If you can’t wait for your Baby Yoda fix, then we have some good news for you. Star Wars and Disney+ just announced that the second season of The Mandalorian will hit the streaming service next month on Oct. 30, 2020.
“This is the day. New episodes start streaming Oct. 30 on #DisneyPlus. #TheMandalorian,” Disney+ shared on Instagram.
Every episode of The Mandalorian Season One is currently available for streaming on Disney+, along with Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, which gives fans a peek behind the scenes of the first live-action Star Wars series.
You’ve documented every little tooth, smile and babble since birth. But once your baby can stand and walk, things really take off (literally!). We’re celebrating the endearing milestones of toddlerhood, from making friends to leaping with joy. Scroll down for 6 milestones to look forward to (or remember fondly) during the toddler years.
During that first year of life, your sweet baby looks to you for, well, everything. And then one day, they don't. The stage fraught with determination and a can-do attitude has earned a reputation as the terrible twos, but it's pretty wonderful too. And those first steps toward independence deserve to be celebrated. Your child feels secure enough to start to step away and find their own way.
We've been loving on these little munchkins from before they were born, but somewhere between 24 to 36 months, they verbalize their feelings for us with three simple words: I love you. Even if you aren't easily moved by milestones, this one will give you all the feels.
The smell of a newborn is intoxicating. The scent of newness doesn't linger long, but we still think babies smell pretty great long after that addictive odor wears off. However, once your baby can mobilize, they're perpetually grimy. Your toddler explores his or her world by touching all. the. things. And while it's amazing to watch their world grow, we suggest having a pack of wipes for post-dirt play.
When your toddler hands a prized toy to a perfect, pint-size stranger, you see the first glow of a friendship form. Empathy, that spark that allows us to connect with other humans, begins to emerge at around two years of age. Watching your child learn to make healthy bonds with those outside the family: priceless.
Running & Jumping with Abandon
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When your baby first began to walk, they toddled and toppled. But by around 27 months they can jump with both feet. By age three, they can run without falling over. At this point, it might be time to swap a stroller for a pair of sneakers so you can keep up!
Your child's first marks might look like chicken scratches, but by 36 months, those scribbles become frame-worthy. Watching your budding artist communicate through color and paint is reason to celebrate with your first fridge gallery.
Until recently, taking trips with the kids to museums was a regular weekend activity. Now that the museums are closed, and honestly we don’t feel comfortable venturing out, I began to think about how we can get our kids to engage with art.
It is important to keep kids interested in art even with less access. According to the Denver Art Museum, kids benefit from “experiencing the work of other artists—the importance of focus, experimentation, taking risks, and making mistakes.” It also fosters their creativity and they learn about cultures from around the world. Art helps kids express their emotions which is particularly important in today’s world with so much stress that might not have affected them before.
Taking inspiration and advice from Tam Gryn put me on the right track. She is a mom and an art curator who spent a lot of time traveling the world, living in NYC, and now calls Miami her home with her husband and two small children. Tam began her art career with the Artist Pension Trust and had several other impressive positions with different galleries and art fairs. She is currently the Head Curator at Showfields, a unique shopping and art experience retailer.
So, how to keep the kids interested in art and in making their own? Tam gave me great suggestions.
1. START THEM YOUNG—VERY YOUNG
Tam explained that when she was pregnant with her son, she was an independent art curator in NYC. With her pregnant belly, she knocked on gallery doors asking if there was availability on the calendar for a radical art exhibition. The Radiator Gallery picked up the show “Conceived Without Sin,” an ironic title given her pregnant state. When the opening day arrived, her then three-month-old son was in attendance. She explained, “My artist friends were supportive. We took turns to carry, feed, and play with my baby while the exhibition was being installed. I believe that exposing children to art when they are tiny gets them to believe that art is a part of everyday life and activities.”
2. TURN ART INTO A STORY
Online art tours at museums, public outdoor art installations, and many great books for adults and kids are engaging. Tam recommends that even if your children are young, a good way to introduce them to artists is through stories and anecdotes about the art, the artists, the space, and the context around them. Since kids love to run around and can sometimes be loud, public outdoor art exhibits are a safe and entertaining way to give children exposure without fighting with them to behave. Most museums offer family days or family programs online including kid-friendly arts and crafts, book readings, and other stimulating activities that are fun and educational.
