Tech

  • Gift Guide, Motherhood, Product Reviews, Tech

    STEM Holiday Gift Guide for Kids

    This STEM Holiday Gift Guide for Kids includes affiliate links and some products were provided for review. 

    I know that you want the best for your kids and the best for your money! I’ve put together this small gift guide to help you find the best options for your little ones this holiday season. Whenever I shop for my children during the holidays, I always focus on at least one quality STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) toy or product that they can use to learn, gain skills or express their creativity. This guide includes gifts that will do that for your little ones, gifts that will make their world bigger and more exciting.

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    Parker: Your Augmented Reality Bear Learning Kit

    STEM Holiday Gift Guide for Kids STEM Holiday Gift Guide for Kids STEM Holiday Gift Guide for Kids STEM Holiday Gift Guide for Kids

    If your little ones are curious about medicine and love to play doctor, Parker: Your Augmented Reality Bear Learning Kit will be the perfect gift. I had the chance to check out the new toys at Hamacher Schlemmer earlier this week and I fell in love with this toys as it’s clever use of technology. The app makes Parker come alive and makes the play really exciting and interactive. Parker is a healthy combination of technology and science to help kids learn, become more creative and learn.  You can purchase Parker online,  or at Hamacher Schlemmer store on the Upper East Side if you’re in New York City. 

    STEM Holiday Gift Guide for Kids

    Lenovo Flip 14 Laptop

    Are your little ones ready for their very first computer? Since the new school year started, it’s become really clear that the kids need their own computers.  Their needs are mainly to practice coding and math, class projects and reports.  The Lenovo Flip 14 laptop is a great choice for a first computer as it’s fast and functions as both a tablet and a laptop. It was easy for me to set up the parental controls and the kids have been using it to type-up reports (my 8-year-old) and practice coding on code.org. This is a touchscreen laptop and it’s really intuitive and user-friendly for my children. My five-year-old has been using this computer without any trouble, flipping between tablet and laptop mode.

    STEM Holiday Gift Guide for Kids STEM Holiday Gift Guide for Kids STEM Holiday Gift Guide for Kids

    I think my favorite features of the Lenovo Flip Laptop for kids is that is all of the creative artwork they’ve been doing using the Lenovo Active Pen to sketch and create art on Windows Ink. My kids have already been talking about creating their own cartoon series using this feature which makes me really excited.

    This laptop is very thin, sleek and light enough for little ones to carry. While the kids will not be taking it to school yet, I know it would come in really handy when we’re traveling to keep them engaged.

    As you can tell, I am really impressed with the laptop, you can buy it on Lenovo website or on Amazon.

    Wonder Workshop Dash Coding Robot 

    I first discovered this robot in my son’s kindergarten classroom, he talks about it almost daily when he gets home from school so I started researching and learned that Dash could be used for much more than just coding. Kids can use it to collaborate and learn with others. I figured that all three kids could benefit from Dash plus it comes with extras like STEM apps so it may be worth the investment.

    Magformers in Motion Power Set

    I bought this set for my kids two years ago and they still play with it and still love it! The quality of the magnetic pieces is really impressive given that my kids have gone through tons of other toys over the time they had these. This particular set is great for kids who enjoy building and love to see things in motion. My kids create structures that can rotate and it even comes with a generator so they don’t have to rotate the structures manually. My only gripe with this set is that you would have to purchase a storage box like this one to store the Magformers.

    I hope you find a gift idea in this guide for the kids in your life and be sure to let me know in the comments which of these you would purchase. 

  • Tech

    Rattling Reads: Influencer Marketing for Dummies

    If you read my last post titled ‘I want 2016 to make 2015 really jealous‘  you probably know that I plan to read more books this year than I did last year. So what did I spend my weekend doing besides celebrating my birthday? Reading, of course. My first read of the year is blogging related as I am a lover of the blogging world and this year I am excited about not just blogging on my own site but also sharing my stories on some of my favorite brand’s blogs too. Super fun! The book I read is called Influencer Marketing for Dummies, part of the well-known For Dummies book series whose goal is ‘Making Everything Easier’.

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    When I first started blogging, my website was just an outlet that allowed me to express my creativity but I’ve learned in the past 2 years that it goes much further than that. See, according to this book many years ago, the people who did most of the marketing for products were celebrities. People wanted to look and live like them but with the emergence of blogs and social media, that changed. It’s now possible for us to see how other people like ourselves are living and take the bits of their lives that we admire most and make it our own. I know that I do that all the time, that’s why I enjoy reading blogs.  A commercial with an actor would never move me the way a mother with a baby on her hip would when she tells me on her personal blog that she knows a few ways to put a baby to sleep. As the book says “influential bloggers can create gorgeous content and tell beautiful, true stories in a way that brands simply can’t.”

    What I loved about this book is that it’s helpful for not just bloggers but also for brands. There are plenty of tips and case studies that shares ways to approach influencers and how to design successful influencer marketing campaigns. I know that I get pitched to work with brands all the time that do not fit well with what I blog about and my lifestyle. This is a great read for brands to determine which bloggers to reach out to for different campaigns.

    This book also shares good insight into how to use different social media platforms such as Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for influencer marketing. As a blogger, I found the Federal Trade Commission guidelines in the back to be very beneficial.

    If you’re a new blogger or a brand interested in beginning to work with bloggers to share their real stories about your products I would highly recommend Influencer Marketing for Dummies.

    What’s the first book that you’re going to read in 2016?