Emily, Author at iPad Kids

Weekly Roundup: Screen time is okay, but iPads are like drugs for kids

By Emily On June 19, 2015 · Add Comment

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Helping or hurting: iPads in the classroom

By Emily On June 18, 2015 · Add Comment

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Sound Off: Gender diversity in children’s apps

By Emily On June 17, 2015 · Add Comment

Pink or blue? Ballet or football? Dump trucks or diaries? Gender stereotypes are nothing new, especially in the world of children’s entertainment media. But have you stopped to think about how your kids’ apps might be enforcing those stereotypes? In a recent article by Stuart Dredge of The Guardian, Toca Boca CEO Björn Jeffery weighs in on the topic: “We have been taking a particular stand on gender-neutrality: all our apps have intentionally been designed to be unisex,” he said. “I don’t think we do terribly, but I think we could do a lot better. ” Jeffery said that Toca Boca had hired a “third-party expert” to audit its apps for diversity, and produce a checklist for the company to use for new products. “We had diversity as a very live issue, and something we took pride in and discussed internally. But we gradually realised that bias turns up anyway.” Read the [...]

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iPad App Review: Grandma’s Preschool

By Emily On June 16, 2015 · Add Comment

I don’t want to brag or anything, but I’ve kinda hit the Holy Grail of parenting milestones. Don’t be insanely jealous of me, but both my kids will be in school full time this fall. That means no more half days, no more preschool tuition or expensive day care. It means 8 uninterrupted hours of grown-up time that I can use to actually WORK without updates every 30 seconds on What We’re Doing Now. (I love them but geez they are sharers) The journey to daytime freedom wasn’t an easy one though. In my neighborhood the trend for parents is to have their kiddo skip preschool altogether and enter kindergarten after turning 5, a year later than what’s normally the practice. For a brief time I had actually considered doing this with my youngest, but she loved going to preschool and she happened to gain some pretty impressive skills while [...]

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Minecraft. (’nuff said)

By Emily On June 15, 2015 · Add Comment

I’m pretty sure my kids would actually understand me if I spoke to them in a language made up entirely of the word “Minecraft”. Unfortunately for them I don’t – in fact, I’m semi-clueless when it comes to this all-consuming game lifestyle. We’ve established some screen time guidelines so we now have a Minecraft schedule, but that doesn’t mean my obsessed children can’t take the fun off-screen. I’ve slowly been sifting through the massive volume of Minecraft stuff on the web and collecting a pretty impressive handful of resources. Below you’ll find a few of my favorites: Multiplication and Division sheets – who says Minecraft can’t be educational, and taken off-screen? These cool coloring sheets help kiddos at a 3rd-grade math level Crossword search – think you know all there is to know about Minecraft? Test your knowledge with this free printable crossword search (boosts vocab too!) Magnets [...]

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