GetItNext Blog

Holiday Hot Items: Syma Helicopter

Finding the perfect gift for your kids can be a difficult task at times, but not worry, we're here to help! Here we have a fun, reasonably priced toy called the Syma Helicopter which is the perfect gift for a child or young teen that loves to fly! The Syma Helicopter comes in a variety of different colors and for those of you who are worried about trying to assemble this thing, Syma comes fully assembled. The remote control for the copter comes in three channels: up/down, left/right, forward/backward. The range for the helicopter is 30 feet and lasts about 12 minutes on a 30-minute charge. This is definitely a toy that your kids will not be disappointed to unwrap this holiday season!

The Coolest Toy You Can Buy Your Child...their own ride.

To this day, I still remember what my favorite gift of all time was. I was five, and like any other kid that age, I couldn’t sleep at all the night before Christmas. The anticipation and excitement my brother and I had for the morning to come was so overwhelming, we made our parents wake up at 5:30 am to open up gifts. The second my brother and I got downstairs, we saw a massive box right by the Christmas tree. It must have been 5 feet tall and 6 feet across! I thought it might have been all of my presents in one box, but I was wrong. My parents had told us to “save the big box for last.” So I went through my stocking stuffers and other gifts; a cd player, mighty duck movies on vhs, clothes, board games, and a gameboy if I remember correctly. Then came the time for the big box. Ripping through it like a mad man, I soon realized what was in that box - my very own Jeep Electric Car. Elated, I took that bad boy straight to the streets! Those tiny metal toy cars were definitely in my rear view mirror now! This thing was IT! all the kids on the block asking me for a ride, it was great!

Many years ago when I was five, there was a limited amount of electric car designs. Now, you can purchase all different types of electric cars. Listed are the two most popular models you can purchase for your kids!

1. The Lambo

2. Ferrari

Just dont tell them how much these cars cost in real life!

 

 

A Zipfy + Snow + Gravity = Fun!

The Zipfy mini sled is a compact and lightweight sled that’s been on the market for a few years now. This aerodynamic mini sled zips down hills and is easy to carry back up the hill, which is a big plus because we all know how much of a pain it is to carry the sled back up! Zipfy is equipped with a special lever for stability and control, which makes it simple to maneuver and quick to stop. The Zipfy sled is made for children, but can hold up to 250 lbs so parents don’t be shy to take a run with this cool sled!

 

Learning has taken on a new level of fun with the LeapFrog LeapPad!

The LeapFrog LeapPad is a personalized learning tablet made just for kids! The company states that the tablet comes with the following:

• A library of 100+ cartridge games, apps, digital books, videos and flash cards.

• Includes a built-in camera & video recorder, 5" touch screen for use with finger or included stylus.

• 2GB of memory, enabling it to host a robust suite of apps including: innovative book apps that provide a fully interactive, cinematic reading experience with word-by-word support and state-of-the-art gameplay; a Story Studio to combine art, audio and writing; Art, Animation and Photo studios to inspire imaginations.

• A broad curriculum including reading, mathematics, science, geography, art, music, language and culture, health and more. Plus, skill levels automatically adjust the challenge to match each child's pace and it remembers progress from game to game and book to book.

• Access to view learning progress through the online LeapFrog Learning Path. Parents can also share their child’s achievements, artwork and creations with loved ones.

The LeapFrog has won numerous awards and truly is a great device to help your children learn in a fun, interactive way!

 

Harry Potter Complete DVD Collection Deal

Have 1,180 minutes to spare? In limited quantity and for a limited time, save over 40% on the New DVD Boxset, Harry Potter: The Complete 8-Film Collection! See J.K. Rowling's wonderous story brought to life on film and screen in its entirety!

Keep up with Harry and the gang if you can! Great gift idea for the fan in your life!

What's Not To Like About Pumpkins?

What better representation of a North American autumn is there, with Thanksgiving and Halloween in the mix, than the humble pumpkin. Whether its the smell or the taste or their appearance, pumpkins are a very distinctive fruit (yes, pumpkins are a fruit!). This past weekend, I went pumpkin picking with my girlfriend and truly forgot how much fun the experience was. We saw kids wearing pumpkin shirts, little babies wearing pumpkin hats, and parents enjoying pumpkin pie. I understand pumpkins are notoriously associated with Halloween where kids love carving pumpkins into cool or funny or scary faces, but why can't we enjoy them all year round? I guess like anything we would all get tired of pumpkins sooner or later. For those of you out there though who love pumpkins as much as me, here are five pumpkin items you can enjoy all year round!

