grinch’s growing heart and start a journey through the some of the best Christmas moment on the silver screen:  we bet each of these videos will make you want to watch the whole movie again!

And of course, share your favorite scenes with us too: the more, the Merrier Little Christmas.

These cinnamon applesauce ornaments, for instance (NOT to be eaten, ha!), are simple to make and will leave in your house a cozy smell of cinnamon. Plus, you can easily make them with your kids, they will love helping you out with this. Here’s the recipe:

1 –  Take three cups of applesauce and three cups of ground cinnamon.

2 – Mix them together till you get a thick dough: if it’s too sticky, add a bit more cinnamon, if it’s too dry, more applesauce.

3 – Flatten the dough and cut it with Christmas cookie cutters, or let your kids cut them in the shape they prefer, just remember to make a little hole with a toothpick for the ribbon.

4 – Let the “cookies” dry for two or three days, then decorate them as you like : glitter is great, and so are buttons, ribbons, paint. And remember: they do smell good, but they are NOT eatable (make this clear to the kids too!).

5 –  Hang them on the tree, and enjoy the delicious smell and cute sight.

You can make these ornaments again every year as they are a fun activity to do with your kids, but they do keep pretty well, so you can also store them for next year if you prefer. Happy decorating!

What do you tell your kids? The way I see it there are two cases, and it’s important to understand where the question is coming from to give the best possible answer for your kid’s particular development stage:

1) Your kids badly want to believe that Santa exists, but they’ve been told by someone that Santa doesn’t exist.

In this case, do not hesitate to reassure them. They still want to believe, they still need to believe, and there’s no reason why you should tell them Santa isn’t real. You can play a small game to show them Santa’s existence, like leaving buying a bunch of carrots for Rudolph (that MUST disappear on the following morning) or playing bells in another room on Christmas Eve while they’re in bed, to pretend Santa’s sled is passing by in that very moment.

2) Your kids know Santa isn’t real, and want to check with you if they’re allowed to be open with you about their doubts.

Face the moment. It’s going to be tough, and your kids will probably be angry and sad for a bit. It’s completely understandable: after all, Santa is a very important belief in childhood, and adds a little magic to everything. Deal with their disappointment and explain you can recreate the same magic together, and that Santa represents the Christmas spirit: the Christmas Spirit doesn’t disappear with Santa, and actually it becomes grown-ups’ responsibility to keep it alive. To do so, you can do something together, for instance, or create together a new tradition: find some sample activities here!

We have created the best Advent calendar ever (Mrs Claus’ words, not ours!) and we want all of you to enjoy it… for free! That’s right: all the premium contents on Timbuktu will be free for all this December.

You won’t need to pop any of your bubbles to access the wonderful Christmas stories and games that are coming up in December: just download Timbuktu (for free too!) if you haven’t yet, and enjoy this very special Christmas present – we hope it helps you have the best family time this December.

To begin with, tomorrow on Timbuktu you’ll find the first episode of The Nutcracker, a fantastic story with gorgeous illustrations by Philip Giordano that will accompany you through the weekends leading to Christmas: three amazing episodes, plus an activity to help you and your kids stage your own Nutcracker.

And there are a lot of surprises coming up in our Christmas Special – all you have to do is stay tuned for more!

You can find the whole playlist on our Youtube channel. It features a wonderful animation of Fred Astaire performing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, The Muppets singing “12 days of Christmas” and many more wonderful songs.

Share your favorite Christmas songs too and we’ll add them to the playlist: let’s make it the best ever!

1 – We need an architect!

Leo is worried that his mom’s chimney won’t be big enough for Santa to pass through.

 2 – No one likes an incomplete present

DK points out a problem we all faced.

3 – Sometimes it’s bad to delegate.  

Claire writes a letter on behalf of her brother Mitch.

4 – Trenton. Very good child. 

And quite the rock star, check out his (long) list for Santa!

 5 – Nitya deserves a dog.

She deserves more than a bunny.

6 – #interviewSanta!

Timothy would be a great contestant in our #interviewSanta Christmas Contest!

7 – Manners first.

How many kids remember to thank for the previous year’s presents?

 8 – All presents are welcome…

… but the ones inside circles are more welcome than the others!

9 – No emotional threats.

Porter knows how to spell Shih Tzu, but is not so sure about “gerl!”

10 – Another #interviewSanta contestant!

Devin has a lot of good questions for Santa. He’d sure have chances to win our #interviewSanta Christmas Contest!

If you’re struggling with finding your inspiration, don’t miss “How to Write the Ultimate Letter to Santa Claus“. TODAY ON TIMBUKTU!

1 – The Toy Car

We think the toy car will never go out of fashion: even in the future, when we’ll be flying around like the Jetsons, our children will surely still play with little cars. Hopefully, they will be like this wonderful vintage car by PlaySam.

2 – The Rocking Horse

We have always thought a rocking horse would be the best present for a child – second only to a pony, perhaps. However, that was until we saw this fluffy rocking sheep! It rocks, it’s soft, and it’s pink (there are black and white versions too)! We want one.

3 – The Wooden Blocks

This is a beautiful new take on classic wooden blocks. The traditional cubes have been updated with a delicate, engraved illustration to make it simple, yet exquisite.

4 – The Toy Train

Toy trains are by far the best means of transportation to dreamland: they are designed to be used to fantasize about long journeys. This special toy train designed by Ricardo Seola accompanies the dreaming with a soundtrack that the train itself creates when running on tracks.

5 – The Spinning Top

Spinning tops are amongst the simplest and most beautiful objects ever invented. We love this Bauhaus redesign that, in addition to being bright and fun to play with, teaches your kids (and you) the theory of colors.

