As you know, fostering creativity in kids is one of our biggest goals with our products and our Facebook Page. That’s why we continuously post new inspiring content, offer suggestions for parents on how to support their kids and update our apps all the time.

One of the most important priciples in child-rearing that we found is to let your kids disagree with you. If you constantly force an opinion on them, they’ll never learn to develop their own mind. Additionally, if you always provide a solution for their problems right away, they will lack the ability to think independently. Instead, encourage your small ones to come up with their own solutions for problems.

Sociological studies suggest that this is a very important process in the early stages of childhood. Children of parents who merely guide their efforts to find a solution for themselves have been found to do better in school than those of parents who tell them the solutions right away and do the thinking for them.

It’s important to stress that going through this process – whatever the outcome may be – is more important than the result itself.

We’ve used this technique at many points in our books. For instance, in “Naughty Manya Learns to Count“, your kid will be asked to help Manya solve a math challenge by counting juicy mangoes falling from a tree or colorful parrots flying in the sky. The interactive elements will guide your kid to find the right answers to the tasks in order to advance in the story.

So keep this concept in mind and try to apply it in everyday life. Seeing your kids develop their mind and character is one of the most joyful parts of being a parent.

1. Watermelon

Watermelon is very tasty and has some often overlooked benefits. It contains plenty of different vitams that are not found in many other fruits. What makes it special though, is the fact that it consists of about 92% of water, which helps us to remain saturated for a longer time and also makes it easy to consume valuable liquid at the same time.

2. Banana

Bananas are some people’s favorite fruits. They are easy to eat, not very messy and super yummy. Interestingly they also taste great when mixed with other things. Try blending them into a smoothie or making banana pancakes!

3. Apples

An apple a day, keeps the doctor away. Right? Well, we can’t give you our word for it, but we promise it won’t harm to eat one each day. Many parents make it a habit to put an apple into their kid’s lunch box every day for school or kindergarten. The high amounts of vitamin C make this fruit a great choise and they are also refreshing on hot days.

4. Peaches

Peaches grow in the sun. They like to absord every bit of it and turn it into yummy sweetness. They also contain fibres, which are good for digestion, vitamines A and C, and beta-carotene, which is the stuff found in carrots. Eat many peaches and you’ll be able to rely on your eyes for a very long time.

5. Oranges

Finally organges. One of the classics for a good reason. They contain extremely high amounts of vitamin C. That’s why sailors used to carry large boxes of oranges on their long trips to foreign continents in the earlier days. Well, in fact they still do!

We highly encourage you putting fruits on your kid’s plate at least once every day. In the long run it will pay of to maintain a healthy diet as your kid will physically and mentally be quicker. For an added vitamin boost you can choose to buy organic fruits, who are generally richer in vitamins and freshness.

Here’s a recent review from iKidsApps that we particularly liked:

Have  you ever noticed that the kids in story books just seem to be too well behaved? While it’s nice for kids to see examples of good behavior, it’s also refreshing to see stories that model realistic behavior; like when kids get a little grumpy or stubborn. And “KidsLikeThat” delivers great stories with kids who sometimes aren’t the best behaved, but still find solutions to their bad moods or problems. In this collection of interactive storybooks, kids can read with their parents and also participate in activities to practice counting skills and more. This app has great graphics, great morals and engaging activities.

 
If you haven’t checked out our selection of books, we encourage you to do so. Here’s a video of one of our favorite books:
 

 

You can grab your copy of Naughty Manya Learns to Count for 99 cents on the App Store (iPad) (iPhone)!

As a parent, you love to see your kids grow and develop their skills. It’s one of the most fun activities to learn new things together with your small ones. This post offers a few suggestions about how to learn colors in a playful way.

1. Take your kids outside

Whether you pick up your kids from the kindergarden, spend time at the playground or go for a stroll on the weekend – there’s always so much to see. Start pointing out objects and explaining the color, like a green tree or a red car. After a while your kids will pick up the words and use them themselves. You can also exercise this by asking your kid what color a particular object is.

2. Play interactive games

Interaction is the most important part of the learning process. The more active your kid is while learning about colors, the more they will stick. There are plenty of board games to choose from, but also options which you can play while you’re outside, commuting or waiting for a doctor’s appointment. Our book Naughty Manya’s colorful adventure, for example is a fun story to read with your child, which will encourage interaction to advance in the book. You can download a free sample of the book on our bookstore app: iPhone, iPad

3. Watch educational videos for kids

There are many kids-friendly videos out there, which you can even watch for free. Have a browse on Youtube and see what you can find.

4. Use paint

Kids love to mess around sometimes. Allow them to use window colors or finger paint to color a large sheet of paper or one of your windows and observe their joy. While they’re at it, make suggestions of where to add which color so that they will learn to match the colors with your words and pick it themselves.

Whichever way you choose: Always keep it simple and fun!

Grand prize winner: Bo

We congratulate Odessa and her daughter Bo, who entered with this beautiful picture. The jury especially liked the lighthearted joy, which the image radiates and the colorful impression it makes.

Odessa: “Bo is thrilled! ( I just hope this doesn’t give her any more “naughty” ideas, hahaha) I am really in shock, and so very excited!!”

The five runner-ups are these lovely shots:

Again, we’d like to thank each and every participant out there who made this possible.  The grand prize will be a $300 voucher while the five community vote winners receive one $100 voucher each. All of the winners have been notified via email by now.

We’ve expected the contest to do well, but it’s been an even greater success than we thought. We’re currently at about 150 entries from over 20 different countries and we’ve seen the most hilarious photos ever.

So with this post, we’d like to share some of the best entries we received. We particularly love them because they remind us of Naughty Manya, the heroine of our interactive kids books, which are available on the app store.

