Some LEGO fans have got together and built a cool app called Brickit. The app helps you to build new creations from your LEGO.

The app offers ideas and tools to build new creations with your LEGO bricks. Perfect if your LEGO fan has run out of inspiration!

Here how’s the app works:

First, you spread out the bricks you have on the floor. This can be all the bricks mixed up, but some app users have said it’s more effective if you spread the bricks out in a single layer.

Then you scan your bricks with the app and it identifies what bricks you have and then starts to show you ideas of what to build with some of the bricks.

You choose the tiny project you want to build and it will show you handy instructions and step-by-step how to build that. You can build kangaroos, x-wings, robots, and more.

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The app is very speedy, making sense of the bricks in your collection within seconds.

Not only does it mark the bricks you need for a particular building project, but the app also tells you where they are in your pile of LEGO.

You can also customise the proposed ideas to build with e.g. different colours or bricks for your own personal touch.

The Brickit app is available on the Apple Store for iPhone and on the Google Play Store for Android.

And good news is that Brickit is free to download, but does have some paid Pro features.

At time of writing the app is rated 4.5 out of 5, with many positive reviews.

While some could say that the app is going against the point of LEGO – that it should be encouraging imagination and free play – personally I think this is a bit of free fun and could also give a new challenge to your LEGO-mad child where they can work their way through building all the app’s suggestions.

Following Santa’s progress as he makes his way around the world, really helps bring Christmas to life. Watching your child’s face as they track Santa’s progress or read/watch a personalised message from the big man himself is priceless.

Your child will enjoy watching Santa’s movements and get excited about the morning to come – it can also help with encouraging them to get to bed on Christmas Eve!

By far the most popular Santa tracker with Mykidstime parents is the official Norad Santa Tracker. For 60 years, NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), have tracked Santa’s flight. And on Christmas Eve you can follow Santa’s progress as he flies around the world.

“We always use Norad, it has pictures at different destinations and presents delivered.”

“We use Norad too and love to watch the news where they usually have a report saying where Santa is!”

Did you know that Google has a Santa Tracker that allows you to see Santa’s real time location on Google Maps?

You can use the Google Santa Tracker to follow Santa Claus on Google Maps as he makes his journey around the world.

And while you wait, they also have a Santa’s Village section with fun, educational, and interactive holiday activities available starting on 4th December. In the village, you can practice basic coding skills, create original artwork, exercise your geographic chops, and more. There’s also a teacher’s section with fun resources.

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I Spot Santa has a live Santa Tracker that will be active on 24th December. The live map follows Santa’s every move and gives you updates every 15 minutes on Christmas Eve. You’ll be able to follow Santa and his reindeer as he flies from Europe to Asia, to North America and every other continent delivering presents to children around the world.

The website also boasts the most Santa pictures and Santa videos from around the world! Their video elves track Santa on every continent. Santa is hard to spot, due to his magical powers to avoid being seen, but the I Spot Santa website has over 100 Santa Sightings on all six continents – and they have even tracked Santa at the North Pole!

The Santa Claus Tracker at Email Santa shows you where Santa is right now and what Santa is doing every day of the year. You can also see Santa Claus live at the North Pole on Santa’s webcam!

Follow Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, when the Santa Tracker becomes the Santa Snooper with live Santa updates! Santa Snooper has a special webcam that will show you Santa’s flight live!

There are lots of designs like slime paint, spooky witches, pumpkins, princess and butterfly fashion to choose from, or you can free paint to make your own unique designs with plenty of colours and sparkles to choose from. Add outfits, hats, shoes and more accessories to complete your look.

Available for iOS

From Snoopy’s classic red doghouse to the baseball field, recreate your favourite Peanuts locations with Snoopy and friends! Start with a blank slate and set off on an adventure full of fun and imagination. Take hundreds of quests and experience brand new stories in the Peanuts universe.

Build and explore iconic locations from the comic strip, including Charlie Brown’s house, the baseball field and the skating rink. You can also customise your very own version of Snoopy’s town with over 200 unique decorations.

Meet all of your favourite Peanuts characters through the game, including Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, Peppermint Patty and many more!

Available for iOS and Google Play

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Get ready to quickly find hidden things in Hidden Objects Halloween! Call for the good Halloween ghosts and enjoy this special edition where you can enter the haunted house and look for the orange pumpkin and candlesticks! With more than 2,000 objects (and hint features if you need them!) this is a popular Halloween app for kids.