6 – The Teddy Bear

This reinvention of the Teddy Bear in the popular Japanese knitting style Amigurumi is the perfect union between softness, super cuteness and latest trends!

7 – The Dollhouse

We’ve already mentioned Roominate, and although there is no shortage of wonderful dollhouses, we still prefer this toy for future engineers to any other.

8 – The Xylophone

Every generation of kids loved the colorful xylophone! This evergreen source of music – or, ahem, noise – and joy has been transformed in a table (much like the dollhouse here). Don’t you want it?

 9 – Etch-A-Sketch

If there isn’t a designer version of Etch-a-Sketch yet (however, how many little designers started their career on it?), there sure is the Etch-a-Sketch inspired iPad case! Perfect to hold your iPad as you and your kids enjoy Timbuktu!

 10 – Tobbles

Why having a wooden tower made of rings when you can have one made of round, challenging curved shapes?  This is a lot more fun to play with (and not so easy, parents!).

Let us give you some quick anticipations of some of the most beautiful stories you’ll find in Timbuktu in December:

TODAY | A game, “Dress up Santa Claus”

Create your favorite outfit and share awesome Christmas Cards with your friends! Illustrated by amazing Jacopo Rosati, with sound design by Elettra Bargiacchi.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4th | Help the reindeers get fit 

Solve math problems with Detective Bello, and help him find the right combination of exercises for the lazy reindeers!

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5th | How to write the ultimate letter to Santa Claus

An amazing guide to use with your kids while writing to Santa Claus, illustrated by the funny Ilaria Falorsi.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8th/15th/22nd + 26th | The Nutcracker

We’re particularly proud of this interactive story inspired by the ballet, “The Nutcracker.” It’s astonishingly beautiful with illustrations by the amazing Philip Giordano. The story will accompany you through the weekends of your Christmas holidays: 3 episodes and a special activity to help your kids and you stage your very own Nutcracker!

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23rd | Game, “Santa’s Race”

Christmas Eve is getting closer, and some presents fell off Santa’s sled! Help him pick them up! Illustrated by the wonderful duo La Tigre.

CHRISTMAS DAY | An exclusive interview with Santa Claus

Listen to Santa’s voice answering yours and your kids questions! [Got a question? Post it on Twitter with the hashtag #interviewSanta or in the comments of this blog! The best questions win a 1 year subscription to Timbuktu!]

There will be more! Look out for amazing and illustrated Christmas recipes, letters, problems, and pictures.

***

If you run out of bubbles, all you have to do is invite your friends to join you on Timbuktu!

For each invite, you’ll get 10 FREE BUBBLES to unlock everything you want!

***

1 – Cabbage Patch Kids

Recognize these dolls? You should- Cabbage Patch dolls sold out as soon as they were put on shelves and were probably the 80s’ equivalent to the 90s’ Tickle Me Elmo. Back order lists went on for days for these dolls that grew from magical cabbages pollinated by bunnies!

2 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first began as a comic book, but it soon grew to expand to action figures, a television series, and even the movies! You’ll probably recognize the names Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael and remember the four pizza-loving superheroes that fought evil from their sewer.

3 – My Little Pony

If you recognize the names, Minty, Snuzzle, Butterscoth, Bluebelle, Cotton Candy, or Blossom, you’ll probably remember My Little Pony! Every little girl wants her own horse, and the 80s decided to fulfill every girl’s dream with My Little Pony, colorful plastic horses with soft manes and tails. You could even buy a castle to house all your ponies!

4 – Lite-Brite

Remember the “Lite-Brite, Lite-Brite, turn on the magical shining light” jingle that would always be on Saturday morning cartoons? Lite-Brite let kids create magical, glowing images by inserting plastic little bulbs into a black sheet of paper with fun designs.

5 – Rubik’s Cube

One of the greatest brain teaser puzzles ever, and it’s still a hit today. This 6 colored cube has been sold to over 350 million curious kids that need a challenge. That makes it the number one selling puzzle of all time!

1 – Cool Mom Picks

Cool Mom Picks is a great resource of anything cool that’s kid-related: designs, crafts, and other ideas are available for you to do fun things with your kids. There’s also their sister blog focused on tech, with apps, gadgets and tech – what’s not to love!

2 – Playground Dad

Playground Dad is a must-read for – you guessed it – dads. Whether you are a single dad, or just one trying to spend as much quality time as possible with your kids, this blog is full of great tips and interesting posts. From activities to do with kids to car reviews to how McDonald’s french fries are made, Playground Dad covers all aspects of a dad’s life and is an interesting read for moms too.

3 – Mammasaurus… & Co. 

Annie Spratt, the blogger behind Mammasaurus, manages several different blogs aside from her famous personal one. From geekery for kids to food, crafts, and design: there is something for everyone. Plus – a big plus – each blog has an unique, lovely design, something we always appreciate.

4 – Actually Mummy

With recipes, children’s books reviews, and contests, Actually Mummy is much more than the diary of a loquacious schoolgirl it presents itself as. But even just reading about family life (and life in general) from the perspective of a little girl makes the blog fun – or, rather, funee – and worth checking out.

5 – Beccarama

Rebecca Levey’s Beccarama is another great resource. We find it particularly interesting because it often covers topics that connect family, technology, education, and kids – exactly what we are most passionate about! The blog also talks about issues related to maternity and has many practical tips – it’s a must-bookmark, especially for moms.

