Sylvan Dell Publishing, an educational children's book publishing company, has announced their new titles for the upcoming fall season. The new picture books will uphold Sylvan Dell Publishing's mission to "excite children's imaginations with science, math and nature themed children's books."

"We couldn't be more excited about the arrival of these new books," said Sylvan Dell Editor Donna German. "They are bound to stimulate children's imaginations while exercising their brains at the same time."

Terry Pierce's "Blackberry Banquet," written in cumulative rhyming text, is set to release this month. "Blackberry Banquet" is not only a fun read, but it also promotes the study of science for children by providing information on plants and animals and their position in the food web. "Sort It Out," written by Barbara Mariconda, is set for a May release, as well. "Sort It Out" centers on teaching children math through analogous thinking, as a young packrat must learn to organize his excessive amount of trinkets.

"My Half Day" and "Whistling Wings" will be available for purchase in June. "My Half Day," authored by Doris Fisher, is an educational children's book that focuses on helping children with math, namely fractions and units of measurement. Laura Goering's "Whistling Wings", also set to release in June, presents scientific facts about birds along with a background on migration.

John McGranaghan's "Saturn for My Birthday", set to release in July, offers children a lesson in astronomy while earning laughs for the humor embedded within its text. "Saturn for My Birthday" tells the story of a young boy longing for quite a peculiar gift for his birthday: the planet Saturn. This educational children's book teaches kids about the solar system in a hysterical way. "River Beds," written by Gail Langer Karwoski, will also be available for purchase in July. "River Beds" is a science-based children's book that takes readers on a boat ride around the world to observe mammals' sleeping habits. Additionally, this children's book provides information on the classification of mammals and the continents where they reside.

Already available in Los Angeles and nationwide, KidsOffTheCouch.com offers a free e-newsletter, brilliantly illustrated by acclaimed children's artist Laura Cornell, that provides families with a fully detailed "Popcorn Adventure" each week. Through the pairing of a great film and a cool cultural outing, co-founders Sarah Bowman and Diane Shakin have taken the work out of weekend planning by connecting the film's themes to an adventure into your city's local culture. Designed for today's busy families, Kids Off The Couch provides discussion points about the film, detailed information about the adventure, like where to park and which hours are the best for visiting, and practical tips from families who have road tested it all. The only thing left to do is pop the popcorn and snuggle up with the kids!

While the local Popcorn Adventures propose an outing specific to Los Angeles, the national version serves ups ideas that are easily customized in any city across the country. Examples include pairings of The Secret Garden and an afternoon sketching flowers in your own local garden, Apollo 13 and star gazing at a local planetarium, as well as topical ideas such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and a family trip to the voting booth. While applicable to any town in America, local City Editors in Boston, New York, Washington D.C., Houston, and San Francisco will localize the Popcorn Adventures for their respective cities.

Wondering how Kids Off The Couch was born? Like parents across the country, the two moms who founded this website yearned to take back the weekend from the endless crush of birthday parties and sports games and create some family time. Faced with the dreaded creep of screen-time in their kids' lives, these moms made the radical choice to get on the couch with their kids and use the media their kids loved to connect them to culture. Through the process they unearthed memorable films, from classic to campy, handpicked cool kid literature, discovered YouTube videos and worthy on-line games, and used what their kids were already watching as a way to explore the outside world while controlling their kids' media diets. These savvy moms decided to share their secret with families everywhere, and KidsOffTheCouch.com was born.

BoBelle was created to encourage fair trade and to prove that ethical and fair trade fashion can be fashionable and affordable; not frumpy or expensive. BoBelle http://www.bobelle.co.uk exists to supply high quality fashionable goods and at the same time, support local and international artisans. Helping to encourage fair trade and eco-friendly behavior, whilst supporting charities and small businesses, is the foundation of BoBelle's ethos.

In maintaining our ethos we have formed very close relationships with our suppliers. By having such strong links has enabled us to create a service at BoBelle which is very personal; something which we feel is lacking when shopping on the high street or in a department store.

