6 children’s books to read during Asian and Pacific Island heritage month. Beyond Moana.
Did you know May is Asian and Pacific Island Heritage Month? Honestly, I didn’t either until this week. And even though we don’t hear much about it in our news feeds — or maybe, because we don’t hear much about it — I thought it would be...
Whoa. These celebrity-designed Vans for Custom Culture offer crafting inspiration galore.
If you have a tween or teen (or you’re just a cool mom) you probably have a pair of Vans in your house. How many are gathering dust in your closet? Five? Ten? Forty? Van’s Custom Culture program might just inspire you to give those shoes a new life. The program...
4 very cool first-words books for toddlers that are anything but basic
My tweens (gah!) grew up reading Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever, and I have to admit — it’s hard to argue with that title. It’s a classic! But a some new and very cool first-words books have caught my eye recently, and I just have to...
4 must-read books about the environment to read with your kids on Earth Day, and any other day
Today is Earth Day, and my kids love the Earth Day challenge to turn off all electricity for one hour. So we’re planning to turn off the lights, cuddle up by our battery-powered lanterns — or the fireplace, if this cold weather doesn’t move on! For...
Why Little Guides to Great Lives is the next cool biography series to buy your kids
I’m nearly finished reading Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls to my kids at bedtime, and they’ve become so fascinated by these biographies that I’ve been trying to find even more more for them to read when we’re done. So when I received a copy...
8 books that teach kids about the Holocaust. Because we haven’t forgotten, and neither will they.
This week was Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day, and we were all shocked to see the results of a new survey about Holocaust awareness in the United States: The atrocities of the Holocaust are fading from the public’s memory, so much so that...
7 wonderful benefits of STEM for kids. It’s not just about coding!
Brought to you by our amazing sponsor, Play-Well TEKnologies, which has offered LEGO-inspired STEM camps for kids for the past twenty years. Wow. More than 100,000 kids each year have benefited from their terrific summer program — maybe yours will be one of them...
Handwriting help for kids of all ages: 11 fun and effective handwriting resources because that note says WHAT?
I desperately need handwriting help for kids in my home, and so I’ve been working so hard to find resources, printables, and other tricks to help make handwriting practice more fun (hopefully? maybe?) for them. My requirements: They have to get them excited to...
Wordie alert: 17 of the best new words added to the dictionary this month. Starting with “wordie.”
Fellow word nerds, gather round, as we take a moment for one of our top pastimes, checking out the new words added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary this month. (Other favorite pastimes, by the way, include doing the Sunday Times Crossword, and practicing yoga...Hi! We’re Kristen + Liz!
We started Cool Mom Picks in 2006 to help make life cooler, easier, more organized, more meaningful, and more fun for parents of all kinds.
Trivia: It was called Cool Mom Sh*t for the first two days. (Yeah, we rethought that.)
We had no idea our site would grow to become a major lifestyle network, that we'd end up sharing our finds with the TODAY Show and Martha Stewart, that we'd be able to make a real difference for so many small businesses and women-run companies, or that we'd end up with an incredible community of the coolest readers on the planet. (If we do say so ourselves).
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