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www.FredericksburgParent.NET 29 WRITTEN BY CHRISTA MELNYK HINES techy Kids Creative Ways can Express Themselves ages & stages Sick of all the me your kids spend playing video games? When boredom strikes, give your digitally-charmed youngster a project that enhances their tech- nical skills while also fostering their crea vity. Introduce your young storyteller to storybird.com which features illustra ons kids can use for story inspira on. They can write and design picture books, long-form stories or write poetry. Subscrip on-based monthly wri ng challenges can help boost a child's literacy skills. Young authors can keep their work private, publish it to Storybird's public library, share it on social media, email it to friends and family, or print off the books for special keepsakes or gi s. Other story sites include WeMakeStories.com and BookCreator.com. Write a Digital Book The StripDesigner app enables kids to take pictures of their artwork or upload photos to create their own comic strips using the site's comic book template. They can play with fonts and fi lters and write dia- logue in speech balloons. Also check out the family-friendly website MakeBe- liefsComix.com created by Bill Zimmerman. The free site provides wri ng prompts for kids, comic strip templates and sugges ons for family ac vi es. Younger children might like Superhero Comic Book Maker and Princess Fairy Tale Maker avail- able at duckduckmoose.com, which are de- signed for kids who aren't wri ng yet. When they're fi nished crea ng their story, they can record it and play it back. Draw Comic Strips Ask your kids for help in pu ng together a photo memory book of your holiday vaca on. Or suggest they take photos throughout the winter and make photo books in March. Have them include cap ons of the places you visited, the things they learned, and short anecdotes. Walmart, Picaboo and Shu erfl y are a few sites that off er templates for photo books. From Garage Band on Mac for older kids to Crea ngMusic.com for younger ones, turn kids on to experimen ng with pitch, tone and rhythm. Many teens love the musical.ly app which lets them lip sync to popular music, browse videos and share their videos. (Be aware that some song lyrics in musical.ly contain swearing and sexual content. The app can be adjusted to protect privacy and users don't have to share their videos.) Play with Music My 12-year-old son likes to write up short "ripped from the headlines" news briefs, family news and car adver sements. He also draws cartoons for a "funnies" sec on. My son prefers to use Google Docs so he can email or print his paper, but Word or Pages (Mac) also off ers templates for newsle ers. Start a Family Newspaper Ask your kids for help in pu ng together a photo memory book of your holiday vaca on. Or suggest they take photos throughout the winter and make photo books in March. Have them include cap ons of the places you visited, the things they learned, and short anecdotes. Walmart, Picaboo and Create a Digital Photo Book Many kids love to play with coding, design, photography and wri ng. Help your child design a free family website using pla orms like uKit, Wordpress, Weebly, Wix or Squarespace. Some of these sites are more user-friendly than others. Check around to see which would work best for your youngster. Build a Family Web Page con nued on pg 31