Category: Personalized Gifts

Great Brain Games for Children

Posted on | by KD Novelties

Brain-training games have grown in popularity, especially with the rise of smartphones where thousands of apps and other games are made available on the go. Many games, especially those featured on sites like Facebook, are aimed towards Baby Boomers, claiming to reverse aging and prevent things like Alzheimer’s. While these sorts of claims are more difficult to prove, brain-training games have worked wonders for kids who are still actively learning, growing and developing, especially kids with learning and language disorders. Brain games can help kids build essential skills that help them process things like problem solving or help boost their memory.

Language Games

Language games may involve building essential skills for English but there are also fun, free apps out there that can help children learn to speak other languages, too.

For parents looking for native language boosting games in English, PBS.org has plenty of vocabulary games that can help children master the alphabet, learn new words, and practice their spelling. PBS also has plenty of reading games that focus more on word association, reading comprehension and writing aspects of language.

Language games can help kids develop key communication skills, reading comprehension skills, and it can boost their vocabulary (reading and speaking) significantly, too.

Math Games

Sites like mathplayground.com and coolmath-games.com feature traditional puzzle-solving games like Sudoku, chess, and more but they also have plenty of games that focus on specific areas of math like addition and subtraction, geometry, ratios and percent’s, and much more. Mathplayground.com has a grade-level feature so kids can play games that are appropriate to their age, grade, and skill-level and divide games into categories to make finding specific types of activities much easier. This is a great way to help kids struggling with a particular topic at school and can make studying much more

Memory Games

Parents may be familiar with apps like Lumosity, but this app actually gets a significant amount of revenue from kids as well as adults. Memory boosting games can be both challenging and fun, encouraging kids to develop skills that are useful in everyday situations as well as a myriad of different school subjects, too.

Puzzle Games

Parents may be more familiar with games like Tetris and Bejeweled Blitz (as well as other games like it) but these are great games to introduce to kids, too. Spatial reasoning is an often-overlooked skill and it can be applied to many situations and circumstances. These games encourage problem solving within a timeframe, which can be anxiety-inducing for some kids, but can also help children make better, more informed decisions on the fly, making moves based on educated guesses without overthinking.

There are many sites with plenty of resources, links and information on games for kids. Brain boosting games can be an essential tool for kids with learning disorders or children who may not benefit as much from a traditional school setting. Trying a different format for learning can be incredibly life changing, and fun, too.

Celebrate a Special Birthday With Personalized Kids Books

Posted on | by KD Novelties

personalized kids books

Children are an amazing blessing, and every year we want to celebrate their birthdays with a perfect gift to symbolize just how special they are to us. Unfortunately, the more children we have, and the older they get, the harder it is to come up with something new and unique every year.

The Benefits of Books

Stuffed animals, games, and an endless tide of electronic gadgets can overwhelm us when shopping for the ideal gift. While tempting, many of these are fun at first, but in the long run are unoriginal and do little to spark creativity or imagination. Children can tire of them quickly, and they end up in the bottom of the toy box.

Books, on the other hand, can make the perfect gift for children of all ages. While anyone can enjoy a good story, books make particularly wonderful gifts for the youngest family members. Studies have proven that children who are read to, even before they are capable of reading themselves, reap multiple benefits, and these continue to grow as they emerge as independent readers.

Reading to your child helps build and reinforce your bond with them as you read and hold them. This helps develop positive self-esteem and confidence. Additionally, reading has been shown to increase children’s academic readiness, develop better vocabulary and literacy skills, and enhance communication, creativity, and problem solving skills.

personalized kids books

Further, reading has been proven to elevate connectivity in the brain and improve function. This starts as a child and continues as your child matures and develops over the years. This means that good reading habits instilled at a young age will carry over to impact them from their school years and beyond into adulthood.

Personalized Kids Books

One way to make their gift even more special is to create a personalized story book. These books typically include your child’s name, age, and hometown, and may even include your child’s friends or family members as other characters in the story. Your child will be captivated as he or she becomes drawn into the story as a main character and hears elements of his or her own life incorporated into the story. Your child will develop a pure joy of reading beyond the proven benefits! Their special books will become keepsakes they will want to revisit again and again. Instead of another toy that gets buried under a pile, these books quickly become favorites.

personalized kids books

No need to stop with your own kids, though. Consider buying original books for your nieces and nephews for their birthdays or Christmas. Be the favorite parent when you show up to the next neighborhood birthday party with a book instead of the latest fad toy we all know will be old hat by next month. Stand out at the next baby shower when you present a unique keepsake book instead of another pack of pacifiers and washcloths. In addition to a fun new story, children are being given a special momento to help commemorate their childhood.

No matter who the young recipient is, they will all gain the benefits that reading provides. Helping a child develop a love for reading and all that entails is a gift that will keep giving for years to come.

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How to Choose a Summer Camp

Posted on | by KD Novelties

Summer is ripe with adventure, and there is no better way to highlight the season than summer camp. Summer camp can be extremely exciting for kids. It allows them to spend some time away from home to grow and learn, but also to have a fun time. These days, there are summer camps for every price range, specific interest, and summer schedule. There are a few things you may want to keep in mind before getting started on your list of potential prospects for your little one.

Kinds of Camps

The two main types of camps out there differ on their duration. Resident camps are the camps mostly featured in movies and are more often referred to as “sleep-away camp”. Many of these camps offer a variety of programs and activities for children as young as seven and many of them offer features that focus on specific programs or activities. Some are basic and have a little bit of everything, but specialty camps may specialize in a specific sport or other activity with the goal of improving a specific set of skills.

There are also day camps for parents who may be looking for a babysitting or daycare alternative or for kids who are not ready (or simply uninterested) in sleeping away from home on their own. Day camps offer programming for kids as young as four years old and they generally run on the same, or similar, schedule to the average school day with afternoon programs and other activities for kids who wish to stay longer or to accommodate parent work schedules.

Camp Features

Some parents may be concerned or have a preference regarding the types of activities camps offer or what other kinds of perks and features they have. Some camps focus on building academic skills or knowledge in fields like science, music, or religion. Others may focus on sports, the outdoors, and other topics.

Special needs campers should not be discouraged from considering going to camp. There are many camps that can easily accommodate kids with special needs and there are camps that cater only to kids with certain conditions, offering specific programs that can be just as enriching, fulfilling and fun.

Camp is in Session

Depending on your needs as a parent or on your child’s desires (and ability to be away from home), camps also offer various session lengths for you to choose from.

For kids who are comfortable being away from home on their own, longer sessions for sleep-away camps can be fun and exciting, but shorter sessions may be preferable for kids who are not as comfortable or new to the experience. Day camps are generally very flexible when it comes to session length, and their daytime duration depending on when kids can be dropped off and picked up. Most day camps run from the end of the school year to the beginning of the next one.

Session length may also depend on your budget, which is another important factor to consider. Especially since there are plenty of things that can affect how much money you are willing and able to spend.

Camp Costs

Each camp option, duration, specialty, and other options will add to your total at summers end. Depending on the type of camp, session duration, and any other travel costs or expenses, your costs could vary. However most camps will work with you and your budget depending on what you are looking for you child to get out of the experience. Some community centers offer special programs and other options you may want to consider before looking at camp, and make sure you have an idea of what your own summer schedule looks like before you book. Camp costs will vary depending on where your child goes, but many are affordable the more you customize your child’s stay.