6 – Studio Mothers

Seriously, looking at the colorful header is enough to like this blog, isn’t it? Studio Mommy is one of our favorite reads when it comes to creativity, kids, and moms. With interesting ideas on how to stay creative for mothers and creative ideas to solve all sort of issues with kids, this blog is sure to inspire you.

7 – 2 Wired 2 Tired

Two wired kids and two tired parents is the premise behind this parenting and family blog. The topics of 2 Wired 2 Tired cover family life, travel, gadget reviews, and everything in between, plus this blog a good place to find giveaways too!

8 – Busy Mom

Although it hasn’t been updated recently (we hope will be soon!), Busy Mom offers a precious glimpse into a mother’s life and is full of tested advice for parenting. We like reading about this mother’s life and her family: by following her posts, it’s easy to feel like you know them all!

 9 – Dad-O-Matic

After a busy mom, a Dad-O-Matic is what you need! Really great parenting tips – check out the latest on life skills we forget to teach our kids. The “Education” section is probably our favorite, it covers education as a whole, going much beyond just school.

10 – On-The-Go Momma

If you are wondering how to keep up with motherly duties and still enjoy life, this is a good read for you! On-The-Go Momma manages both brilliantly: as a mom of three and wife to one, she shares her life, stories, and advice for you. Don’t miss it.

 11 – Not a Bad Dad

It’s not because they just published a lovely review of Timbuktu that they makes them one of our favorites, we promise (although that made us love the blog even more)! Not a Bad Dad is a dad-focused blog sharing knowledge (of many kinds) for fathers. The layout is refreshingly minimal, and the posts – ranging from kids fashion to celebrity dads – are interesting and well curated. We bet many moms have a look too.

12 – Role Mommy

There’s more for busy moms! Really great food tips, advice, and support for the moms who think that the day never has enough hours (that’s about every mom, isn’t it?) can be found on Role Mommy. There are recipes, reviews, and more: definitely a blog to bookmark and keep checking.

13 – Savvy Sassy Moms

As the name suggests, Savvy Sassy Moms is all about style! For moms who care about a fashionable motherhood and even more fashionable kids, this is the place to go (excellent Etsy scouting too!).

14 – Ivonne in L.A.

Ivonne is one of the founders of the great Moms L.A., and her personal blog is a great read. Something we particularly appreciate are the science and culture related posts – she gets her kids interested, and by following her stories and tips, you can get your kids excited about science and culture too – very important!

15 – Design Mom

Design Mom is a favorite for many reasons. First of all, there’s a wide range of topics, such as instructions on how to tie the perfect bow and different reviews. In addition to ideas on artsy crafts and great activities for kids, the design of the blog is so neat and elegant. Finally, what tops it off is the author’s backstory: a New Yorker moves to the French countryside to live as a designer, wife, and mother of six! You must check it out.

.And an extra, for Portoguese speakers: Garatujas Fantasticas

Amazingly colorful and always full of the most artistic and creative projects for kids from all over the world: opening Garatujas Fantasticas is like traveling to a new, bright world for children. An experience we definitely recommend!

]]> http://timbuktu.me/blog/top-15-parenting-blogs/feed/ 1 http://timbuktu.me/blog/how-to-get-into-the-christmas-spirit/ http://timbuktu.me/blog/how-to-get-into-the-christmas-spirit/#comments Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:25:42 +0000 admin http://timbuktu.me/blog/?p=2782 We know we are supposed to be “good” all year long. At the same time, we know that it’s hard. We’re stressed, overwhelmed, scared… This is why the weeks leading up to Christmas are a great time to slightly change some of our habits,and try to behave a bit differently at work, with our friends, and with our family. Kids love Christmas, not only because they get presents, but because they are able to spend more time with their parents and friends and feel energized by the magic of this festivity. If you are not feeling the Christmas Spirit yet, here’s how to awaken it!

1. GET SUFJAN STEVENS’ CHRISTMAS ALBUM “Silver and Gold”

It’s just beautiful. It will make you feel Christmas’ complexity and charm.

2. SAY ONE NICE THING PER DAY TO A PERSON YOU DON’T KNOW.

Compliment someone for their outfit, or for the color of their eyes; thank the driver of the bus that takes you home, smile to the cashier at the supermarket. There are many chances to be nice to strangers!

3. PLAY WITH YOUR KIDS AT LEAST 30 MINUTES PER DAY BEFORE PUTTING THEM TO BED

Invent games, read them stories, build something together, or let Timbuktu inspire you. If your kids are toddlers, find 5 funny games here.

4. CALL A BABYSITTER AND GO OUT FOR DINNER WITH YOUR PARTNER.

We always promote involving kids in your activities, but you shouldn’t forget that you and your partner need to spend time together and take a break from the routine. If you two are a happy couple, your kids will be happy kids.

5. VISIT A RELATIVE YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IN A LONG TIME.

It’s important that kids know their family and build relationships with their relatives. Knowing that their family is part of a bigger entity will make them feel safer, and it will strengthen family bonds.

6. IF YOU HAVEN’T DONE SO ALREADY, DECORATE YOUR HOUSE WITH THE WHOLE FAMILY.

Build decorations together, cook something special, play some Christmas songs, and make it a party!

7. WRITE A LETTER TO A FRIEND WHO LIVES FAR AWAY.

It might sound old fashioned, but that’s what exactly what makes it special.

8. COOK DINNER WITH YOUR KIDS.

The illustrated recipes you find on Timbuktu are perfect for that.

9. WATCH CHRISTMAS MOVIES.

We do have favorites: – Home Alone; – A Charlie Brown Christmas; – How The Grinch Stole Christmas

10. BRAINSTORM WITH YOUR KIDS ABOUT PRESENTS FOR YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS.

You can even create some fake presents to see your relatives’ reactions! Your kids will love to be part of the scheme.

