GIVEAWAY: PlainTales Children's Stories on CD

UPDATE: The winners are Mirielle and Tech Savvy Mama!

My kids always want to listen to tunes or stories in the car. Unfortunately, their CD choices do not include Death Cab for Cutie or the latest Anita Shreve book on tape. We've been through the Raffi, Laurie, Milkshake archives and have listened to dozens of Disney stories. I can sing and recite their favorites in my sleep. Check this out: "You can read along with me in your book. You will know it's time to turn the page when Tinker Bell rings her little bells like this ding. Let's begin now."

Thank goodness we have some new stories in the rotation now: PlainTales. This series offers classic kids stories on CD. And thanks to the PlainTales folks, I have two different CDs for two different age ranges to give away!

The first CD is PlainTales First Tales, which includes the timeless stories of The Gingerbread Boy, The Billy Goats Gruff, The Frog Prince, Little Red Hen and The Bremen Town Musicians. All are told with simple, engaging language perfect for kids 0-6 years.

Next is PlainTales Explorers Animal Tales. This CD tells the longer, more mature and nature-focused stories of three brave animals. Kids 4 and up, especially Animal Planet devotees, will love learning of how Hazard the coyote must find food for his pack, how a young raccoon named Lotor needs to find a new home and how Osa the brown bear builds the perfect winter den. These stories about fictional animal friends are rich with detail about real animal behaviors, so children learn as they enjoy the fun.

I have one of each CD for giveaway, so leave a comment with the one you'd prefer! I'll randomly draw the winner in one week.

Check out the other cool PlainTales offerings on the website!

DreamBox Learning K-2 Math is a winning combination of entertainment and learning

My son's adoration of DreamBox Learning K-2 Math is like a frat guy after finals with a new video game. A Mac fiend gazing upon the latest Steve Jobs vision. Heck, he reminds me of teenage me in my orthodontic headgear with my Nintendo Tetris back in 1989. Charlie is totally engrossed in playing DreamBox online, and he has no idea that his allotted computer time with this game is thoroughly teaching him serious arithmetic.

The former camera magnet can't even turn his eyes away for one quick snap

DreamBox Learning K-2 Math is an online game where kids have fun learning math. It launched in January 2009 and thanks to Parentbloggers, Charlie and I had the opportunity to be beta users. Charlie is having a blast, and I'm really impressed. My pre-kindergarten five year old is learning an in-depth math curriculum and receiving completely individualized learning in an engaging, creative manner. The game guides him to learn in age-appropriate progression, but he still feels he's "choosing his own adventure," much like when he plays purely fun games. See how it works.

Screenshot of DreamBox's "menu" map of kids' learning game choices

As his parent, I am receiving regular emailed updates of Charlie's progress, the skills he's learning, where he needs to improve, what obstacles he faced and then worked out through the games. I can also access a parent dashboard anytime that shows me what he's learning, what lessons he's completed and the grade level of each skill he's accomplished or working on.

Screenshot of the DreamBox Parent Dashboard

In an email CEO Lou Gray sent to all parent beta testers, Gray writes that the DreamBox team "consists of top notch educators, entrepreneurs, technologists, and creative designers" who "spent over 3 years developing this product." I think their attention to detail is evident. My kids and I have tried out various online and CD-ROM learning games, and I do feel that DreamBox was intuitive for my child so he could begin learning immediately, captured his attention and imagination, and had a winning combination of entertainment and learning.

Some really cool concrete results: Charlie can now count by tens to 100, understands the number grouping concept, and is starting to "get" the idea of counting by twos/even numbers. Hey, hopping over every other number when you're barely five years old sure beats hopping over sliding mushrooms!

And you and your child can check out the learning games for free too! Click here to try DreamBox Learning K-2 Math FREE for 14 days.

Rosetta Stone è stupefacente!

As illustrated in the photo at left, the Italian sentence Ha un pesce means
A) he/she has a book
B) he/she is contemplating an inner-office romance
C) he/she has a fish

Welcome to Rosetta Stone! This award-winning, critically-acclaimed language software is at the top of the heap of foreign language learning programs, and was at the very top of my Christmas list this year. I received the software one month ago and I am totally surprised at how quickly I am learning! Wow, I sound like Michael Phelps, but it's the truth.

I have a working knowledge of Spanish (translation: four years study in high school, two years in college, one class after college, grew up on the Mexico border and I STILL suck and stumble through easy conversations) and a passion for Italy. I thought it would be cool to start fresh in learning a new language, but one in the Romance language family, relatively close to that of my previous Spanish study. And with two little kids at home, a house to run, work projects to pursue and a bad track record in classroom learning retention, I thought a proven effective home study program the best tactic.

And I was right! I love how the learning is completely different than the traditional text book/teacher/workbook way I studied a foreign language in the past. Rosetta Stone doesn't force you to memorize vocabulary, grammar and verb conjugation rules that are virtually impossible to apply to a real world conversation or reading of a newspaper. Instead, the software simulates the environment of being immersed in a language, which as any study-abroad student will tell you is the best way to truly learn a new language. Rosetta Stone accomplishes this immersion feel with the use of images combined with audio pronunciation. Just as little babies learn their mother tongue through marrying the new words they hear with the objects they see, Rosetta Stone's amazing word/image association method helps the student to truly learn the language. Even a previous classroom failure like me.

The reason for the software's seemingly high price of 230 bones is Rosetta Stone's first-rate speech recognition system that analyzes the user's accent and (often incorrect) pronunciations using the included headset microphone. So you're not just learning how to understand others, but also speak the language well. As someone who uses free software all day long (no offense Google gods), I think the technology is incredible and worth every cent. It's super easy to use and install. You can actually buy the software for a non-technically-inclined person older than 40 and not fear they'll be too daunted to use it.

It comes with an audio companion so you can reinforce your computer learning during your commute, workout or while driving around with the kids. My children love it too. You should hear my two year old's emphatic pronunciation of ciao. She sounds like a kid in a Roberto Benigni flick.

Rosetta Stone is making my learning of a brand new language simpler and more intuitive than I ever thought possible. Me! Someone who has been telling people for years that I'm just bad at languages. Check out how excited I've made Roberto with my progress!

Chiaramente, è buono. Clearly, it's good.

Rosetta Stone Language Learning Software
Level 1 Italian, Version 3 with audio companion
Cost: $233