Did You Know That Vegetables Are Magic? Meet the BreezyPals!
It’s hard to think about a parent that has managed to get his kids to love vegetables – let alone eat them!
TinyTap is proud to present its first video app – The BreezyPals Magical Vegetables!
BreezyPals is an educational program that strives to reach children in an original way. Instead of using conventional methods, BreezyPals creates new concepts and imaginary worlds that kids actually want to be a part of – like eating vegetables.
I dont know about you, but if someone would’ve told me that carrots fly when I was a child, I would’ve eaten them every day!
This is what BreezyPals is all about, approaching kids in a new light – talking in their language, instead of forcing them to listen to ours.
How does breezypals do it? and how did it start?
Read below…
How to get your kid to eat vegetables?
¨Mom, I don´t want any. Ew, Mom. Mom, no, no, no. Never. I will not eat this, ever!¨
Every day it is the same thing. Every day it is the same arguments. What is going on here? Does he not understand how important it is for him to eat his vegetables? That vegetables in all five colors is imperative for his health and growth?
John is five years old. He sits at the table and stares at the plate in front of him. With tears in his eyes and a pounding heart, he tells me the same thing that he tells me every day: ¨´Mom, I don´t want to eat any of this. Mom,ew, I will not eat this, ever!´”And me, his mother, who loves him so much, who knows how impòrtant it is for him to eat his vegetables, can´t understand how to convince him to eat.
For a few years now I have been trying to find a solution to this problem. I have explained to my young son that vegetables strengthen his bones, protect him from disease and help him grow big and strong. Each time John looks at me with tear-filled eyes and says, no, I don´t like them, I won´t eat them!´
I continued to speak about the benefits of vegetables. John would look at me with a bored expression, unconvinced. I would prepare his vegetables in any and every way possible: sliced, diced, baked, cooked, minced, anything. Yet John remained steadfast in his refusal.
After an extended battle, it finally hit me that I had failed in my attempts. I was angry with myself for failing to provide the necessary health requirements for my son´s diet. I thought for a moment and told my son “let’s see what the BreezyPals do when they don’t like their veggies”’. We watch the following video: then I whispered to my son:“Magical Vegetables taste tastier”
I opened the fridge, took out the five colored vegetables I had, and placed them all on a plate. I called John into the kitchen and braced myself for the argument that would inevitably come.
To my surprise, John looked at the vegetables, picked up a carrot, stared at it, and began playing with it as a toy – the carrot became a rocket, a spaceship, in the meantime he took bites from the basis of the rocket. At first I was upset with John for playing with his food at the table, but I remained patient and watched what he was doing. After a while he became tired of the carrot, switching to the yellow pepper. He asked me to cut the top off the pepper, which I did. John then proceeded to take his glass of water and pour it into the now cup-like pepper. He then used the cap off a bottle as the boat in his newly acquired lake. While he was playing, John kept talking to the imaginary captain of his yellow pepper ship, saying watch out for the missiles! while taking bites from the top of the vegetable, until he had finished the entire thing.
John turned the tomato into a ball and the cucumber into a seesaw, dipping periodically into the soft cheese dip, each time disappearing into the cave of John´s mouth.
I watched amused at my youngest son´s imagination and creativity. From then on, I served him his vegetables whole or cut, and let him turn them into houses and diving boards. I would place slices of carrots for the oars of boats, whole olives for bowls of dip for the sea. John would make up stories and eat his props as he went along.
John, as the BreezyPals, used his imagination to turn his vegetables into a prop in games and stories. Eating vegetables became an integral part of his game playing, and when I would join in the game, I would also expand the opportunities for veggie eating storylines.
I understood that I should always try to persuade my kids to eat healthy, but sometimes I need to use methods that are more subtle, and that emerge from their own imaginary world. “Lectures” and arguments are not always productive. Instead, try to connect with kids on their level, using terms and phrases from their own vocabulary.
