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Create Your Custom Disney Holiday Cards & Gift Tags on Disney.com
DISNEY.COM/CREATE INVITES GUESTS TO CUSTOMIZE AND SHARE HOLIDAY MAGIC WITH FREE MICKEY MOUSE CARD MAKER
To spice up the season, Disney.com/Create has launched the holiday Mickey Mouse Card Maker. Inspired by classic Disney characters, vintage artwork and holiday traditions, the card maker lets guests create custom artwork to share warm wishes and memories with friends and family for the holiday season.
Guests can use winter backgrounds, classic character stamps, and spirited frames to create festive masterpieces, then can share them on Disney.com or download and print their artwork for an affordable holiday greeting card, personalized gift tag, or custom gift solution.
Related articles
- Disney.com Invites Kids and Teens to Show Off Their Music Video Star Talent in the U Rock the Holidays Event (chipandco.com)
- Download the Disney Theme Park Merchandise Holiday Guide (chipandco.com)
It’s Toy Story Showtime! New Disney Storybook App
Miss your friends Woody, Buzz, and Jessie? You can catch up with them as they put on a talent show in the new app – “Toy Story Showtime!”
This interactive storybook app, aimed at children ages 4-6, is Disney Publishing’s second Disney Learning app and is designed to help learners explore essential early reading concepts through engaging and interactive ways. “Toy Story Showtime!” features Buzz Lightyear as he sets out to impress Jessie the Cowgirl in a talent show; readers can assist him with his comedy and juggling acts while they discover new vocabulary words through context and story-based repetition.
The “Toy Story Showtime!” app is available for $4.99 from the App Store on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch:
Toy Story Showtime! Featured Highlights:
·Age-appropriate sight word vocabulary is explored through storytelling and interactivity.
·Advanced vocabulary is introduced through context, supported by art and animation, and reinforced through repetition. Tapping vocabulary words provides age-appropriate definitions.
·Narration with word-by-word highlights supports the read-along experience.
·Special feature taps engage and surprise young readers. Find and tap the pea; tilt, trace, and shake to trigger Buzz’s moves; shake to toss roses on the stage, and much more!
·End of book activities provide extended practice with early-learning concepts.
·Info Page offers story extension activities for parents and caregivers.
Related articles
- Sneak Peek: Toy Story Toons – Small Fry (chipandco.com)
- “Kinect Rush: A Disney Pixar Adventure” (jedimouseketeer.blogspot.com)
Kinect Rush: A Disney/Pixar Adventure Trailer
Disney and Microsoft announced a new Disney*Pixar game called “Kinect Rush: A Disney*Pixar Adventure,” exclusively on Xbox 360, to be released on March 20, 2012.
The game will feature scenes from The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Up!, Cars and Toy Story in time-based challenges. MSRP $49.99
Disney’s Club Penguin Empowers Players to Turn Online Play into Real World Change
Fans of Club Penguin (clubpenguin.com) can unite this holiday season to use online play to enact real-world social change as part of the fifth annual Coins For Change event. Coins For Change allows children who visit the snow-covered virtual world to donate virtual coins they earn playing games online to real world causes that matter to them. This year, kids will be challenged to fill the island lighthouse with donated coins. If this goal is reached, Club Penguinhas committed to doubling its overall cash donation to $2M US.
Coins For Change is designed to inspire, encourage, and enable kids to make a positive difference in the lives of families around the world. Players can direct their virtual donations to provide medical help, build safe places and protect the earth. At the end of the event, which runs from December 15 to 27 2011, the players’ virtual donations will serve as votes to determine how the contribution from Disney Online Studios will be divided among pre-selected charitable projects aimed at helping children, families and the planet.
“I am continuously amazed by the commitment and passion our players have for helping improve the lives of others,” says Lane Merrifield, one of Club Penguin’s co-founders and executive vice president of Disney Online Studios. “The Club Penguin community has already helped more than a million people all over the world through Coins for Change and I hope by doubling the donation, they can help even more.”
As a result of the generous in-world contributions kids have made to Coins For Change, Club Penguin has helped in excess of a million people in more than 40 countries by funding schools, libraries, health clinics, clean water programs and more. To find out more, visit clubpenguin.com/global-
The results of Coins for Change 2011 will be announced on January 1, 2012.
It’s Story Time with Stan Lee – “The Amazing Spider-Man: An Origin Story” App Review
APP DESCRIPTION - ”The Amazing Spider-Man: An Origin Story”
With great power, comes great responsibility. Anyone that knows Spider-man should know that mantra. The lesson Peter learns from the death of his Uncle Ben, and the underlining theme that makes Peter Parker the hero that Spider-man is.
The Amazing Spider-man: An Origin Story is the first iOS app from Disney featuring any of their Marvel Comics properties. (Disney owns Marvel now if you weren’t aware) The app is an interactive storybook narrated by Stan “The Man” Lee himself, and features some of the more unique interactions that other apps do not offer, including swinging through the city. The story itself is based on the book of the same name by Rich Thomas who has written more origin stories for other Marvel characters including Captain America and the X-men and are geared for children 3 and up.
The app itself features:
• Narrated by comic book legend and Spider-Man co-creator Stan “The Man” Lee!
• Interactive story-themed spider-games throughout: Help Peter Parker learn to use his powers—test your strength, swing through the city, use your web-shooters to stop a burglar and much more!
• Secret Spider Hunt to win your very own “No-Prize!”
• Multiple Reading Modes: Read to Me, Read by Myself, Auto-Turn Pages, and Younger Reader Mode
• Action-packed artwork throughout!
• Includes Spidey sound effects and music!
What’s cool…
I love Marvel Comics. Not only did like reading and collecting them when I was younger but I also watched as much of those Marvel Hero cartoons as I could. Hearing Stan Lee’s voice intro or do the closing of the show was a great highlight. His unmistakable voice and delivery not only demonstrated the love of his characters but his masterful storytelling. This app takes me back to those times in my youth. The art was well done and appealing to me as a fan of the comics but a fan of the films as well. The app was clearly inteded for a younger audience but as an adult, I was totally hooked to hearing Stan’s voiceover guiding me through the classic story of how Peter Parker discovers his “great power”.
The app is a cinch to operate and should pose no problem to children who wish to hear uncle Stan read them a bedtime story. A great feature is simply muting Stan’s narration so anyone can read the story of ole “Webhead” aloud so you can be a hero to your kids! The various interactive elements are nice touches but is not something your kids would go back and repeat time and time again.
The app is pretty solid and the story mode alone will have children and adults reaching for their iPads or iPhones for a quick read. The thing to note is the price tag for the app – $6.99. Rather steep in my opionion. For that price it would have been nice to include links to the behind-the-scenes video that they posted on YouTube as well as a character sheet on Peter Parker and Spider-man including a brief bio and key characters in the Spider-Man story. There is a ton of history noted on the Marvel.com website what would be great to include and adapt for younger readers. Perhaps they will include some of of my suggestions in an upcoming release.
All-in-all the app is a great way to get your kids introduced to these iconic comic characters and stoke the fires of their inner geek. The messages of Marvel Comics are always tales that people can relate and learn from so consider this a great fable for younger readers and a worthy addition to your child’s e-book collection.
Buy if…
…you want to get your kids into Marvel Comics and love how Stan Lee tells a story!
Pass if…
…you’re looking for a gritty Marvel graphic novel.