Available for Google Play

This Halloween colouring book game for adults and kids allows you to colour and paint free colouring pages of pumpkins, ghosts and other Halloween items. You can also share your halloween artwork with family and friends.

Available on Google Play

Welcome to the Hotel Transylvania, where ghouls gather, fiends frolic and Monsters stay a while!

Pack your bags for an addicting puzzle getaway to the most spooktacular resort hotel around! Team up with Drac, Mavis, Blobby, Murray, Frank and many more to blast through challenging levels and complete Quests as the newest Hotel Manager.

Available for iOS and Google Play

BOO! Did I scare you? My name is Bonnie and my family loves to spook! Do you want to scare them back? Follow me and I’ll show you how!

Float around the house and look for the family. Hide under tables, behind curtains or even duvets. Search the rooms but stay away from the light or else you’ll be seen. Rattle things, turn on the kettle and make the characters nervous! Can you hear their heartbeat? Great, it’s time to BOO!

The simple and beautiful design will easily guide you through the world of Toca Boo. Fall in love with the 6 different characters and explore all the details of the big, mysterious house.

Available for iOS and Google Play

Virtual Halloween colouring pages for young children, but also the chance to draw, doodle and colour your own pictures to save for later!

Available for iOS

Get ready for a spooky Halloween night with your virtual pet friends, Kiki and Fifi! Give a magical bath, style funny hair, dress them up in colourful costumes and decorate the haunted house in the neighbourhood.

Available for iOS and Google Play

Breed them, feed them, listen to them sing!

Create an island full of Singing Monsters, then watch your song evolve as you breed and upgrade happy monster pets. Design and build unique decorations to make your world look just the way you want, then share your creation with friends. You’ll love exploring the wonderful fantasy land of the Monster World!

Available for iOS and Google Play

There’s a strange house on a strange street in a strange part of town. Most people are scared of it, but I want to sneak inside.

There are so many rumours, I don’t know what to believe. Some kids say the top floor glows at night and that crazy aliens live up there. Some say that strange experiments are going on in the living room. One kid I know absolutely swears they heard weird music coming from the basement. Can a house sing? I’ve also talked to kids who say the entire kitchen is covered in slime. Even my best friend, who never believes anything, told me the house is alive!

I had to see for myself…

Investigate the Mystery House and see what rumours are true!

Available for iOS and Google Play

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How many times have you heard that children should be learning how to code but you really just don’t get it? They’re just kids, right? Every time you open a paper, they are talking about the lack of IT graduates, and promising a golden future for anyone with these most vital of skills.

Or maybe you have a son or daughter at home that is really interested in learning about IT and you can’t help, you don’t even understand what they are talking about?

If you’re not too sure what all the hype is about or if you just want to be able to point your child in the right direction, read on.

Of course there will still be firemen, nurses and teachers in the future, but it is true that having IT skills will open up new opportunities for your children. Technology is becoming important in all manner of careers, so there will be more, and better jobs, for those that have these skills.

IT skills are also global skills, travelling easily from country to country, and leading to more opportunities for those lucky enough to have them.

Before continuing. it’s worth sorting out a couple of myths about kids and technology!

1. Being able to discover something in seconds on your phone or being great at playing games are not IT skills. That’s simply using technology. Having IT skills, means being able to create content not just use it. In other words, learning how to create your own website, games, animations, 3D digital models, apps and so on.

2. Being good with technology doesn’t mean they will not have any friends! Programming is often more about collaboration, problem-solving and teamwork than you might realise.

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Just like learning a language, the earlier you start, the better.

Some suggest that 8 years of age is perfect, but if your child is younger or older than that, don’t worry, kids pick things up quickly, so whether they are 8, 12 or 15, they will be able to make a start.

And no, they don’t need to be a genius, in fact, they don’t need any previous experience at all, just make sure that you sign them up with a camp/classes with a solid reputation and qualified teachers.

If you are looking for online resources,  here are some good sites and apps (in our opinion), and yes, they are all free!

Every child should learn Scratch, it’s a great introduction to programming concepts, and it’s drag & drop editor allows for quick results, without having to learn a whole new language.

Kids love the fast results – they can use it to build their own games, screensavers & animations. There is a huge online library of projects and a very active forum for help from other creators.

Suitable for children from 7/8 years up.

Once you have mastered Scratch and want to get into programming languages, Codecademy should be on your list.