11. HELP YOUR KIDS WRITE THEIR LETTER TO SANTA CLAUS.

On December 5th, you’ll find a guide about how to write the ultimate letter to Santa on Timbuktu.

12. BUY YOURSELF A SPECIAL PRESENT.

Come on, you deserve it.

13. SEND COOL CHRISTMAS CARDS TO YOUR FRIENDS.

Needless to say, the coolest cards are on Timbuktu. On December 2nd, we are going to publish a game from artist Jacopo Rosati. You’ll be able to dress up Santa Claus and create amazing, personalized Christmas Cards.

15. FIND A CHARITY IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD AND SPEND SOME TIME THERE.

It’s a great chance to meet new people and to do something important for yourself and for the people around you.

16. TAKE A GREAT CHRISTMAS FAMILY PORTRAIT.

Add your tips to get into the Christmas Spirit in the comments!

1. THE 19.31 TRAIN – The scariest story in the history of fear [11/31]

Your finger is a torch that brings to light Charlie’s story. On Halloween night, he jumped on a train that left 1 minute earlier than usual… read the story to find out where Charlie was brought. Also, be careful! Touching some of the words will play scary sounds and voices!

2. SPACE ODYSSEY – Drive your rocket through the space.

Illustrated by Olimpia Zagnoli and with the sound design of Elettra Bargiacchi. Move your iPad to hit the objects floating in the sky, and let us know what’s your highest score!

3. SECRET TUNNELS GARDEN – The venue for the Annual Cartoon Convention in Timbuktu [11/17]

Part of the amazing collection of paper toys inspired to the city of Timbuktu and realized by Bomboland (an artistic duo from Lucca – Tuscany). A great story and fun activity to spend one hour per week playing with your kids whilst building a beautiful city.

4. BELLO AT THE AMUSEMENT PARK – Or how math can save pocket money from thieves. [11/15]

Bello is a detective umbrella who likes taking long walks on rainy nights. He uses math to solve his cases, but he sometimes needs some help to figure out what’s going on. This time, he needs to help the poor Peter, who was robbed at the Amusement park.

5. THE GOODS – How to avoid a shower + 9 things 9 Presidents never ever said [11/23]

Funny, whimsical, cool. This is our favorite episode of The Goods. Listen to the odd voices of the Presidents by tapping on their heads.

Stay tuned! For December, we have amazing Christmas games and stories lined up.  One surprise each day. You don’t want to miss ANY of them. Still no Timbuktu on your iPad? GET IT NOW!

Guess who is going to choose what questions we will ask? YOU, with Timbuktu’s fantastic Christmas contest!

Participating is very simple.

1) First of all, think about the questions you would like to ask Santa -  as many as you want!

2) Post them on Twitter with the hashtag #interviewSanta.

3) We’ll post on the blog the best questions we receive. At the end of the contest, we’ll select the best ten. If one of those questions is yours, congratulations – you are the WINNER!

What do you win?

Well, first off, you’ll win free access to all of Timbuktu’s stories, games, and amazing surprises for an entire year.

Plus, YOU get to ask the question to Santa. On Christmas Day, you will hear Santa’s answer to your question (and all the others) on Timbuktu!

Excited? Come on, waste no time and start posting questions: the more you share, the more chances you have to win.

Whether you are a pro and have been standing in line since early morning to get your hands onto all that goodness on sale or you’re happy to wait for the crowds to thin down before you have a look at the stores, we have selected five awesome items you should get for your kids.

As usual, we also thought about you, so these are all items you will like too.

1) A DIGITAL CAMERA

As we were discussing last week, photography is a great way to boost your kids’ creativity. The VTech Kidizoom camera, with its feature that lets you add special “cartoon” effects to your pictures, is one of the best options when it comes to digital cameras for your kids. It’s tough, but kids can learn how to use it easily, so you can just show them a couple of tricks and let them feel free to experiment.

2) A PIANO

Warning: there is a slight chance that, while hearing a cacophony of confused notes coming from the kids room early on a Sunday morning, you may regret buying this. However, learning music is extremely important, and the earlier your kids start with it, the better. Plus, look at this piano - isn’t it neat?

And come on, at least it’s not a drum set (now THAT is something you don’t want to buy!).

3) A COFFEE TABLE WITH INBUILT DOLLHOUSE

This is a Christmas presents for everyone: you, your kids, your home, and all the friends who come visit will fall in love for it. It’s a neat, minmal coffee table on top and a dollhouse (nearly as awesome as this) underneath!

Handcrafted, eco-friendly, and beautifully designed (the little furniture especially), this table is just the piece of furniture you need to make your home’s common space actually common.

4) A VINTAGE CAR

We know: it’s a tragedy that you can’t fit in this car too! But having your kids use it is better than nothing, and this is certainly the swankiest vehicle they can travel around the house on.

5) AN ARTIST TRAVEL SET

We’ve proved it before: all kids are artists. Good artists should always have their colors handy, hence this travel set with crayons, markers and a notepad, all packed in a small travel bag, is the perfect gift for your future Van Gogh. It comes with different cute characters, like a monkey, robot, pink bug and artsy frog!

If you need extra inspiration to start your Black Friday, here is a Charlie Brown cartoon about it!

PART 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRobYUSZ4do&feature=related

PART 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_844392&feature=iv&src_vid=yRobYUSZ4do&v=yeAtelXK9P4

Here’s a trailer of “Interacting with Autism”.

1) Don’t make me repeat myself!

2) You’re not going anywhere until you finish your meal.

