How Our 8 year old is Learning and Gaining Independence!

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This post was sponsored by Amazon as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own. #amazonkidsandfamily

Earlier this year my Dad sent me the Amazon Echo Spot for my Birthday. It’s similar to the Amazon echo, but with video capabilities. It quickly has become my favorite gadget in our home and the kids have fallen in love with it too. Whenever I’m in the kitchen (where I keep it) I have it streaming music. The kids quickly learned that they can ask Alexa to play their favorite songs and I often hear them in the kitchen squealing out “Alexa, play the Trolls soundtrack” and then dancing around and singing. My kids are little, so I haven’t felt like they’re ready for their own echos just yet, but that changed recently for our 8 year old.

When Amazon sent over their Echo Dot Kids I was thrilled to put it in our daughters room. She’s at an age where she wants to know all the things and is often asking me questions about different things that have happened in history, how to spell certain words, and various other things. Sometimes I don’t have the answers for her or I am busy and can’t sit with her to explain something. The Amazon Echo Dot Kids has come into handy for all of her questions. With a simple command like “Alexa, why is the sky blue?” she can have her answer in seconds.

The Echo Dot Kids also allows her to set her morning alarm to her favorite music, like Taylor Swift, play educational games, reads books to her, and even gives her a heads up on the weather for the day so she’ll know how to dress. It’s easy for her to use and gives her a little independence when it comes to learning and accomplishing tasks on her own, like Alexa reminding her to do her chores with the Alexa Skill Blueprints.

In addition to the Echo Dot Kids we got to check out the Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet. We do not limit our children’s screen time because a lot of times they’re playing educational games on their tablets and that is something I support them doing. I can often find our daughter playing a math game she uses at school and it’s quickly become one of her favorite apps this year. With her new Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet she has access to Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, which comes included for 1 year with your device. She can use this to read over 20,000 popular books,  it has educational content from PBS Kids, Nickelodeon, Disney, and more and it has an optional Kids Browser featuring tens of thousands of kid-safe websites and web videos. This all comes in handy to help her learn things on her own, in a technology driven world. There is even access to Spanish Language Content, which I know will come in handy for her since she’s been asking me a lot about Spanish lately and wants to learn it.

Both the Echo Dot Kids and Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet have awesome parental controls with Amazon FreeTime. This let’s me know what my kids are doing on their tablets when I’m not around, set restrictions on content they can access, set-up a chore chart, and even set daily time limits so they can’t sneak their device to bed. If your little one is also searching for more knowledge then I encourage you to check out these Amazon devices and see how they can help your growing child. There’s so much to learn and it’s so easy to get information these days, especially with the help of Amazon and Alexa!

About the Echo Dot Kids

Now Alexa is a kid-friendly DJ, comedian, and storyteller — and she’s always getting smarter. Just ask and Alexa will play music, answer questions, read stories, tell jokes, and more — all with younger ears in mind.

• Automatically filter explicit songs from Amazon Music or Spotify
• Alexa acknowledges kids for using “please” when asking questions by saying things like “By the way, thanks for asking so nicely.”

The included 1 year of Amazon FreeTime Unlimited on Alexa gives your kids access to hundreds of hours of fun and educational content, including ad-free radio stations and playlists, Audible books, thousands of songs, and kid-favorite games and skills from Disney, National Geographic, Nickelodeon, and more

• After the first year, Amazon FreeTime Unlimited starts at just $2.99 per month for Prime members and $4.99 per month for customers who are not yet Prime members. You may cancel at any time by contacting Customer Service.
• FreeTime Unlimited on Alexa is available on compatible Echo devices, including Echo Dot Kids Edition, Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Plus. The same FreeTime Unlimited subscription can also be used on Fire tablets, Kindle e-readers, compatible Android phones and tablets, and compatible iOS phones and tablets. FreeTime Unlimited experience will vary based on device.
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Easy-to-use parental controls in the online Amazon Parent Dashboard let you set daily time limits, review activity, or pause Alexa on the device

Call kids to dinner or tell them it’s bedtime from compatible Echo devices in the house. Plus, add approved friends and family for calling and messaging outside the house.

2-year worry-free guarantee: if they break it, return it and we’ll replace it for free. No questions asked.

 

About the Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet

The All New Fire HD 8 Kids Edition is the latest generation of Amazon’s best-selling kids tablet. It features a real tablet with an 8” HD display, quad-core processor, and up to 8 hours of mixed-use battery life. Add a microSD card for up to 400 GB of expandable storage. It also comes with a kid-safe bumper in blue, pink, or yellow, one year of Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, and two-year worry-free guarantee. If anything happens, return it and we’ll replace it – no questions asked.

The included 1 year of Amazon FreeTime Unlimited gives your kids access to over 20,000 popular books, videos, Audible books (coming soon!), apps and games, and educational content from PBS Kids, Nickelodeon, Disney, and more. Plus an optional Kids Browser featuring tens of thousands of kid-safe websites and web videos.

Spanish Language Content is now available in Amazon FreeTime and FreeTime Unlimited, providing kids access over 1,000 Spanish language books, videos, educational apps, games, and Audible books (coming soon), plus thousands of kid-friendly and hand-curated websites and web videos—all in Spanish and at no additional cost to the Amazon FreeTime Unlimited subscription.

• • After the first year, Amazon FreeTime Unlimited starts at just $2.99 per month for Prime members and $4.99 per month for customers who are not yet Prime members. You may cancel at any time by contacting Customer Service.
  • The FreeTime Unlimited subscription can be used on Fire tablets, including Fire Kids Edition tablets, Kindle e-readers, compatible Android phones and tablets, and compatible iOS phones and tablets. Families can also use their FreeTime Unlimited subscription to access FreeTime Unlimited on Alexa on compatible Echo devices, including Echo Dot Kids Edition, Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Plus. FreeTime Unlimited experience will vary based on device.

Easy-to-use parental controls give parents the ability to set educational goals and screen time limits, filter age-appropriate content, and manage web browsing and content usage. Additionally, you can access all of the Fire HD 8 tablet features in the adult profile by entering your passcode.

2-year worry-free guarantee: if they break it, return it and we’ll replace it for free. No questions asked.

Parent Dashboard (http://parents.amazon.com) is a mobile optimized website that provides daily activity reports to help parents review the digital content their kids are using in FreeTime and determine how to manage time limits and educational goals. Parent Dashboard is also now available in Spanish.

• • • Parents can also use Parent Dashboard to adjust their child’s FreeTime settings remotely – parents can create a bedtime, set daily goals and time limits, adjust smart filters, and enable the web browser remotely, all without even touching their child’s device. Parents also have the ability to remotely add new books, videos and apps to their child’s FreeTime profile, and lock/unlock their child’s device for a specified period of time via Parent Dashboard.
    • Discussion Cards are also available in Parent Dashboard and offer parents a “family book club” approach with summaries and sample questions based on the books, videos, educational apps and websites that are viewed within Amazon FreeTime. Discussion Cards also provide ideas for ways to connect these online experiences with real-world activities, such as “volunteer at the local animal shelter to help homeless dogs and cats.”