by Kate Etue | Tips + Tricks
Summer break will be here in just a minute, but there are some things you can start planning now to help make sure your kids don’t hit the summer slide on their reading and math skills over the break. Research shows that most kids lose about two months’ of...
by Kate Etue | Toys + Playthings
When I look back at some of my biggest parenting fails, most of them have occurred when I haven’t taken the time to consider my kids’ emotions or help them process their worry, anger, fear, or whatever else it is they are experiencing right in that very...
by Kate Etue | Toys + Playthings
Now that Thanksgiving is in the rearview mirror, it’s really starting to feel like Christmas to me. And as much as I love the shopping and the hot cocoa and the decorations, my favorite part is the parties. Instead of sending the kids to the playroom to watch a...
by Cool Mom Team | Spawned Podcast
Thanksgiving can be a challenging time for lots of people, but this year, well, let’s just say stress levels are at an all-time high. So, on today’s episode of Spawned with Kristen and Liz, we’re sharing our Thanksgiving survival tips, from setting...
by Delilah S. Dawson | Entertainment + Media
If your family is divided by the word nerds who love Scrabble and the strategists who love Monopoly, then we’ve found the family tabletop game for you. It’s called Word Domination, it’s on Kickstarter now, and it’s already winning gaming...
by Kate Etue | Toys + Playthings
During the summer I usually let my kids stay up late, but we ditch the screens and play board games together instead. So, each year I keep my eye on the Spiel des Jahres award-winning board games to find the best new board games that are guaranteed to be interesting...
by Christina Refford | Toys + Playthings
Now that my kids are old enough to play “real” games — you know, the ones where I don’t have to let them win — I love finding new clever and fun options for when we all gather around the table to play. So I was really excited to learn...
by Kate Etue | Toys + Playthings
The school year is winding down and I’m looking forward to nights with no homework (yay!) and fewer extracurricular activities on our calendar (double yay!). That means board game night. So I started to track down the best board games for older kids, since mine...
by Liz Gumbinner | Toys + Playthings
Kudos to my sister-in-law who scored with arguably the biggest hit of all the gifts this holiday season, Telestrations. Or actually, credit may go to my 9-year-old niece who saw it in a store and said, “hey, that looks fun” which was the understatement of...