3. WATCH YOUR KIDS EXPERIENCE ART & YOU’LL LEARN TOO
Tam told me that observing her kids experience art inspired her to make one of her boldest career moves. She explained that because kids discover the world through their multiple senses, it’s counter-intuitive to tell them “Don’t touch!” That is when she realized that most art was exhibited in a way that felt unnatural. Exhibitions are usually restricting and intimidating and are meant to be seen with your hands behind your back. This understanding led Tam to start commissioning artists to create interactive art.
Interactive art is meant to stimulate the 16 additional human senses including: hearing, touch, taste, smell, pressure, itch temperature, pain, thirst, hunger, direction, time, muscle tension, proprioception, equilibrioception, and extrasensory perception. Interactive art is inclusive for children and offers adults the instinctive childhood experience of exploring beyond their visual senses. Experiencing art using your entire body leaves you no choice but to connect, especially in a world filled with technology and 2D imagery.
You probably have interactive art at home. One day, Tam’s kids were playing with Mister Potato Head and her 3-year-old said, “He is like Picasso!” Kids interpret what they experience to their everyday lives and it becomes a part of how they see the world.
4. ASK YOUR KIDS WHAT THEY THINK
When looking at art, let your children explore and seek out what they want to see first. Tam says that at home, she tries to steer them towards specific books that she knows will stimulate them more than others. If you are looking for a way to have your children express their emotions in a constructive way, which can often be extremely challenging, see what they are drawn to and ask them questions.
Once, Tam and her daughter encountered a piece that was made with broken glass and other found objects. Her daughter asked why the piece was broken. Tam explained that the artist was probably angry and had broken objects to create something beautiful, and that is art. Her daughter was happy to hear this, and it seemed like she identified with those feelings. That moment might not have happened had Tam not allowed her daughter to seek out the piece and then start talking about it.
5. APPRECIATING ART AT HOME
One of Tam’s favorite summertime activities with her kids is inspired by the established artist Carlos Cruz Diez and his color studies. A great activity to do outdoors is to use food coloring, water, and droppers in different bowls. Kids can learn about primary colors and by mixing them, they can find out which secondary colors are created. The kids entertain themselves for hours, playing with the water and their toys.
While we navigate the summer with our children, exploring new forms of art is a positive way to spend the day, will inspire your children to be creative, and may even offer them a way to express some of their frustrations and emotions and turn it into something beautiful.
I'm a mom of two children, wife, and love my fur baby, traveling and playing UNO. My passion is discovering services and products by entrepreneurs, especially those that can cut down on some screen time and help our family create lasting memories together.
Kids science that involves candy, potato Technology, marble-run Engineering, Art with squirt guns and Math hopscotch? Today’s STEAM projects are all about the fun and they’ll ward off boredom to boot. Click through the gallery to get a few fun science projects for your little learners.
Science: Candy Density Experiment
This colorful experiment found on CandyExperiments teaches your little scientist all about density using candy as the main ingredient. What’s not to love about this weighty rainbow! Remember: the volume of sugar in each colored layer is the key to figuring out why the colors rise or sink.
photo: Allison Sutcliffe
What experiments are you up to? Share your ideas and photos by emailing Editor AT tinybeans.go-vip.net.
Oh, how quickly our daily lives have adopted a new normal! If all this at-home time has morphed into more screen time for your kids, finding online platforms suitable for our little ones is probably on your list. Enter local artist, Catherine Mayer, who just released a free version of her art-based mindfulness app, The L.A.U.G.H® App. It’s built to reduce anxiety and stress, provide an outlet for creativity and increase learning, belonging and confidence in our tiny students. Read on for the 411 on this new drawing app!
UnwrAPPing the Details
Michael Graubard, WHY FOR GOOD
The L.A.U.G.H® App, which encourages users to ‘Let Art Unleash Great Happiness’, is a novel way to deliver mental and emotional relief to our kids. After years of doing her research, and working in conjunction with sociologists, psychologists, behavioral specialists and physicians, Catherine Mayer has gifted us with this drawing tool that is designed to engage several senses simultaneously, such as vision, tactile, listening and focused breathing. Our kid testers dove into The L.A.U.G.H® App’s features to find out what it’s all about, what features they liked best and what parents will be excited to hear about!