At BoBelle we supply an array of gorgeous goods including:

Makki Eel Skin Fashion Accessories: Eel skin is a by-product of the food industry in Korea where the eels are killed for their meat and the skin is discarded. Each one is hand made under fair trade conditions and dyed using vegetable dyes. They are incredibly soft and supple and the durability of the leather makes it a perfect material for fashion accessories as it does not 'crack' like cow's leather can do. Please see http://www.bobelle.co.uk/Fair-Trade/Fashion-Accessories.html for further information.

Fair trade and natural bath and beauty products. Isabella Smith Apothecary is a gorgeous company who create their ranges in France using the finest natural ingredients. Each item is paraben-free, contain no SLS or SLES and contain natural ingredients such as shea butter, almond and avocado oil and pro-vitamins B and E. Furthermore, no harsh colorants are used either. Each product comes in a gorgeous gift box which is made from recycled materials and which is also fully recyclable. Please see http://www.bobelle.co.uk/Fair-Trade/Isabella-Smith.html for further details.

Organic Cotton Baby Clothes. Our Organics for Kids range is adorable! Each item is designed by a lady called Jane in Oxford (round the corner from me!) and the organic cotton is grown in India using no pesticides at all. The garments are then made by a small group of women under fair trade conditions. In addition, like the fashion accessories, all dyes used are natural. Our Organics for Kids ranges has been tried and tested (please see http://www.bobelle.co.uk/Blog/ for further information).

AV Voice Changer Software is well known in the media world for its ability to change your voice in real-time. By using its pitch and timbre changing algorithm, the software is not only able to mimic other human voices, but also is able to make animal-like sounds or robot-like voices from real human voices.

The Pitch and Timbre graph allows children to change their voice by just moving the cursor right or left, and up or down. Kids can use it to make impressive PowerPoint presentations, tell a story about the natural world around them, or bring sound effects to edit into e-cards for friends.

If you want your children to practice their communication skills, the Internet can be a good means of communication. Via Instant Messenger and VoIP programs, your children can talk with friends, sing and share stories, and they can use Voice Changer Software to enhance the stories with animal voices and strange background effects. You can have fun too, spending time with your children to explore their world, to play with them, and to monitor their activities to make sure that their Internet time is both fun and proper, and allows them to grow in healthy ways.

You can also play with your children to create many interesting sounds and voices to add into Halloween, Thanksgiving, New Years, Christmas voice messages, or flash cards and funny clips to amaze their grandparents, or to send to your children's friends, or even to tell your friends how brilliant your kids are.

The imaginations of children are filled with wonderful thoughts and surprises, and if you allow their imaginations to express themselves, they will bring you many big surprises; our software can help.

More information about Voice Changer Software is available at http://www.audio4fun.com/voice-over.htm

Want dad to smile and feel like a kid again, while at the same time building even stronger ties to his children? Then, this Father’s Day, treat him and the kids to the fun new experience of building and customizing the modern day version of old model cars: no glue, fully-customizable and radio remote-controlled. The new RIDEMAKERZ® RIDEZ can be customized virtually online before ordering them to build at home or at a RIDEMAKERZ Shop. And because they’re fast to build, there will still be time and energy to barbeque.

In anticipation of the U.S. Olympic Team heading to the 2008 Olympic Games, thousands of kids across the country will receive a special complimentary welcome gift that brings the energy and excitement of the worlds most respected and legendary sporting event to their family vacations. Doubletree® Hotels is proud to announce the launch of its annual brand tradition – the Doubletree kidsCAREpak® family travel program – in 150 family-friendly destinations across the United States this summer.

As a member of The Hilton Family of Hotels, Doubletree Hotels is celebrating support for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Teams with this year’s athletic-themed kidsCAREpak. To get kids into the spirit of the Games, the complimentary backpacks will be filled with a variety of fun sports-themed games and activities that will be presented to young guests aged three to 12 staying with their families at participating Doubletree hotels from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend.