3) Did you brush your teeth?

4) Deal with it.

5) Get in the car.

6) Go to your room.

7) I don’t care of what Carla’s mom thinks. If you do, ask Santa for another mom.

8 ) Are you done with your homework?

9) No TV tonight.

10) Stop it.

11) Hurry up!

12) Have some fruit.

13) Say “please.”

14) Say “thank you.”

15) Shush!

16) Stop hitting your sister!

17) What did your teacher say?

18) What did I tell you?

19) You’re just like your dad.

20) You’re just like your mom.

21) When I was your age…

22) I never had all these toys!

23) Give Grandma a kiss.

24) Say hello to Mr. Green.

25) You’ll understand when you have kids.

We put together some tips:

1) DON’T BE AFRAID: Even if you are not a professional photographer, your pictures can come out perfectly! You can start experimenting with your kids, select different options, and learn together from your experiments. Share your thoughts about how you’re experimenting, and comment together on the results (even if they’re bad!).

2) WORK ON A SMALL PROJECT: If you just take pictures of whatever is around you, soon you’ll get bored. Pick a theme and agree to work together on a small project like shadows, fruits in unusual places, hidden life at the park, or self portraits in the city. [Every week in Timbuktu, you'll find amazing ideas for your projects!]

3) PAY ATTENTION TO THE RESULTS: Look at the pictures you shot together, and try to learn something from each of them. How is the light? How about the composition? How could you make it better?

4) ORGANIZE AN EXHIBITION: Deadlines always help to get things done! Invite your friends and family, choose the best pictures, then print them out and organize your vernissage. What are you going to wear? What is the title of the exhibition going to be? Can you think of foods that match the theme of the exposition?

5) GET A BOOK: You are almost ready to become a real photographer! It’s time to get some help to deal with the technical stuff. We found “Better Photo Basics” to be a great handbook!

6) SEND YOUR CREATIONS TO TIMBUKTU! Every week, we host an awesome photo gallery, which is open to the contributions of our users! Just send your pictures with a small description. This is what Tom and his family did last week:

An earlier snow left us nothing to do,

So we went for a walk at the Calgary Zoo.

I’m glad for my iPad, having read Timbuktu;

If you live near the Rockies, these are “wild” near you too!

What are your favorites kindie bands/songs? Ours are:

1) WEEZER – All my friends are insects

Look at the Weezer! They rock! (Even in insects’ costumes!)

2) THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS – Meet the elements

Basically, a love song to chemistry. We must confess we love chemistry so much, that this songs sometimes makes us cry.

3) THE SHINS – It’s ok try again

AKA Paradise for hipster parents. [The TV show is Yo Gabba Gabba]

 4) BARENAKED LADIES – The other day I met a bear

Possibly, the stickiest song we’ve ever heard. We went on singing it for one week!

5) FREDDY TURBINA – Equilibrio Espiritual

Spanish speakers, this amazing song is for you. From the wildly creative Chilean TV show “31 Minutos”, one of our favorites.

Add your favorite kindie bands in the comments!

Each family has its own Thanksgiving traditions: some common, some quite peculiar, but they all add uniqueness to family time. But who said they have to be the same every year? Why not introduce a new tradition to your family’s Thanksgiving next week?

We thought of a few ideas that both you and your kids will enjoy, and we would love it if you shared yours too!

1) FAMILY TABLECLOTH. Everyone draws something that’s representative of Thanksgiving on the tablecloth. No words allowed, just your name, the date, and drawings.

2) VIDEO MESSAGES. Leave a videocamera in a room of your house. When people feel like doing so, they can go in front of the camera and record a message. Afterward, you can edit and send the video to everyone. Alternatively, you can leave the camera on in the dining room and make a stop-motion version of your family meal.

3) FAMILY PORTRAIT. Shoot a great and original family portrait following our five special tricks.

4) AFTERPARTY. Join your neighbours the day after Thanksgiving for a leftovers party, so your family members that live far from you can have an opportunity to meet the people in your life.

5) NEW GAME. Invite the kids to invent a game and have everybody play it!

With Thanksgiving so close, we bet you are in the middle of hectic preparations! Worry not – we have a whole How To Survive Thanksgiving Guide ready for you. It’s pretty awesome, if we may say so ourselves. You’ll find it on Sunday in Timbuktu – all the more reason to download the new app if you haven’t yet!

We worked with BOMBOLAND, an awesome design studio from Lucca (a small city in Tuscany) and we created a series of 12 printable buildings to build your own Timbuktu.

Every building has its particular story, imagination rules! Get started building the Shooting Stars Power Plant, then move to the Ice Cream ATM, to the Foldable Oasis or to the Secret Tunnel Garden. Each story is a piece of art.

Build all of them, and you and your family will become Honorary Citizens of Timbuktu (FREE BUBBLES FOR ONE YEAR!)

Here’s the rhyme that introduces this amazing series of paper toys, enjoy it and start building your own Timbuktu!

There was a ship that sailed

all on a crystal sea,

and there was a horse that rode,

all on a golden sand

We called the ship “Maggie”

We named the horse “Brune”.

And mile after mile, yes, dune after dune

we slept in a tent

and ate under the moon.

It took 40 days

It took 40 nights

And then came the city, a beautiful sight.

Great dreams in a queue

Began to come true

In front of those buildings,

In that magic milieu.

At last we arrived! Hello Timbuktu!

We went, we came back

It was a tough trek.

Shush! There’s a small secret

We’re going to unpack.

To find the same magic

No need to go far!

We brought you some models

This might sound bizarre.

Believe; it’s all true!

You’ll just need some glue

To build your dream city

To make Timbuktu.

