Best Apps

I'm absolutely fascinated by the way my own kids and step kids use tech to make ongoing gift wish lists -- the iOS Notes app has become the method of choice for them and so far, that's working pretty well for us. Then I saw Jessica Bradl…

Before the holidays kick into full gear, I recommend you download one super-fun, get-off-the-couch app that also happens to be 100% free: Active Arcade. It's entirely designed to get you moving (and maybe burning off all that pie eating)…

I'm grateful for this list of the best apps for road trips with kids, because it turns out, I'm not allowed to put my kids in a hilarious sidecar by themselves during long drives. So I've been prepping my phone and the kids' iPad for the…

This holiday season, I've been researching apps for holiday planning as one of many ways to make big holiday meals easier. Whether you enjoyed last year's COVID-mandated reprieve from big get-togethers , or you're just raring to baste an…

I've been a huge Rebel Girls fan since their very first book came out, so naturally I'm so excited to hear about their brand new Rebel Girls app . The app features the stories of some of our favorite women -- Malala , Lady Gaga, Maya Ang…

I'm always on a quest for the best digital planner for the school year, because I have developed a very bad habit: Every year I get tempted by the beautiful, fun, old-fashioned paper planners I discover on Etsy or in our local stationery…

Lately I've heard some mixed opinions about the Focus feature on the latest iOS 15. If you haven't updated your iPhone yet, Focus mode is similar to the Sleep mode introduced with iOS 14 with even more detail and more ways to customize y…

It's been a while since we shared our favorite apps to help you get better sleep. So long, that our last post about favorite sleep apps seems to include apps all recently acquired by mattress companies. Hm. I did recently write about my …

As a former homeschooling parent, I am a huge fan of math apps for middle school -- and for tweens and teens whatever their grade level. I used to say that I was okay teaching math until around 3rd or 4th grade, and then I needed some he…

As we mentioned on Cool Mom Picks , our team is off on a little break this week. Don't we all need one these days? (The answer is yes. Yes we do.) But hey, before we took off, we wanted to put together some of our very favorite summer te…

My son is all about LEGO these days, which is why I was intrigued when I heard about Brikit , a new iPhone app that takes stock of the LEGOs you have and makes suggestions -- complete with instructions -- on what to build. Turns out, it'…

Like a lot of elder millennials, I resisted TikTok for a while. After all, why would I want to watch videos of toddlers spilling drinks when I can just look across my kitchen table? Sorry, Yeet Baby . But the more I delved into it, the m…

We recently got a question in our Out Tech Your Kids group asking about apps that read texts out loud while you drive, which got me started thinking about some tips and apps to help minimize distracted driving for teens. As parents, we n…

Each time there's a live streaming Apple Event to announce the new products and updates, we watch diligently to see what's new for parents and families, or which advances and improvements will actually make our lives a little easier, mor…

Over the past year, I have been so grateful for the sleep stories on Calm and some of the Apple Music playlists to help me fall asleep. The one issue: I was sometimes waking up in the middle of the night, my AirPods still in my ears...my…

This week in our Out Tech Your Kids Facebook group , we were asked how to prevent a Facebook hack, and specifically, if were any security measures to take that might help. And yes, yes there are! Here, a few really simple tips to help pr…

In our Out Tech Your Kids group on Facebook, a parent recently asked for recommendations for great news podcasts for kids. Our readers replied with some really good suggestions, so we wanted to round them up for you...and add a few more …

Do you have a struggling speller? As a homeschool mom , I know first-hand how hard it can be to try to explain spelling rules to a kid who doesn't quite get it, which is why I had to share the Wordcraft app that my kids have been playing…

Who else is thinking about gardening this spring? Along with our own Liz and Kristen who recently hosted the We Time Project and took a food gardening course (yay!), it seems like everyone is ready to put down the sourdough starter and g…

Since the new year started, I've been digging into the Apple Health app to try to do a better job of managing my health. What's cool is that it gathers data from multiple apps to give you a comprehensive picture of your health in one pla…

Like a lot of you, I'm looking to get a tighter rein on my budget in 2021. First up: subscriptions. If you're like me, you've got a lot of them, some of which I didn't even know I still had. Thankfully, there are apps that can help you m…

Every year I swear , this is the year I get organized! This is the year I find the best ever to-do list app and put everything on it and finally check things off my list instead of losing them forever and make more time for the things I …

With our kids spending significantly more time on their computers now that for many kids, school is online from home, we've realized something: they can't type. I mean, 16 wpm isn't something to brag about, champ. So we thought we'd look…

As a homeschool mom, I'm often looking for ways to mix things up for my kids so it doesn't get boring. Our Amazon Echo is often playing music or keeping track of our grocery list for us from our homeschool room, but when I realized how m…