The Doubletree 2008 kidsCAREpak includes an array of activities that help stimulate creativity and encourage outdoor activity. This year’s kidsCAREpak features:

A kidsCAREpak sling backpack – made of durable canvas and a sporty water bottle carrier
A kidsCAREpak Soccer Hacky Sack – immediate fun for kids to play with friends and family while on the road
A kidsCAREpak Flying Frisbee – sure to bring out the athlete in all of us
A Box of kidsCAREpak Crayons and Activity Book – pages of learning activities that include scavenger hunts, Olympic Games trivia, word searches, Sudoku and more
A kidsCAREpak Deck of Playing Cards – featuring Olympic Games “fun facts”

kajeet™ (www.kajeet.com), the cell phone service made for kids, and Turner Broadcasting System's Cartoon Network today announced a deal to bring mobile content from Cartoon Network to kajeet handsets. The deal brings some of the top names in kids’ entertainment to the unique pay-as-you-go cell phone service.

“As the only cell phone service focused on super-serving kids, it makes perfect sense for us to join forces with Cartoon Network,” said Daniel Neal, CEO and founder of kajeet. “We think it’s important to offer kids mobile content that they love and which reflects their varied interests. Cartoon Network helps us with that goal. “

Drawing from the world's largest cartoon library, the deal with Cartoon Network will bring select mobile content from the network's original television shows, such as Ben 10: Alien Force, Chowder, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, The Powerpuff Girls and more, to kajeet handsets. kajeet users will be able to easily access the best in ringtones, wallpapers and games from Cartoon Network through their phone’s browser.

According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study, 43% of children ages four to six use a computer several times a week or more, leaving parents with the difficult task of monitoring and guiding their child's first online experiences. To help bridge the joys of traditional family learning and play with new media, Scholastic.com (NASDAQ: SCHL) has launched the Parent Activity Center (P.A.C.), a new "go to" play space at scholastic.com where parents and their young children ages newborn to eight-years-old can play and learn together.

The new P.A.C. site on Scholastic.com offers parents safe, age-appropriate, and educational content about, and for their young children. Parents will find trusted tools and resources that support their child's early education and development while kids play and learn with all of their favorite Scholastic characters and book series, including "Clifford the Big Red Dog®," "Miss Spider," "The Magic School Bus®," "I SPY™," "WordGirl!®" and "Maya & Miguel™." Kids can experience fun and educational games and activities such as: I SPY Bingo, WordGirl "Synonym Toast," The Magic School Bus "Simple Science" monthly experiments and more.

Studies show that kids who read "four or more" books over the summer are less likely to fall victim to the "Summer Slide," the common loss of skills due to being out of school over the summer. Scholastic Summer Reading BUZZ!, the summer reading online destination that launches today at www.scholastic.com/buzz, offers kids and parents great book lists, fun and interactive "book-themed" activities, and a chance to donate books to charity. For every four books a child reads and logs online, Scholastic will donate a book to Room to Read, a growing nonprofit that establishes libraries and schools in underprivileged communities in the developing world. Through Scholastic Summer Reading BUZZ! a donation of up to 50,000 books will help fill bookshelves around the world.

AV Voice Changer Software is well known in the media world for its ability to change your voice in real-time. By using its pitch and timbre changing algorithm, the software is not only able to mimic other human voices, but also is able to make animal-like sounds or robot-like voices from real human voices.

The Pitch and Timbre graph allows children to change their voice by just moving the cursor right or left, and up or down. Kids can use it to make impressive PowerPoint presentations, tell a story about the natural world around them, or bring sound effects to edit into e-cards for friends.

If you want your children to practice their communication skills, the Internet can be a good means of communication. Via Instant Messenger and VoIP programs, your children can talk with friends, sing and share stories, and they can use Voice Changer Software to enhance the stories with animal voices and strange background effects. You can have fun too, spending time with your children to explore their world, to play with them, and to monitor their activities to make sure that their Internet time is both fun and proper, and allows them to grow in healthy ways.

You can also play with your children to create many interesting sounds and voices to add into Halloween, Thanksgiving, New Years, Christmas voice messages, or flash cards and funny clips to amaze their grandparents, or to send to your children’s friends, or even to tell your friends how brilliant your kids are.

The imaginations of children are filled with wonderful thoughts and surprises, and if you allow their imaginations to express themselves, they will bring you many big surprises; our software can help.

More information about Voice Changer Software is available at http://www.audio4fun.com/voice-over.htm