This is one of our favourite online sites for those who want to learn how to program. From the fundamentals of HTML & CSS through to more advanced courses in Python, Javascript, jQuery, PHP, etc, it will teach you the basics & hold your hand along the way.

With over 2,400 videos and online tutorials Khan Academy offers a number of courses including how to create webpages with HTML & CSS, creating games, drawings & animations with Javascript or learn all about codes & ciphers in the ‘Journey into Cryptography’.

Lessons are more advanced than Codecademy, so probably best suited for older students, where there are also lessons in Maths, science, economics, arts & humanities.

W3 Schools is an information website for Web Developers.

Again, it has tutorials in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, SQL, and JQuery. It includes quizzes to test your skills and offers online certification to prove that you know your stuff.

Be warned, this game is addictive, but it’s great for problem-solving, it encourages kids to think logically, and it teaches programming logic (not that the kids will realise).

There are options suitable for ages 4-8 years and 9+ years. Lightbot is also a great, east way to keep your kids entertained while you do the groceries/drive the car/wait in a queue, but don’t tell them we said that!

There’s a Free Lite version available with 18 Levels iTunes and Android. Or get the full version: iTunes and Android.

Cargobot is another game that teaches programming concepts.

It’s a simple idea. Players need to program a robotic arm to move crates to a designated spot. Sounds easy, but it’s never as easy as it sounds!

The beauty is that the game itself was developed using Codea, a programming language specifically designed for the iPad, so kids can see an example of what is possible — and what they themselves can create — using programming logic.

Available free on iTunes.

While websites and apps are a great way to learn about coding, there is a lot to be said for a Tech Camp, Afterschool Club or In-School Programme, where trained and qualified teachers will walk them through lessons step by step.

Experienced instructors will handle all the “But why?” and “How do I?” questions. There is also the social aspect to consider as at a summer camp or computer classes, they will make friends with kids who have similar interests.

If you don’t have an Insta profile, or if you just use it to scroll through a limited feed, it may be a good idea to go back to basics and look at Instagram as a new user.

Instagram is a social media app, focussed on photo and video sharing. Photos and videos can be filtered in a variety of ways, and added to your profile to be seen by either a public audience or a private group that you have approved.

It has around 1.44 billion monthly active users as of September 2022. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012.

Instagram is available as an app on either iPhone & iPad or for Android phones.

Fundamentally, Instagram is a photo and video sharing platform. However, there are many users who rarely, if ever, upload content and instead prefer to view and engage with what others have posted.

Where can you upload content?

You can upload content to:

• your grid, which is the feed of images on your account
• your stories, which is available to view for 24 hours and subsequently can be saved to a highlight on your profile
• or reels for video content

You can also live stream content, and recently (2021) Instagram allowed four people to go live at a time.

There is also a direct messaging function allowing users to send and receive messages to others, even if not following them.

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You just need a valid email address and a password.

There are no age limits for signing up. Even though the Terms of Service state that you must be at least 13 years old, you are not asked to input a date of birth when signing up.

Make sure to read the Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service.

To follow someone, all you need is their username. You can search for users and tap the Follow button. You can also follow people who are tagged in other posts, again by clicking on their username which will bring you to their profile.

As well as people, many brands (including Mykidstime) are on Instagram. By following a person, brand or an organisation, you will see their content in your feed.

With over 1.44 billion people using Instagram monthly, that’s a lot of people who are actively following each other and commenting to each other.

Users can also look at themes of content on Instagram by using a hashtag (a key phrase with a # in front, e.g. #puppies) which will pull up content that uses that hashtag.

You can choose to follow a particular tag if it’s something you are interested in (e.g. #makeupaddict or #bakingfun), and then those posts will also appear in your feed, even though they are from users you do not follow.

Note that you don’t need to follow someone to be able to like or comment.

You tap heart under their photo to ‘like’, or the comment button at the bottom of their photo and then type your comment and tap Send.

Their Terms of Service state that “you may not post violent, nude, partially nude, etc” photos. The reality is it’s hard for Instagram to police the billions of photos.

You need to be aware of this and make your child aware of this as well. They should take care only to look at photos of people they know and trust.

Using a template such as this instant post generator can help if you are new to Instagram.

