My 4-year-old has taken a renewed interest in Sesame Street–and with good reason. Today marked the beginning of the beloved children’s TV show’s 43rd season, kicking off with a tongue-in-cheek episode that moms and dads were bound to enjoy. In “Upside Downton Abbey,” everything keeps falling to the ceiling. How to fix things? By changing the name to Right Side Upton Abbey, of course. If you didn’t get a chance to catch the spoof earlier today, you can check it out on YouTube. And that’s not the only fun in store for the Sesame gang this season; upcoming guest stars include Jon Hamm, Gordon Joseph Levitt, Melissa McCarthy, Paula Patton and Kareem Abdul Jabar. Sounds like a good time to us walnuts. In a Nutshell: [&hellip
Wired Walnuts Archive
As a kid, my potty seat was as low tech as it gets: a wooden seat with a smiling bunny on the back and a pull-out plastic pot for easy clean-up. Exciting, eh? Innovation in the toilet-training area continues to make leaps and bounds that I can hardly keep up with, like the potty seat that works with your iPad. What could possibly be next? Well, if you’re pulling your hair out over your training-resistant toddler, consider yet another electronic gadget your partner in crime on the war against wet bums. Huggies has created the Pull-ups Big Kid App, a free, downloadable app that celebrates those moments when peeing and pooping are your child’s greatest achievement (don’t laugh; you know how god-awful frustrating it can [&hellip
Come the weekend, my daughters love to fight over who gets to use my husband’s iPad (you know, your average Saturday struggle). So like most families with different aged kids, we’re always on the lookout for apps that will suit everyone’s interests–easier said than done. Fortunately, my 8-year-old loves playing school and you can only guess who has been recruited as her one-and only student. When my girls got their hands on Educational Insights’ Hot Dots Jr. app, it was all they could do not to contain their excitement. The game play is relatively straightforward: four categories (ABCs, numbers, colors and shapes) with 12 questions in each. A friendly girl prompts young players to answer questions and with each correct answer, a talking dog rewards [&hellip
Ah, Mother’s Day…the early morning wake-up call of kisses and hugs, homemade cards and gifts fashioned from tissue paper and other recycled goods and coupons for “being good all day long”–or as long as they can live to their promises (10 minutes, tops?). While some moms may not admit it, this one will: What I’d really like most for Mother’s Day is…to be left alone. And if that won’t work, then dinner for two would be just lovely (notice how I said “two”?”). While I’m only half-kidding, it’s nice that dads have it easy this year when it comes to making reservations. Thanks to the new app from Savored.com, they don’t even have to talk to a real person if they don’t one to, and [&hellip
If your preschooler is forever calling dibs on your iPad, and you’re in search of a satisfying game that doesn’t give you mommy guilt, check out the latest reading app for the 5 and under crowd. Elmo’s Big Birthday Bash from Random House is packed with plenty of learning-based activities to keep your little party-goer in gaming heaven. With 30 pages of interactive entertainment, kids can celebrate Elmo’s special day as they play guessing games, expand their vocabularies and, best of all, have fun while doing it. There are plenty of surprises along the way, and not just for the birthday boy. Our favorite part? No after-party sugar shock to contend with. We like to think of it as a screen-time reward for anyone who [&hellip
What would a road trip with the kids be without playing the license plate game? For as long as I can remember, my sister, brother and I passed the time seeing how many different state plates we could spot on those long treks down I-95. The game always seemed to start off slow–how many times could we spot New York and New Jersey before getting out of the tri-state area?–but before long, it got a lot more interesting as we headed south. If you’ve tried unsuccessfully to engage your tech-savvy kid in this classic game, it’s time to kick things up a notch, smartphone-style. Introducing pl8s, a kid-friendly travel app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch that gives a virtual shout-out to U.S. geography. [&hellip
Digital photos of my kids haunt me like a bad dream sometimes. While I dutifully snap away those milestone moments and (most times) remember to download them to my laptop, they often wind up taking permanent residence on my hard drive, never again to see the light of day–or the inside of a photo album. Now, busy parents don’t have to plagued by such guilt (forget to post your daughter’s first bath on Facebook? How dare you!). Thanks to the Safety 1st Baby Book App, you can have every precious moment chronicled and cataloged, right at your fingertips. Call it your personal scrapbooker, this amazing app lets you take new photos (or import existing ones) on your iPhone or iPod Touch and organize them all [&hellip
My 13-year-old niece loves to bake, and I like to think that over the years, we’ve helped cultivate her passion. When she was in elementary school, we gave her a recipe box filled with kid-friendly dishes. And this past Christmas, she was tasked with the honor of making individual cakes for dessert. If you know a tween who knows her way around the kitchen, encourage her to dust off her apron and roll up her sleeves. Sweetyhigh.com, a new social networking site for young girls, has offered The Talking Walnut a special Valentine’s Day giveaway. One lucky winner will be awarded a special baking kit that contains the following: 2 Heart Shaped Plates 1 Petite Pie Mold with Heart-shaped cut-out 1 Set of Valentine’s themed [&hellip
It doesn’t take much to realize that Elmo still resonates with little kids. A quick glance at the minivan ahead of me on the preschool drop-off line confirms his unmistakeable furry frame, whooping it up on the small screen. (What did moms do before the days of portable DVD players?). Because my girls were often too impatient to wait for “Elmo’s World,” their favorite part of “Sesame Street,” we often turned it on to catch the last 10 minutes of the show. If your kids clamor for that lovable red monster too, they’ll be delighted by the prospect of having all Elmo, all the time in his newest DVD. “Elmo’s Favorite Things” features eight popular EW segments–over 2 hours of Elmo entertainment. EW regulars already [&hellip
One week into the New Year, and it’s already almost time for the 100th Day of School (for most kids, it takes place later this month). How apropos then that everyone’s favorite furry, red monster has his own interactive book app out, just in time to celebrate. Specially designed for Nokia Smartphones, the 100th Day of School takes Elmo, Abby Cadabby and the rest of the Sesame gang through a fun-filled day of learning with more than half the school year behind them. Kids will love hearing Elmo ask them questions about the story as they touch the screen. If you’re using this app along with your kids, check out the text-highlighting feature that indicates which words are being read aloud. This free download is [&hellip