Why I Finally Let my 3 Year Old have iPad Screen Time #WindyHoliday #Giveaway

 The electronics, in our house, are not yet for the kiddos. 3.5 year old H has a few reasonable ‘techie’ toys; 2 year old A has none, and neither of them are allowed to touch either our phones or the iPad for any reason.

There are just so many toys and books and games and crayons and colouring books in our house and our kiddos love their TV screen time…. A) they don’t need any more screen time in their life right now and B) they certainly don’t need to have such an expensive toy at their disposal (they’ve used Oma’s iPad before, but never ours).

HOWEVER. This week, I let my little man have his first EVER turn on our family iPad. Why now? Because I fell in love with Windy & her friends. Windy was born into a popular series of kid’s books in the early 2000’s, and while they’re now out of print, I love her so much that I actually ordered a few used books off of Amazon and am kinda impatient for them to arrive. 🙂  

 There is a whole world of Windy & her friends – telephone poles made out of pencils, beavers made out of potatoes, and that yarn hair is super adorable. The creators of Windy & Friends, Judith Steedman & Robin Mitchell Cranfield, are young moms & recognize the importance of kids getting out into the world and getting creative – so they have a crafts section on Windy & Friends website of different things that you can create with your kids to get their imagination working after the appisodes! As you know, the whole getting-up-and-trying-something is pretty important to me. 

  My little H-man was just entranced by the Windy & Friends Holiday Appisode. When he watches TV, he zones in. He loves Bo on the Go, but, unlike his sister who gets up and runs around and does jumping jacks, he sits, slightly slumped, on the couch with his mouth partially open with an unblinking stare. This Windy episode, though, he was moving and thinking and talking, “I’m having so much FUN, mommy! Do you think that I should click on the circle? I wonder who is in the green triangle?” It was rewarding to see him interacting that way with screens that he usually just stares unblinkingly at. 

This children’s app isn’t just games, and it’s not just an audio/visual book. It’s an interactive story that asks the child to identify shapes or colours, encourages the child to use fine motor skills by decorating, teaches them the sounds that different musical instruments can make, and tests their memory with the matching game. It’s obviously designed by a parent because neither the narrating voice nor the sound effects or back ground music are obnoxiously loud or terrible. 

It’s not unlikely that, once or twice a week, we’ll be trading H’s TV screen time for a little Windy time on the iPad. It’s just a little possible that Windy might be better for my little Pre-K man than TV sometimes. 😉 

Did I mention? There’s a super cute advent calendar with all sorts of fun treats and surprises: don’t miss out! It’s free! 

I know that you want to experience this super cute app, too, so enter here for a chance to win this appisode bundled together with some other awesome Christmas apps! Follow the directions below to enter, and have a super happy Christmas!  Winner will have 24 hours to respond to the email. Must be 18 years or older to win. 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post, meaning that I have been compensated in some manner for writing it. Never fear, all thoughts and opinions ARE my own and I never say anything that I don’t believe about products I’ve been asked to review.