1. Pumpkin Candle

2. Pumpkin Jewelry

3. Pumpkin Soap

4. Pumpkin Blanket

5. Pumpkin Rug

Avoiding Aggravation While Capturing Your Child on Camera

 
 
Cooperation and taking your child’s picture are as synonymous as water and oil.  But some of the most precious shots you can capture are done informally and taken with a simple compact camera like the Canon PowerShot, Kodak Easy Share, or Nikon Cool Pix.  The first step: choose the location.  Parks, playgrounds and backyards are comfortable locations for children.  Early morning light and late afternoon, before the sun sets, provides enough natural light conducive to photography without additional filters or flash settings.  Avoid direct sunlight at midday which will cause squinting and harsh effects.

Next step: is to relax.  Do not try to “direct” the scene.  Rather, let your child act naturally in the environment.  Do not discount those shots of your child racing down a slide, peeking between objects or discovering a bug in the grass.  Thanks to digital camera technology and high shutter speeds, you can snap away maximizing your chances for the best shot.  Because most cameras come with picture-editing programs that can be downloaded, you will be able to crop almost everything out of the photograph but the perfect smile.  Also, you will be able to experiment with color filters and change the photos to black and white or sepia prints. It can be fun if you try!

Kids have it too easy these days

I swore I would never do it but it has happened: I am using my parent’s quotes on my own children.  From “don’t make me pull this car over” to “money doesn’t grow on trees”, I am forever spouting off some phrase that would irritate me to no end as a child.  But I will agree with you when you say kids have it too easy these days.  I had shoes for the walk to school, uphill, both ways in the snow but I still complained as do my children.

My children are afforded shoes with Velcro tabs while I had to actually learn how to tie a bow.  They will complain about waiting at the bus stop in the snow even though they have Uggs.  You know what I had?  Rubber galoshes and I had to put plastic bags over my feet to keep them dry before I put them on.  Not only that, I had to carry my real shoes to school to change into.   If I wanted music on my journey to school, I had to sing.  I try to tell them about The Walkman and all they can envision is an Ipod Touch.   Can I download music to it?  Yes, but I have to get a blank cassette tape and wait for my favorite song to come on the radio and dive accross the room to hit record and then play on my boom box.  That always gets a blank stare.  And they ask me when I got my first cell phone.  Ummm…when I was an adult.  How did you ever get in touch with your mom and dad without an iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android they would ask?  I carried a dime and used a pay phone…more blank stares. Kids these days.

I am now introducing “The Little House on the Prairie” series to my children.  That was the show that made me realize, as a child, how much I had to be thankful for: electricity, running water and a working toilet.  Of course, my children are watching the series on a monsterous LED HD TV while sitting on a leather couch.  I think some of the concepts may be lost in translation.

Keep your kids safe by the pool with Safety Turtle!

Every year we hear horrible stories of young children drowning in pools. Lack of supervision has predominantly been the root cause in these occurrences, which is why a company called Safety Turtle has created a potentially life-saving tool for your children by the pool. The Safety Turtle Child Immersion Alarm is an effective “last line of defense” to protect your child against water accidents. An alarm sounds at the base station the instant he or she falls into the water. The Safety Turtle Wireless Gate Alarm extends this protection to the perimeter pool fence by reinforcing its weakest link – the gate. You can never have too many eyes and ears on the pool!

Back to School - The Evolution of Elementary Lunching

Well it's that time of year again...Back to School!

Lunch boxes have evolved as much as the food that goes in them since the days we toted our own lunches to school.  Now, there are soft lunch boxes with current favorite characters, such as Barbie, Hanna Montana, iCarly, Jonas Brothers, and Hello Kitty including  insulated lunch “purses” featuring Hello Kitty.  Laptop Lunches Bento Box Lunch System comes complete with different sized storage containers and snap-on lids that fit in a hard-cased, plastic container.  This system is perfect for keeping sandwiches that can be squashed by heavier items as well as separating ranch dip from the carrots.  Another advantage to using the system is the reduction in the amount of non-biodegradable trash used to wrap lunch products.  Metal lunch boxes are still available, but slightly different than we remember them.  However, you can still find a vintage lunch box such as Star Wars, Scooby Doo,  Buck Rogers, or KISS with little effort and get the same nostalgic effect!