"Fantastic Mr. Fox"

1) PLAN IN ADVANCE! Tell everyone that you’re going to shoot a special family portrait and start brainstorming.

2) CHOOSE THE RIGHT LOCATION. Are you going to photograph your family in a car, a backyard, a porch or a bathroom? Find the most unusual place, study the perfect composition for that specific place and you’ll get an amazing picture.

3) USE A TRIPOD! Place your camera on a tripod, it will dramatically improve the quality of your family portrait. Also, make good use of the auto-shoot option as you and your family are getting ready for the “official” shoot (you might collect quite funny pictures!).

4) USE PROPS. Anything from brooms to ski equipment will work. Ask everyone to bring a special prop to the party, or prepare a surprise prop for each member of the family.

5) HAVE FUN! It’s the most important ingredient to shoot a great picture and keep an awesome memory of your Thanksgiving potluck.

Send us your silliest family portrait (timbuktupictures@gmail.com)! We’ll pick the funniest 5 for a photogallery on Timbuktu!

[Find other Thanksgiving stories on our iPad app! Download it for free now.]

If you *ever*:

- competed to hire the right au-pair girl against other families across the globe;

- felt intimidated by a mom wearing multilayered H&M striped t-shirts and big sunglasses at a playground-date;

- sent your husband to pick someone up at the airport at an arbitrary time, “accidentally overlapping his favorite team’s soccer match;”

- organized (or dreamt of organizing) a smart escape with your partner, leaving your kids with your parents for a week;

you shouldn’t miss Arianna’s diary, today on Timbuktu.

1) THE TEMPEST. Your big bed is a raft. Produce huge waves using your bed sheets! Move the sheets, make sounds, and describe the danger you’re experiencing. Pretend to fall out of the raft, and desperately ask your kids to save you. Then, switch the roles.

2) TRAIN ON A BRIDGE. The kids sit on a chair or pillow (it’s more fun on a chair!). They are on a train that needs to pass over a wonky bridge: move their chairs simulating the train movement and move faster as the train approaches the bridge. You need to go as fast as possible to pass the bridge without falling! You will have to shake the chairs more when you’re passing the bridge. Sometimes you’ll make it and be safe on the other side, but sometimes, you won’t! If you fall down in a canyon, scream “AAAHHH!”

3) FAR WEST. Wear your bathrobe. You’re the horse! Have your kids hold the reins (the belt of your robe), and make it hard for them to be in the saddle. Run fast enough to make it a bit hard for them to hold the reins! Your partner can touch their backs and pretend to be hitting them with arrows or bullets, like you’re under attack.

4) CLOUDS. Imagine you and your kids are as light as clouds. Float in the air and move slowly, feeling as light as you can. Then, the wind comes! Have your partner blow on the clouds (you) and be pushed by the wind. The wind pushes all the clouds in one part of the room, then the rain comes! The clouds start shivering and fall on the ground like raindrops. When the storm is over, the wind person becomes a sun. The raindrops evaporate, and you can start all over again.

5) AIRPLANE. Lie on your back and raise your kids in the air, holding their chest. Make them spread their arms as if they were an airplane. Move them left and right, up and down, and simulate the sound of an air battle. (When you’re tired, just simulate an engine failure!).

Which games do you and your kids play? Share your ideas!

Mrs. Emperor Penguin, a nostalgic lady

Mr. Krill, martial arts guru

Mrs. Blue Whale, the biggest CEO in the whole world

Mr. Muskox, the most seductive (and smelly) bovid we’ve ever met

Mr. Polar Bear, always looking for candies!

Mrs. Owl, caffeine addicted

 TODAY YOU CAN LISTEN TO MR. KRILL’S INTERVIEW!

[The voiceovers are by Federico Manfredi and Carolina Sylwan, and the illustration is by Massimo Caccia]

That is why we care A LOT about good recipes, and we want you to try them for many reasons:

1. We tried every single recipe and we know they are not just beautiful, they’re also DELICIOUS. (It was a tough job, but someone…)

2. Cooking together is great: it allows kids to build a healthier relationship with food, and it can be fun!

3. Time management is always a huge problem when it comes to family life. Parents would always like to have more time to play with their kids. Cooking dinner together is a great way to optimize your family time.

4. The recipes on Timbuktu are healthy: lots of vegetables, fish, and no fat foods. Most importantly, even if they are healthy, they are tasty and fun!

5. We have great, fun facts about the food you cook! (Did you know eggplants are not vegetables? They’re fruit! Properly speaking, they’re berries.)

[Recipes are just one of the new features you'll find on Timbuktu!]

There are many improvements in this version of the app:

1. NAVIGATION

Extremely easy and user friendly

2. DAILY UPDATES

No need to wait months for new stories, get a new one EVERY DAY!

3. MATH!

 Learn Math while helping Bello -the detective umbrella- solve mysteries in his town

4. PAPER TOYS 

Who said that an iPad app should just bring you iPad based activities? We want you to build things, beautiful things. Download the printable kit and start building your own Timbuktu!

5. RECIPES

Yummy! Healthy recipes/without boring operations/illustrated by amazing artists. What else?

6. THE GOODS!

Only on Timbuktu, you’ll find The Goods by McSweeney’s. A “gallimaufry of games, puzzles, comics, and other diversions, appearing in newspapers across the U.S. and Canada.

*****WILL I LOSE MY OLD STORIES IF I UPDATE TIMBUKTU?*****

Of course not! We’d never commit such a crime. You’ll find all your favorite stories on the new platform. Some of them are already there. Some others will be published along the way.

