Casual games are all the rage now, and the kids gaming and educational market are no exception. There is a lot to be said for introducing a child to basic technology skills early and you can certainly do worse than Sabi’s ItzaBitza. The game has an impressive drawing recognition program that makes the experience great for kids that have little or no drawing experience. The game is toted as a great assistant for helping kids learn to read and to stimulate creativity. While our time with the game was limited by the trial copy we were given, we did come away with a good list of pros and cons for the game.

The program is only available for Windows XP and VISTA at this time. Sorry my fellow Mac faithful, but we have been overlooked yet again unless you have a full version of XP/VISTA and can run it on BootCamp. It will run on pretty much any setup and the game is not by any means a system resource hog, so you should have no problem running this game on your home computer.

The graphics are pretty consistent with flash games you see on the web and has a cute aesthetic to it. There is a total of 5 areas that your child can play in within the game with varying levels of difficulty. Starting from Home Sweet Home, you can go Camping, to a Country Farm, go on a Space Adventure and finally traverse a Haunted House.
Read more

Wall-E is a much beloved figure around the Duck household, even before the movie came out. The very first Wall-E toy that we got for Lil’ Duck was this Interaction Wall-E, who loves to chatter and play. Lil’ Duck loves to play with him, the switch is easy to turn off and he likes to play with this Wall-E while off a lot, making him “talk” on his own and such. When we got it, we told him to be gentle to Wall-E’s head per the warning on the back, but we have picked him up by his head and dropped him a few times and nothing happened yet, he’s pretty sturdy. The front flap easily pops on and off if a certain child tries to stuff things “inside” and snaps it off, no harm done. It’s a little loud, but so are most of his toys. Well worth the purchase as he adores it and plays with him constantly, I think the many hours spent with this toy already will only multiply in the future as there is no sign of retiring this little guy in the near future . Plus, he plays so nicely with our iDance Wall-E!

I can’t believe it’s been over a year since we first got the Senseo during a previous promotion – we loved it then and still love it every morning . If you don’t yet have one, head over to the Senseo website – they are running a Share Senseo promotion where you can fill out a short survey for a chance to get the machine, pods & more for only $15 shipping/handling. Yummy. I recommend the Cappuccino Coffee Pods – add a little flavored syrup, milk & whipped cream and it’s almost as good as Starbucks – without the trip out with the little one!