"Can I paint on your computer?"

We have an EEE PC (with Linux) that we bought for travels. It came with a Tux Paint software that our daughter, then 3, mastered quickly. It was and still is a big life saver during long flights.

The program has an easy kid-friendly but not too-cartoony interface, and a very good set of tools (brushes, stamps, "magic" effects, etc) and some coloring pages. It's all your child needs and even more.

It supports various operation systems, so it will run on whatever you have. And you know what the best part is? It's FREE! You can download it from their website: tuxpaint.org


We also got some "painting" apps for iPod. They are not exactly drawing apps, but are fun nevertheless.

Doodle Kids -this is good for small ones, there are no tools or controls, everything is random. All you do is doodle. But doodling is good too, right?

Make a Martian - this is an alien making "factory". It's fun, cute, simple, and makes my daughter giggle every time she plays with it.

If you like an educational twist, the Dot-to-Dot Number Whiz is a good one. The level of difficulty can be adjusted. So your child can practice 123s or ABCs, or skip counting.


Let me know in the comments if you know about any other good paint/doodle apps for small kids.

(photo by mamalya, snapshot of the Martian we made)

Awesome radio show for small kids.

Sorry for being MIA. I'm being an on-call tour guide/translator for a group of teen-age ballerinas who came to NY from my hometown in Siberia.

I wanted to tell you about our favorite podcast. It's from the CBeebies - a BBC radio station for small kids. You can listen to them online or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Each of the 30 minute podcast includes a song, a rhyme, silly jokes, "count out loud" game, and an action game like "musical statues" or "follow-me". We've been really enjoying listening to the CBeebies in the car and dancing to the CBeebies beat.

Little N. learned the silly ending to the "row your boat" and she even wants to tell it to her friends and teachers at school (she does not like to be in the spotlight, so this IS a big deal). It goes like this:

Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.

If you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream AAAAAAAAAAA!

I don't know, and could not find, any online or radio shows for small kids here in US that are fun, educational, simple and appropriate for preschoolers. So, if you're reading this and you live in UK, know that we envy you. Because you have some really good stuff.

The very long flight

We spent the whole day strapped to our chairs twenty something thousand miles up in a sky. We flew from gray rainy day in NJ to ever sunny Hawaii.
As usually we've drawn too much attention to ourselves in the airport as little N drove her bright green Trunki across the terminal. Trunki is a hard case suitcase that the child can sit on while you pull it behind youself or she can pull it by herself if it's more convenient.
(it looks like Melissa & Doug will be an oficial distributor in US, so they might be coming to major stores soon. We bought ours from a kid boutique).

The flight was never-ending. It's difficult to convince a four-year old that time goes faster when we sleep; or that we need sleep because we woke up at the crack of dawn... So she was restless and we all were tired. Somehow Transcontinental flights are easier than extra-long
local ones.

The Trunki (our in-flight entertainment bag) was packed with snack bars, juice boxes; coloring books and crayons; a deck of Uno and a deck of Go fish!; iPod and a small laptop. For the first portion of the flight N played with her purple beany bear and was learning to use the wild cards in Uno (apperantly it's fun to make daddy lose his turn) then we found out that the laptop can't read from the SD card (we have an eee pc) so cartoons were canceled to everyone's disappointment and I had to give her my new iPod. She uses it like a pro! And looks extreemly cute. I've got a few more games from iTunes and she loves them. The only thing she did not want was the coloring book (even doodling in the airline magazine was more fun).

Another long flight is coming in a week when we'll be going back home but we won't have a beach and ocean and pool that we can promiss her for being a good girl during a flight. So it's going to be an exhausting one unless we fix the laptop or figure out some other ways to keep her busy.

Do you know a good way to keep the small child happy and on her chair for a long time? If you do, please leave a comment.

Birthday gift

I've got an early Birthday present today - iPod Touch. Yeepee! 
And my 4yo is already playing with it. Booo! ["Is it mine?"]

We've got a couple of edutainment kids' apps on it:
"Feed me!" is a cute one. And it's free! The idea of the game is to feed a little purple monster all sorts of things, and in the meanwhile learn about shapes and colors, time telling and fractions. And if he does not like what you've given him (meaning, your answer is incorrect), he says "yuck".

We also have "My first 123" and "ArithmeTick"- both teach simple math. But little N. was not very interested in them.


And this is what will be on my wish list for the New Year: Xachipet. I can't find a video of it anywhere, but the idea is that this is a plush robotic toy that uses iPod/iPhone as a remote control.

The iPod was intended to be my PDA / personal gaming device. I want to find a simple drawing application for N. and some games for myself. What's your favorite app?  Leave a comment below.

(image source xachipet.com)