Want to learn more about BreezyPals? Visit them on the links below!
Marketing your new TinyTap app – A TinyTap Pro Designer’s success story
Dear TinyTap Publishers,
Congratulations, you’ve done it! You have converted your beautiful stories and illustrations into a kids app, which can now be enjoyed by young digital explorers all over the world.
But the fun has just begun. Now, it’s time to get the word out and ensure that all those little readers know about your new app!
Check out how David Opie, designer of “Let’s Go, Murray!” has made great use of the sites available to him to promote his work.
As a first important step, he describes the project on his official website, making sure to include many exciting images and a download link for the app.
On his blog, David gives a fascinating insight into the illustrations’ creation process. He illustrates the steps he took to convert his images into a digital app and make them come to life. He gives his blog post even more depth, by providing his readers with helpful Photoshop advice .
He spreads the word across all media, tweeting links to his blog post, website, Apple Store download, Behance profile and TinyTap game page. In addition, he makes use of his alumni connections, announcing his new work on the alumni web page of the design school he attended.
Don’t have your own TinyTap app yet? Contact [wpml_mailto email=”[email protected] “][email protected] [/wpml_mailto] for more details!
Get started today and add a new dimension to your art!
TinyTap Makes App Creation Beautiful and Fun with its Theme-Based Creation Packs!
TinyTap is an iPad/iPhone app which puts a powerful creation tool in the hands of kids, parents and teachers and enables them to create their own apps.
What makes TinyTap so unique is its ability to actively involve kids in the learning process. This is what TinyTap’s creation packs are all about.These game-themed creation packs make it easier than ever to get your kids involved and excited about learning.
Kids can choose from a range of quality stickers, backgrounds, colouring pages and activity pages making game creation that much faster and more fun.
TinyTap’s creation packs are highly versatile. They can be resized, moved and even colored-in as the game creator sees fit. But they’re also perfect for reinforcing and revising concepts that have already been taught.
TinyTap consists of the TinyTap Social Market, an in-app App Store, where you’ll find educational games created by other TinyTap users and a selection of in-house games.
Each TinyTap game comes with its own creation pack.
After a child has played a TinyTap game they can use the creation packs to reinforce what was learnt, recreate aspects of the game or even use them to create their own game.
Choosing how to use TinyTap’s Creation Packs is entirely up to the game creator and can be tailored to suit the age of the child. For example, if you are a parent, you could simply let your little ones play with the stickers as they would with puppets.
TinyTap has already begun several partnerships with well-known brands who will offer creation packs based on their most famous characters and themes.
After receiving a 500K seed funding in October 2012, TinyTap is now starting its Series A Round and looking for potential investment partners.
TinyTap’s Creation Packs make user games come to life!
More on TinyTap
Download:http://tinytap.it/app
Site: http://www.tinytap.it
Demo: http://vimeo.com/40663968
Press kit: http://storyboard.me/tinytap
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tinytapit
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TinyTapit
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/tinytapit
Blog: http://blog.tinytap.it
TinyTap Creativity Hackathon – Learning Chinese Culture @ Google’s Hackspace!
This past Sunday, August 18th, TinyTap had the pleasure of hosting a Creativity Hackathon for 16 teenagers from China from the prestigious Peking University High school.
The talented students were visiting Israel with the Israel China Initiative program.
The Hackathon was held at Google’s Hackspace in Tel Aviv – the contest, the people and even the view was absolutely perfect!
The Challenge
The students, aged 15 -17, were paired to work together to create an educational game with TinyTap that taught children (ages 1-12) about Chinese culture.
Categories included language, history, food, places, festivals/holidays, sports, and similarities between China and Israel.
The students concentrated thoroughly for over an hour and came up with great ideas!
We were blown away by their creativity and games – not only were they educational, they were so much fun!
The Prize
The winning students will have their game published and sold on the iTunes App Store!
Pretty amazing for a 17 year old, don’t you think?
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