App of the Week: PhonyPhone

I have had a couple of close calls (ah haha) when giving my phone to a child. My boss has been dialed at 5:30am and told "I made poopy", a work email was responded to with the career escalating response: "K assface" and at least thirteen calls have been made to 911 (they now know Monkey by name and my cell is on the bad daddy list). So I'm kicking myself for not thinking of this idea long ago, ladies and gents I present to you...PhonyPhone! This amazing (and FREE) little app turns your phone into a fake phone. Yea. A phone without the ability to call the cops, or your boss or make long distance calls to China.

And for the creative criminal, PhonyPhone is a great training tool for your little accomplice to learn helpful ways to get daddy out of trouble.

When the boss calls: "Hello, daddy not home, he went to work early. He works all the time. Why you not let daddy play with me."

To the resident telemarketer: "Daddy not have credit card. Bad man stole his wallet and punch him in eye."

To Mother In Law: "Daddy think you so pretty and nice".

For the dads on the up and up, PhonyPhone also helps teach numbers by showing the word spelled out along with a nice voice (Stunt Chad likes to call her Linda). Linda says the number out loud helping Jr learn the names and spellings of the numbers. And if you press the talk button Linda also says hello. There is also a button that plays laughter and another that plays Mary Had a Little Lamb in phone tones, which is totally annoying so your kid will love it. The best part of PhonyPhone is that it is free. So check it out now in the Apple App Store. PhonyPhone. Pin It Now!

APP of the Week: Spin Art

In previous posts we have mentioned how kids like the box more than the contents, or that household items get more playtime than expensive toys. The same seems to apply to apps. I'm not sure who the intended audience for Spin Art was...but I can tell you it is loved by kids!! And what is not to love? You select a shape and spin it by swiping your finger across the screen. The faster you swipe, the faster it spins. Then you select colors and make a mess!! The paint splatters and the more you move your finger along the canvas, the more it piles on and makes art reminiscent of the old SpiroGraph. What you don't remember SpiroGraph? Click here to walk down memory lane, then buy the Spin Art app. It's all the fun of SpiroGraph but no mess and always in your pocket. Whaaaaaaaat? SpiroGraph in your pocket? That's Stuntastic!


- Not a parenting blog, not a daddy blog, not a mommy blog — it's a Stunt Dad blog. Pin It Now!

App of the Week: KidCalc

I just learned about a great math app for toddlers called KidCalc. It has several different number games for counting, recognizing and writing numbers and counting, but the best part is the addition and subtraction. The app talks and visually shows groups of objects merging together. Then asks your child to select how many objects there are from 4 multiple choice selections. It grabbed Monkey's attention right away and within 15 minutes he started knowing a few of the addition challenges from repetition. This is exactly what I was looking for to go to the next level of learning numbers and starting to understand the basics of addition and subtraction. The app provides several age settings: 2-4, 4-6, 6-8, 8-10 and little genus so that you can manage the complexity of the problems displayed. It also allows granular control of items such as integer to count by (1,2,3 etc), lowest number, highest number, ascending, descending and a myriad of others. Check out KidCalc when you get a chance.

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App of the Week: Weather Done Right

We all know the joke. Weather people get paid good money to be right once in while. We would all love that kind of leniency in our own jobs, or even better, with parenting. Parenting is not going to get easier, nor are weather people going to get more accurate. Fortunately, there is an app that replaces the weather person and it is available whenever you want it. The Weather Channel iPhone is awesome and it turned a potentially lame day into a bunch 'o' fun.

Yesterday, the weatherman said it was going to rain. But instead of trusting the weather dude, I bought the Weather Channels iPhone app. In minutes I got a detailed radar map that showing rain everywhere, but Monkey's favorite playground was going to stay dry. So we headed out sans umbrella and enjoyed a day of pushing trucks in the sand, rolling balls down slides and chasing each other around in circles.

So if you want to plan your days around the weather with tighter tolerances, get yourself the Weather Channels iPhone app.

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Would you GPS your kid?