Please take advantage of the free download, and let us know what you think about it! We would love to receive your feedback.

These kids, for instance, came up with a pro-Obama rap called Get Out The Vote:

These future voters, instead, are interested in asking a few questions to ask the candidates:

And in this episode of Kids React, a few children discuss 2012 election, sharing opinions on the programs, commenting the candidates’ statements (Romney’s cuts to PBS didn’t go down very well) and expressing innovative ideas on what should be the next president’s priorities.

And finally there are those who think out of the box  and wish the candidates were others. In this video, a little girl thinks Wonder Woman should be president (hard to say she’s wrong), and several other kids would elect SpongeBob.

Ready?

#5 The crazed boat ride in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Roald Dahl, already featured in the top five scary books, is here again, albeit in a movie adaptation of his book! We are convinced there is no better way to open our top five than this properly freaky psychedelic sequence.

#4 Dumbo’s pink elephants

And talking about psychedelic scenes, do you remember the scary visions of drunk Dumbo? Rather unsettling.

#3 The child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

This must be the best endorsement of the message “don’t take candies from strangers” ever. Seriously, stay away from the ice-cream y’all!

#2 The winged monkeys attack in the Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Flying monkeys that kidnap girls – whoever came up with that knew well how to scare a child. Or at least it worked well with us.

#1 Snow White’s escape in the haunted forest

We think this remains (and will forever remain) the most frightening scene ever seen in a child’s movie. Come on, tree branches with hands and wooden crocodiles in a puddle! This caused many nightmares, we hope not to us alone (yes, that’s a little selfish, but Halloween is not the holiday when you are supposed to be good).

Tomorrow we’ll send out the most excitingly scary newsletter, with everything you need to throw the scariest Halloween party ever.

And when we say everything, we mean it. There will be exclusive invites and signs designed by Robin Davey to print and hang around your home and… special scary sounds!

The whispers of ghosts, the clanking of chains, a storm coming (watch out for Sandy!) – you’ll get these and more special effects with terrifying voice overs by Federico Manfredi to play at your party: your guests will literally go pale with fear.

This is exclusively for our newsletter subscribers though, so hurry up: subscribe here and prepare, there will be a lot of screaming!

And so it’s with great excitement (and serious goosebumps) that we share with you our Halloween special selection of top five scary children’s books.

#5 – The little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams, illustrated by Megan Lloyd

With a pumpkin on its cover, this is a proper Halloween classic: it’s the story of an old lady whose fearlessness is tested by a pumpkin head, a tall black cat, and other scary creatures that follow her in the dark woods.

#4 – Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Coraline is the scary story of a little girl who ventures behind a hidden door to end up in a parallel life that’s very similar (but not) her own. Will Coraline be able to get back to her initial life or will she be stuck with fake parents in a different reality?

#3 – The Composer is Dead by Lemony Snicket, with music by Nathaniel Stookey and illustrations by Carson Ellis

The Composer is Dead is Lemony Snicket’s composition for narrator and orchestra. It’s not just a scary story, but also a way to introduce kids (or adults, of course) to the music of an orchestra. It’s absolutely brilliant.

“Composer is a word which here means “a person who

sits in a room muttering and humming and figuring out what notes
the orchestra is going to play.” This is called composing.

But last night the composer was not muttering.
He as not humming.
He was not moving, or even breathing.

This is called decomposing.”

#2 – The Witches by Roald Dahl

The Witches is not just one of our readers’ favorite books by Roald Dahl, but it’s also one of the scariest children books ever! It just exercises that special magnetic power on children: they are scared but they just can’t put it down. Years after we first read it, we can still remember the chills it gave us.

#1 – Where the wild things are by Maurice Sendak

Monsters, adventures, imagination. And wilderness at its purest! As far as we’re concerned, Maurice Sendak’s masterpiece is firmly on top of the list of scary books for kids.

What do you think?

Image via BBC Children in Need

The 28 inch bears will be auctioned off at Christie’s to raise money for the charity, but before then it will be displayed at Selfridges, from today until November 14th. If you happen to be around there you must go have a look: you can pair it with a visit to Modern British Childhood and make it a day out with your children.

Last year, the first ever Designer Pudsey collection raised over £50,000, and hopefully this year the event will be even more successful. Learn more about the program and how you can contribute, and have a look at all the bears on BBC Children in Need‘s site.

And don’t forget to let us know which one is your favorite.

It’s the one of Mister Imagine’s Toy Store, an incredibly innovative toy store attached to Chicago Children’s Museum. We’ve spoken about amazing toys stores before, but this is just something else.

What’s innovative about Mister Imagine’s Toy Store is that it doesn’t carry any toys. Instead of them, it sells cardboard boxes. Nothing else. No instructions, no decorations, nothing.

Just plain cardboard boxes.

All pictures curtesy of Mister Imagine’s Toy Store

Chicago Children’s Museum has always worked to connect education and play, and to celebrate its 30th anniversary, it decided to become all about cardboard boxes.

The museum hosts a show titled “Unboxed, Adventures in Cardboard,” where kids can explore nine-foot tall cardboard giants and cardboard mazes. And Mister Imagine’s Toy Store, conceptualized by the museum in collaboration with EnergyBBDO / Xi Chicago, sells cardboard boxes with the intend of saving “real play” and enable the kids to create whatever they like and let their imagination run wild.

And so, although the shop doesn’t actually sell any toy, it sells any toy a child can imagine, and create (and not just toys, even bicycles can be made out of cardboard!).