Before we jump into the actual photos, we’d like to remind you that the contest is still running and we’d love you to participate HERE. Participation is really easy, you can even upload pics right from your Facebook gallery. And of course, there are great prizes waiting for you!

So here you go. Enjoy!

Our iPad and iPhone apps

We’re experiencing an increasingly complex world today, and being adults, we understand the importance to open our kids’ eyes for the future. We believe that by giving kids early access to appropriate and special learning and playing materials through available technology, helps them adapt a particular way of thinking, which will be invaluable for their adult lifes. They’ll be able to come up with solutions for complex problems by looking at them in a creative way. Out-of-the-box thinking is what we strive for.

That is why our books and apps are made for REAL kids. Kids who are sometimes naughty, and sometimes mad. And kids who are curious to find out about things themselves. Playing is the most important thing a kid can do, as long as it’s the right game. After all, playing is what shaped our own childhood, isn’t it?

For instance, when we created “Naughty Manya Learns to Count“, we didn’t want to make the book app just another lecture about numbers. We wanted to make it a fun read, which your kids would want to read over and over again, so that the numbers would stick not by sheer repetition and learning effort, but automatically. We packed the book with great narration, beautiful illustrations and hilarious incidents. And then we tested it with our own kids. What they didn’t find funny we cut out and what they loved we kept. And so we ended up with a great book, which we’re proud to sell on the App Store (iPad) (iPhone) now.

Our growing Facebook community proves that we’re on the right track and the positive feedback we’re getting every day helps us push our creative boundaries even farther.

Thanks for being part of this movement. We couldn’t have done it without you.

-The KidsLikeThat team

PS: You can still join the Naughtiest Kid Contest, which is live on our Facebook fan page right now. Great prizes are waiting and participation takes no more than 2 minutes.

Prices for the books will be the same as for the iPad version and they come with all the same great features:

• English narration
• Beautiful illustrations
• Interactive elements on each page
• Hilarious incidents
• Educational stories
• Naughty Manay’s cute impishness
• And much more

Here’s an overview of all the books we currently offer:

1. Naughty Manya’s day at the Zoo
Naughty Manya’s first adventure reveals all the fun facts about your favorite animals. Dive into this story as she’s riding elephants, races with turtles and roars with the tiger. What are you waiting for?

2. Naughty Manya’s Colorful Adventure
This story leads you in a world full of fabulous creatures and miraculous things. Are you able to help Manya on her determined quest to get her stuffed toy Lucy back?

3. Naughty Manya Learns to Count 
Who said numbers aren’t fun? In this story, Manya sets off for an adventure with her friend Jimmy the monkey. Are you up to the challenges the two of them encounter in the jungle?

4. Naughty Manya and the Lion who loved Burgers
Manya needs your help! Polly the Parrot has stolen her red scarf and Manya has to gather all her friends from Jimmy the monkey to George the giraffe in order to bring it back. Are you in?

5. Naughty Manya grows bigger than a Dinosaur
What happens when a naughty girl grows REALLY big? Packed with humorous incidents and great narration, this story is a fun read. Parental advisory: Only for naughty kids!

You can get you copy on the App Store (iPad) (iPhone).

PS: We’d love to hear back from you with some feedback.

Here’s an overview of all the books we currently offer:

1. Naughty Manya’s day at the Zoo
Naughty Manya’s first adventure reveals all the fun facts about your favorite animals. Dive into this story as she’s riding elephants, races with turtles and roars with the tiger. What are you waiting for?

2. Naughty Manya’s Colorful Adventure
This story leads you in a world full of fabulous creatures and miraculous things. Are you able to help Manya on her determined quest to get her stuffed toy Lucy back?

3. Naughty Manya Learns to Count 
Who said numbers aren’t fun? In this story, Manya sets off for an adventure with her friend Jimmy the monkey. Are you up to the challenges the two of them encounter in the jungle?

4. Naughty Manya and the Lion who loved Burgers
Manya needs your help! Polly the Parrot has stolen her red scarf and Manya has to gather all her friends from Jimmy the monkey to George the giraffe in order to bring it back. Are you in?

5. Naughty Manya grows bigger than a Dinosaur
What happens when a naughty girl grows REALLY big? Packed with humorous incidents and great narration, this story is a fun read. Parental advisory: Only for naughty kids!

You can get you copy on the App Store (iPad) (iPhone).

PS: We’d love to hear back from you with some feedback.

We’re running a Facebook photo contest, starting today until 07. June 2012, where you can share a naughty photo of your child.  If your kid is between 2 and 5 years old and has pulled off something naughty, then great prizes are waiting for you.

The idea of our photo contest is to let you share the funniest and most memorably naughty moments of your kids while they grow up. We’re talking about the moments that you’ll look back to in a few years and smile. And the moments that might be annoying in the heat of action but are adorable in retrospect. Are you with us? Good!

Now, we invite you to share those very moments with other parent’s out there and make them smile as well. You can win amazing prizes (e.g. $800 in iTunes gift vouchers) for the best uploads and you’ll get a lot of wonderful feedback.

Show us what your kids are really like!

Here’s how it works:

1. Go to the contest on our Facebook page: Click
2. Pick a great naughty photo of your kid (you can even upload right from a Facebook gallery)
3. Briefly tell us the story behind the photo
4. Invite all your friends to vote for your photo

And that’s it. Total time for participation is no more than 2 minutes. Although we need to add that browsing the naughty kids photos can be addictive, so plan for some more time!

We’re looking forward to seeing you on Facebook.

Here’s the link: www.facebook.com/kidslikethat

The contest will run from 07. May to 07. June 2012.

PS: We’ve got our most popular books on offer for only 99c for a limited time period. Make sure to grab your copies on the app store now. Enjoy!