• Ask your child/teen for their Instagram username to make sure they have chosen a username that is not their own name or containing significant personal information.
• Keep an eye on what they post and what others say in relation to their images, and discuss cyberbullying.
• As with all social media, it’s a good idea to have a discussion with your child about how they use Instagram and the importance of privacy settings.
• Try it yourself and get your kids or teens to show you the basics. This is one of the best ways of learning and understanding what it’s about.
• Have a conversation (again) about online safety and behaviours. Remind them that they should tell you if they see anything strange, upsetting or inappropriate; if they receive any suspicious or unwanted messages; and that they should never divulge any personal information.

Stop motion animation is great fun, both to watch and to create. This is an interesting (and secretly educational!) way for your kids to start using tech, use their imaginations and boost their own creativity.

Here are some recommended apps to use on phone or tablet.

A useful app, Stop Motion Maker has functions such as:

• Shooting mode with manual / automatic shooting
• onion skin
• preview
• export into avi or motion-jpeg format.

You can also frame edit and import image files in jpeg, png format.

Cost: Free

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PicPac offers stop motion animation and time lapse together in the one app.

Features:

• Add audio and music easily
• No upload to server or PC required.
• Use your gallery photos, gallery videos (broken down to pictures), Instagram photos, or capture time-lapse photos to create stop motion/timelapse videos and animations. You can also do Hyperlapse.
• Hands-free sound-controlled in Timelapse Manual mode. Simply make a loud sound and a photo will be taken!
• Add voice or music

If you upgrade to the Pro version you can also:

1. remove watermark
2. generate 480p,720p,1080p videos/animations
3. duplicate and merge projects
4. use your own ending logo

Cost: Free (€4.99 for Pro)

With Stop Motion Studio you can create stop motion animated movies anywhere instantly on your device. Everything you need is right at your fingertips. No computer needed. It’s simple to use, deceptively powerful and insanely fun to play with. Cool themes, titles and sound effects are easy to add, too.

Stop Motion Studio has these features:

• Overlay mode to show you the differences between frames for precise control
• Grid mode to position animated objects more easily
• Ability to use the volume button on your device to capture images
• Integrated movie editor with frame-by-frame preview at different speeds
• Cut, copy, paste, delete and insert frames at any position
• Automatically capture frames with an adjustable time interval feature
• Zoom in and out on the timeline view so you never get lost, even if you have hundreds of frames
• Fade your movie in or out for a professional look

Cost: Free (There’s also a Pro version €6.99)

iMotion is an intuitive and powerful time-lapse and stop-motion app for iOS. Take pictures, edit your movie and export 1080p & 720p HD videos to your device or directly to Youtube.

Features:

• HD capture & exports
• 4 capture modes (time-lapse, manual, wifi remote, microphone)
• Ultra speed shooting up to 10fps (*)
• Variable frame rate playback
• Portrait and landscape orientations supported
• Useful capture tools (Manual Focus, Exposure Lock, Onion skin, …)
• Export your videos and photos to your Photo Library, iTunes Sharing Folder or YouTube, Facebook and Mail (Full Version In-App required)
• Autosave and direct preview
• Unlimited movie length
• Retina Display

Cost: Free with in-app purchases to access some of the extra features

“This is probably better suited to older kids – not as kid-friendly, and less available on free version” – Jennifer

Also available for iOS, Stop Motion Studio lets you create stop motion animated movies anywhere instantly on your device. Everything you need is right at your fingertips. No computer needed. It’s simple to use, deceptively powerful and insanely fun to play with. Cool themes, titles and sound effects are easy to add, too.

Stop Motion Studio has these features:

• Overlay mode to show you the differences between frames for precise control
• Grid mode to position animated objects more easily
• Ability to use the volume button on your device to capture images
• Integrated movie editor with frame-by-frame preview at different speeds
• Cut, copy, paste, delete and insert frames at any position
• Automatically capture frames with an adjustable time interval feature
• Zoom in and out on the timeline view so you never get lost, even if you have hundreds of frames
• Fade your movie in or out for a professional look

Cost: Free and purchase all the features forever once for €6.99

Stop Motion Factory allows you to easily take pictures and make stop motion animations. It comes with some special features:

• Add text and images: You can easily add text and images to the video to make the video content richer.
• Add Sound. There are many ways to add sound, you can even convert text to speech.
• Various filters to make your video more exciting.
• Voice-activated shooting – use sound to trigger the camera to avoid shaking caused by touching the phone.
• Frame capture. Every frame taken can be shared or downloaded to the album.

Cost: Free (some in-app purchases)