The Initial APProach
Michael Graubard, WHY FOR GOOD
When you first open the app, your kiddos will be able to choose the emoji that corresponds with how they are currently coping emotionally (which also gives parents that sneak peek into our kids’ mental well-being). Then, it's on to an uber-encouraging tutorial where kids are introduced to an initial breathing exercise to relax and prepare their minds for the upcoming activities. Ahhhh! After finding their zen, kids are ushered to the art exercise, where they're taught to draw pictures by focusing on each individual shape, contour, shadow and texture. After a few follow-alongs, it's on to selecting a photo from the gallery (about 30 options in all) to complete your own drawing/tracing exercises, while listening to relaxing music that you can change to fit your mood. There are three cool options!
The app's toolkit, with various digital pens, paintbrushes, erasers, chalk and more, ensures each picture can be completely customized. The app also inspires its users to work at their own pace, relax and recognize that there is never a wrong way to draw or trace a picture. Parents will love how it encourages personal expression! After your kiddos create their masterpieces, they can then save their artwork in their own gallery or they can produce a slideshow to show off their work to you. Very user-friendly!
Michael Graubard, WHY FOR GOOD
For some kids the hardest part of the exercise may be going slow. But The L.A.U.G.H® App reminds kids to relax, breath and allow themselves the time to be completely absorbed in a creative and calming activity. It's easy to see how this app provides an outlet for creativity and can also help reduce anxieties and stressors our kids face everyday!
If You APPreciate Proof
Michael Graubard, WHY FOR GOOD
While there's no doubt our family testers enjoyed the app and what it offers, it’s important to point out that The L.A.U.G.H® App has gone through its own testing and trials (including research with University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Research Institute) to make it just right. In school trials, researchers found that the app had significant influence on students’ moods over time. In fact, after around seven sessions of L.A.U.G.H® Time, students showed a 4.7% improvement in their moods, and measurable increases in the kiddos’ joy of learning and school connectedness. As they studied this phenomenon, they found that the joy of learning score was 18.7% higher, and school connectedness was 19.2% higher at the end of L.A.U.G.H® Time. That means that belonging directly affects joy of learning and together they have a positive influence on a student’s mood. Hence the importance of launching this app at a time like this.
How They APProach the Future
SchoolPRPro via Pixabay
So what will The L.A.U.G.H.® App look like in the future? “We know there is a considerable appetite in our world for calm, less anxiety and a creative outlet for kids, families – and really everyone,” said Mayer. “In future versions of the app we will be adding features appropriate for the classroom–including the ability to share to multiple screens (Ambient Art®), as well as new adventures focused on music, movement, breathing and other elements that reinforce mindfulness, focus and social emotional learning and behavior.”
If we’ve whet your APPetite, you can download The L.A.U.G.H. ® App for free in the Apple App Store for iPad only and in the Google Play Store for tablet or phone.
You’ve picked out the crib and the perfect little onesie, but before you bring home Baby there’s an important piece of baby gear not to leave off your list.
Say hello to the new RELX base for PIPA series car seats. It’ll help your family go the distance when it comes to trips of all types. And it’ll mean one less thing to figure out as you navigate parenthood.
There are tons of reasons to check out this new base from Nuna, but here are some of our favorites:
Brilliant features
Bubble-free install clearly indicates the base is installed correctly
Anti-rebound panel
Locking 3-piece steel stability leg
Low profile base for easier loading of your PIPA series car seat
Superior functionality
5-second install with True lock™ technology
Stability leg is adjustable to fit most vehicles and even middle seats
4 position on-the-go recline with clear recline angle indicators
Smooth platform preserves vehicle seats
Whether you commute as a family on a daily basis, or save car trips for weekends and beyond, the RELX base will ensure you can do everything safely and easily. In just two quick steps, your baby’s seat can go from stroller to car and ready to roll. Choose from an adjustable rigid latch or your car’s seat belt to install the RELX base. Parents can rest assured that everything is safe and sound thanks to colored indicators (green means go!) and a locking stability leg (it minimizes forward rotation during impact).