SOS, Anastasya Vorobko, 8, Russia, First Prize Winner, Children’s Eyes on Earth 2012

Children’s Eyes on Earth is a photography contest for children that was launched this year with the scope of letting kids expose the environmental issues they found most important. Two were the contest’s themes, “I Love Nature” and “I Fear Pollution,” and hundreds of submissions were received from all over the world – the best 100 of them will be shown in an exhibition in Baku, Azeirbajan.

Anastasya, the eight-year-old whose picture you see above, won the first prize and, together with the winners of the second and third prize and prize of the public, will attend the exhibition opening in Baku on the last week of November. Check out the winning photographs in the gallery, and check out the other impressive submissions on the contest’s website.

This is Dito Mozart, for instance:

All images courtesy of Ditology.com

He looks great, doesn’t he?

Ditology, the collection of Dito’s images, came about unexpectedly. The first portrait was created to be used as a Facebook profile picture: the author literally wanted to himself behind a finger to protect his privacy! The rest is history.

Check out the gallery to see some of the best of Dito, and visit his website: you can keep this as an inspiration for next time you decide to entertain your kids by painting faces on your fingertips and using them as characters!

If you happen to be in New York, remember to go check out the amazing Century of the Child at MoMA. And if, instead, you are in London Town, there is a fun show (check out the slide show – funny captions) opening on Saturday, October 13th, and up all the way till April 14th 2013 at the V&A Museum of Childhood.

These are not actually part of the show, but Sylvanian Families will be represented.

The exhibition, titled Modern British Childhood, explores issues and objects related with childhood – education, healthcare (an old pair of prescription glasses for kids are part of the display, for instance), technology – and shows the development that affected everything related to childhood from mid 20th century to today.

The past sixty-odd years have been a time of great changes for children and childhood, and the generations went through seriously different objects, games, experiences.

Go see the show to check out what you recognize yourself in, and share with us the pictures of what makes you think about your childhood most – we can’t wait to have our own gallery of vintage childhood awesomeness!

This is what the author of this video did. A parade elephant, a shooting star with a planet, a beach ball (and please note: beach balls are really colorful!), cheetahs and more – the world of brands is full of amazing objects!

Repeating this experiment at home with your kids could be quite fun even if you don’t work in brand design, go ahead and try!

Now here is the next toy you want to get, and it’s not necessarily just for your kids: we have a feeling you may enjoy this even more than your little ones.

We are talking about Foldable.me - a foldable paper doll you can customize to look just like yourself, or whomever else you want.

Designing one of these little paper friends online is easy – you can get yours delivered or send one as a present: we think it’s a great idea for a gift.

Something you can try is let your kids create a doll that looks like you – the result could be very interesting.

So, what are you waiting? It’s time get paper doll designing!

All pictures courtesy of Marcos Minuchin

There’s a place to keep up with these updates, and it’s the newly updated site of Secret Life of Toys (SLT).

An extremely important project started in 2009 by Marcos Minuchin to document how toys spend their time when they are away from the spotlight, SLT sheds some light on the intimate lives of the heroes of many children (and adults), exposing their hobbies, desires, fears and worries.

From Spiderman to Elmo to – yes – Ghostbuster’s Slimer: they all have a secret life, and Minuchin is on it.

And yes, through his investigative reporting,  Minuchin also caught a certain President who moonlights as a superhero.

Child’s Own Studio is a one-woman toy making company that transforms children drawings into soft toys. Like this:

All images via Child’s Own Studio

It’s easy: you just send your child’s drawing drawing and it will be turned into a handcrafted toy. There is a waiting list for the moment, but the site provides you with a selection of alternative toy makers who can also bring to life your child’s creations!

There seems to be no end to this, and it’s not uncommon to hear parents who don’t know whether they are any good.

But this is not the case for Dave Engledow, who proclaimed himself the world’s best father. And how can we blame him?

All pictures courtesy of Dave Engledow.

Dave is just excellent when it comes to taking care of his daughter, Alice Bee, and since he knows that other fathers need him as a role model, he even put together a calendar for 2013. It’s twelve months worth of images to show all the other dads how it’s done: dads out there, make sure you don’t miss it.

All pictures via MoMA.

Toys, books, posters, objects: the exhibition is an impressive collection of all that design has done for and about children last century.

And for those of you who can’t see the show, there is a great website about the show, which is essentially an online version of the exhibition and gives a pretty accurate idea of the extent of the collection.

And if you are planning to go see the show with your kids (you should!), here is a family activity guide to help you make the most of the visit. The exhibition is up through November 5th and you can find more information about the related events here.

And while you are at the MoMA, don’t forget to take an Unadulterated tour!

Daniel has turned his love of LEGO, games and playfulness into his job. He writes for Wired.com’s GeekDad, but also runs his own organisation Project Synthesis who work with organisations to make great playful ideas come to life.

The activities Daniel has selected for you are super exciting, we can’t wait to share them, starting this week. Stay tuned, which in this case means subscribe to the newsletter if you want to join the fun!

This is the trailer for MoMA Unadulterated, an audio tour of the MoMA created by kids between 3 and 10. We already knew children are artists, now here’s proof that they are art critics too!

Highlights of the tour (try to prove them wrong!) include:

‘It’s messy,” on Jackson Pollock’s One: Number 31, 1950.

“He wants to kill people. He actually stabs people with broccoli,” about Andy Warhol’s Double Elvis.

“That looks like a naked principal at a desk,” on George Segal’s The Bus Driver.

“Looks like a polka-dotted chicken,” on Roy Lichtenstein’s Girl With Ball.

Of course, these are just a few.

Download the entire guide here: you can use it to explore the MoMA with your family, but listen to it even if you’re not planning a visit to the museum – it’s simply brilliant.