A while back I thought I had a great idea. I would create a line of kids shoes that came with GPS tracking devices built into the soles. I would add in a couple of fun features for the parents like a pedometer so they could see how many miles those little feet can log in a day. But the core reason for buying the shoes would be to find their kid fast if they ever got lost. It would be insurance for one of parents' greatest fears. Like most of my brilliant ideas, this one was already taken to some extent.

None of the current players execute to my creative level (at least in my mind), but there are several companies that are making tracking devices for kids. Some just go in a pocket, while others strap onto shoelaces. Many use RF technology to communicate back to a hub device held by a parent. If the kid gets too far away from the hub, an alarm sounds. A quick search on Google or Amazon will bring up plenty of options that range from $50 bucks to hundreds of dollars.

Another option is to give your kid a smartphone. For example my wife and I were connected to each other through Google Latitude. She could see where I was on a map at all times, which came in handy when I was traveling and she just wanted to see how close I was to getting home. The same premise could work with tracking your kid. Give them a phone and setup Google Latitude.

So what do you think of tracking your kids? When discussing tracking with people I have received a wide range of reactions. Some think it is cool while others think it is creepy—but many simply have questions. Do privacy policies apply? Is it OK to put a GPS unit in your 5 year old's shoes? How about your 16 year old's? What about 14? Where would you draw the line? Would a tracking device instill a false sense of security and result in being less attentive?

To answer these I would ask our readers to chime in. What are your thoughts on using a tracking device to monitor your children? Have you tried one? What was your experience like? Would you recommend it to a friend?

Please let us know in the comments.

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3 iPhone Apps to help maintain sanity

At the Stunt Ben house, we no longer measure time in minutes, we measure in lengths of diversions. My two year old doesn't want to sit in his chair at restaurants for more than 1 and 1/2 chicken strips. He doesn't want to sit in the stroller for more than 3 storefront windows at a time and likes to kick the back of my car seat and has the endurance to do it for 3 showings of Toy Story 2 straight. The stress and tension of stringing together micro diversions can drive any dad to the limits of sanity. But our days of stringing together diversion after diversion are over. I have found salvation in the iPhone and these three magical apps.

1. Thomas the Tank Engine Game Pack by HIT Entertainment- 3 games in 1 $2.99
   This app has 3 games rolled into a single app. "Match the Engines" is a memory game in which your little monster will flip over cards and have to find matching pairs. It also gets them even more acquainted with the hundreds of characters in the Thomas the Train franchise...joy. It also comes with a touch screen puzzle in which kids have to put the picture of their favorite engine together. Finally a maze game that challenges little ones to place missing pieces of tracks together so Thomas can get to the end. This app has kept my buddy entertained for dozens of minutes (that's years in toddler attention span) and saved my sanity time and time again. And it seems educational. This app provides plenty of calm minutes, so my guess is that the ROI is about .01 cents per non-squirmy minute. That's a bargain!
2. Super WHY by ABC Kids - $2.99
   Like the aforementioned Thomas the Train app, this is an amalgamation of games which helps to string together periods of peacefulness even while your toddler jumps from activity to activity within the app. This app teaches letters, writing, rhyming and rudimentary sentence structure. The sentence part is beyond my guys' skill level, but the app still entertains and teaches him. I think this purchase will continue to hold his attention as his skills and understanding of letters, words and sentences expands. A high return on investment for $2.99.
3. AlphaBaby by Laura Dickey - $.99
   The free version is the App that got me and my son hooked on the iPhone, encouraged me to buy him an iPod Touch, and a plethora of kid apps there after. This App still holds a soft spot in my heart because it not only opened the door to a few peaceful moments while pushing the stroller (past 3 storefront windows), it also taught my 2 year old numbers, shapes, and the alphabet in about 5 days. I was amazed at how quickly he learned and enjoyed playing with this App. It's simple, you touch the screen and either a number, shape or letter appears with a voice saying what it is. If you want to add a personal touch, you can record your voice over the provided canned voice so your child learns these important lessons to your voice. If you are looking for a way to help your little one learn letters, numbers, and shapes, I highly recommend this App.

As you can tell from the descriptions, these Apps not only provide a little sanity to your crazed hectic days and nights, they also help your child learn as well as reinforce valuable early learnings.

Any recommendations for favorite children Apps? Please share your experiences and favorites in the comments section of this post.

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