It’s a brilliant buy for families with multiple cars and for families in search of safe and simple car seat solutions. The multi-position RELX base combines unparalleled style and innovation. It accommodates various car seat angles and is compatible with all PIPA series car seats. To accompany the first-of-its-kind RELX base, Nuna expanded its car seat family with two new expertly engineered, premium infant car seats—PIPA™ rx and PIPA™ lite r. We all need that kind of flexibility in our lives with little kids!
Nuna has been at the forefront of modern baby gear since 2007. As a global brand with Dutch origins, Nuna is keenly focused on both manufacturing and design, ensuring that all materials and processes are safe, superior, and truly mindful. Chances are, you’re probably familiar with Nuna’s contemporary collection of car seats, strollers, kiddie cots, chairs, and carriers. But if you haven’t become educated on Nuna gear, we highly recommend perusing the video gallery to see and learn more.
Explore some of your favorite Las Vegas spots for kids from the comfort of your own home. Explore science, take a virtual rafting trip through the Grand Canyon, learn the history of Vegas’ most famous neon signs and more. Parents, we’ve got you covered with this list of virtual events for kids in Las Vegas!
At Home Discoveries from Discovery Children's Museum
DISCOVERY Children's Museum
The Museum may be temporarily closed, but there is still plenty to be DISCOVERED! Kids will enjoy the digital resources to help keep them busy during this time of social distancing. Learn how electricity works, find out why it's important to wash your hands and more.
Head to the Barnes & Noble YouTube page for story times read by children's book authors. Follow #BNStorytime for more stories from your favorite authors, special guests, and more!
For more virtual fun every day of the week, head to our virtual events calendar. You'll find dance classes, scavenger hunts, animal encounters, drawing classes and MORE!
Now you can stream the entire Skywalker saga all in one place. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, will begin streaming two months early on Disney+ in honor of “May the 4th,” otherwise known as “Star Wars Day” by fans around the world. Starting with the original film in 1977, the nine-part saga is available within Disney+’s extensive collection of Star Wars movies and series including The Mandalorian, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Lucasfilm and director J.J. Abrams joined forces once again to deliver Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the thrilling climactic chapter in the Skywalker saga, bringing the heroic struggle to restore peace and freedom to the galaxy to an epic, resounding conclusion.
The film stars Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Anthony Daniels, Naomi Ackie, Domhnall Gleeson, Richard E. Grant, Lupita Nyong’o, Keri Russell, Joonas Suotamo, Kelly Marie Tran, with Ian McDiarmid and Billy Dee Williams
In addition to new content offerings, Disney+ will also honor the artistry of Star Wars with a week-long concept art takeover on the service. Like a commemorative gallery, each film and series’ artwork will be updated on May 4th to feature its original concept paintings.
Star Wars Day, May the Fourth, is a popular day among Star Wars fans. Disney+ wants to do it’s part by honoring this community by releasing brand new original content which will join the streaming service’s collection of Star Wars movies and shows. This year, fans can look forward to the highly anticipated conclusion of Star Wars: The Clone Wars alongside the global premiere of the new eight-episode documentary series, Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian.
Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian is an eight-episode documentary series that goes behind the scenes on The Mandalorian. Each chapter explores a different facet of the first live-action Star Wars television show through interviews, never-before-seen footage, and roundtable conversations hosted by Jon Favreau.
Also, after seven seasons, Star Wars: The Clone Wars will come to a close on May 4, giving fans around the world the chance to watch the finale together for Star Wars Day.
With the kids home from school amid school closings due to the coronavirus pandemic, you are probably looking for fun and educational ways to keep them busy. There’s only so much Netflix a person can watch. Google Arts & Culture has teamed up with over 500 museums and galleries around the world to bring you virtual tours and online exhibits of some of the most famous museums around the world.
Google Arts & Culture’s collection includes hudreds of places where you can learn more about art, histrory, math and science. Students looking to keep up with their studies will benefit from these offerings while they are stuck in the house.
The follwing museums and galleries are among those included in the collection:
British Museum, London
Guggenheim Museum, New York
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul
Pergamon Museum, Berlin
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Uffizi Gallery, Florence
MASP, São Paulo
National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City
To see more of Google Arts & Culture’s collection of museums, visit the collection’s website.
