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...
The coolest lanyard pattern instructions that every camper needs.
Lanyards are a summer camp mainstay — remember making them back in the day? But like so many things from our own childhoods, these knotted summer crafts have only gotten way cooler. Lanyards (also called scoubidous, scoobies, boondoggles, scooby doggles, gimps,...
5 sleepaway camp postcard sets that are cool enough for cynical kids.
Since old fashioned pen to paper is usually the required form of communication at camps, cool sleepaway camp postcards make it easy! They keep writing short and sweet, don’t require envelopes, and if you give your kid a set all stamped and ready to go, the odds...
14 cool, creative summer camp care package ideas for your happy campers
If your kids are headed to sleepaway camp — or already there — you’re probably already planning out a great summer care package, filled with items your kids will love, to help ease the anxiety, keep them busy during quiet hours, help them make...
A BTDT mom’s guide to surviving sleepaway camp (you, not the kids!) | Spawned episode 79
Today on Spawned, guest host Stacie Billis joins Liz for a great chat that should put all you first-time sleepaway camp parents — or future sleepaway camp parents — at ease. Well, mostly. Tune in for tips like when to know your kid is ready for camp, how...
Every kid doesn’t deserve a trophy. But they might deserve a merit badge.
Your kid may not be in Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts or the National Honor Society. But I still love this new take on old school merit badges by The Honor Society. It’s simply a collection of badges that encourage kids to do good, be good, and live good lives that...
6 essential sleepaway camp packing tips to keep you organized and sane (if not a little sad)
If your kid is going to sleepaway camp this summer — especially if it’s for the first time — your family is probably dealing with a lot of organizational kerfuffles right about now. Not the least of which is packing. Even though your camp will send...
The sports bra solution for girls who don’t quite need a sports bra.
It’s hard to believe that when we started this site, I was thinking about binkies for my daughter, and now it’s like I blinked — and I’m thinking about bras. Gah! While I wholly admit that the affordable Target made-up-brand-name bras are...
2017 EWG best safe sunscreens for kids and babies: Which is the most affordable?
Every year, I take a look at the Environmental Working Group’s report on the best safe sunscreens for kids and babies. This list measures popular brands against the EWG’s standards, including everything from worrisome ingredients to false marketing claims....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).
But we did.
And we still love what we do every single day.
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