helpful websites

With four kids in school and various activities, you can just imagine the number of forms I have to fill out and sign, pretty much on a weekly (sometimes, daily) basis. I don't even want to think about how long printing them, filling the…

We're so thrilled about the news that Duck Duck Moose , makers of some of the best preschool apps we've seen, will be joining Khan Academy . This means, parents will now have access to their apps for free. Yes, free! Related : 12 of the …

We recently shared tips for throwing a birthday party on a budget at Cool Mom Picks, and one of our favorite tricks is to use online invitations for the party. Not only does it save you a lot of money, but it makes tracking so much easie…

We know that as much as you rely on Cool Mom Tech (and Cool Mom Picks ) for product recommendations (right?), we pretty much all still check Amazon reviews before we make a purchase. But as you can probably guess, for many products, the …

Choosing your baby's name is serious business. You want one that will be meaningful but not cheesy, unique but not weird, and cool but not a passing fad. No pressure, right? Well, here are 2 of the best baby naming websites that were hug…

We just returned from a family vacation to Italy, and boy do I wish I had discovered the Rome2rio app before our trip. It could have saved us countless moments trying to decide the best way to get around the various sites with three kids…

Yes, we went with the slightly sanitized version on the name, because this is a family show here. But that doesn't take away from how much we love the hilarious, crazy-popular FB page turned full-fledged blog, I F'ing Love Science , also…

Every year around this time, I hear the buzz around Oscar-nominated films and roles, and every year around this time, I realize that I have seen, oh...none of them. I know a lot of you feel me. But with this compilation of flicks from th…

One thing that's become abundantly clear to me after a year of following Black Lives Matter tweets and listening more closely to what people of color have to say about their own heroes and history without media spin, is that a lot of us …

Over the course of the year on Cool Mom Tech, we’ve put together so many helpful tech tips and tricks, many of which are answers to reader questions we get via email, over Twitter , on Facebook , and heck, even from our friends and famil…

As we watched the events in Paris unfold on the news last night, we were shocked and horrified, and immediately wondering what we could do. We're feeling especially thankful for technology and social media today, which has made us feel a…

It seems the whole National Do Not Call Registry isn't always effective. Legit marketers have a lot of loopholes; charities, pollsters, political fundraisers and others are exempt; and then there are those shady marketers who simply don'…

I tend to browse lots of places looking for cool fonts that I may never use. (When it comes to typefaces I'm more of a collector than a designer; kind of like having lots of books at home you haven't yet opened. But I digress.) I've just…

Every year when our kids ask us about 9/11, we turn to BrainPop to help us tackle this challenging topic. This year, we're adding another helpful resource that we discovered on the 9/11 Memorial website that we think you'll want to check…

Leave it to NPR and Internet technology to create something as simple and wonderful as Playgrounds for Everyone , a community edited guide helping kids who require handicapped-accessible facilities find them easily. Turns out there actua…

Some of our kids are really picky when it comes to books -- not too long, not too short, with just the right plot points and character types. Then there are the ones who go through books so quickly that we can barely keep up with suggest…

This is a sponsored message from Amazon In honor of Amazon's 20th birthday, they're celebrating with Prime Day on July 15, during which Amazon Prime members can score even more deals than on Black Friday. And with their #PrimeLiving Phot…

I'm usually hesitant about buying a big, expensive LEGO kit because, after my kids put it together once, then what? Sometimes kids keep playing with it, sometimes it ends up dissembled with random bricks I discover all over the house mon…

Lately I've gotten sucked into a new website called If It Were My Home , which compares countries around the world to your own hometown, or any other location you designate in their search engine. You'll get a quick snapshot of all kinds…

As someone who works on the computer all day, I've got my various methods for keeping distractions at bay, aka "How not to check Facebook every four minutes to see who liked the photo of my daughter's artwork." But if you're like me, the…

This is a sponsored message for Webroot No matter how much you or your family is online, the last thing you want to worry about is malware, viruses, and data and identity theft. That's where the award-winning Webroot security software co…

If you're like me and watch Netflix on your computer or use it to browse easily and add titles to your queue, then you will want to add the new God Mode bookmarklet to your browser right now. This makes it so you can actually see all the…

Around here, we're all starting to wonder whether TV will continue to be relevant to our kids who are growing up in the age of online media. In fact, next to playing Minecraft, my tweens' favorite way to spend their screen time is watchi…

One of the reasons I love Twitter is because it really does give you the most up-to-date real time updates, and with the huge impending snowstorm 2015 headed my way, it makes it super helpful to stay on top of the weather. Parent transla…