Little Swappies Event – May 5th – Recycle/Reuse and Get Free Children’s Items
by Nicole on 5/03/13 | 0 Comment(s)
Little Swappies children’s clothing, book, & toy swap is THIS Sunday, May 5 from 10:00am to 1:00pm at the Avenues School, 259 Tenth Avenue (at 25th Street). And Little Swappies is offering a discount code for A Child Grows readers! Enter code “achildgrows” for a $10 family pass! Tickets here! Bring at least 5 new [...]
Brooklyn Business Spotlight: Norman & Jules Toy Shop
by Nicole on 4/09/13 | 0 Comment(s)
Isabelle Dervaux will be bringing us her monthly reviews, accompanied by her beautiful photos, of Brooklyn businesses she finds fascinating, unique, or just plain cool! This month: Norman & Jules Toy Shop in Park Slope. If you wonder who are Norman and Jules, they are the great-grand fathers of Charley the daughter of Courtney Ebner [...]
The Princess Diaries: How to Cope with the Disney Juggernaut
by Nicole on 3/17/13 | 2 Comment(s)
By Sarah Moriarty We’ve all witnessed it, the gravitational pull between little girls and all things princess related. Despite all our efforts to avoid gender specific toys, videos and stereotypes, many of our daughters end up tutu-ed and beribboned singing about being rescued. At my house we did it all, pushed the “masculine toys,” no [...]
Keeping Your Kids Appy: Avoiding the Annoying Alphabet App
by Nicole on 3/11/13 | 0 Comment(s)
I’ve found a lot of creative ways to teach my pre-school age daughter her alphabet and to begin putting letters together. We’ve cut up straws in different lengths to use to form letters. We’ve done a lot a tracing experiments. And a new one is coloring hair gel and putting it in a sealable bag [...]
How to Promote Literacy at Home with Books, Games and Apps
by Nicole on 3/06/13 | 0 Comment(s)
I try to read as often as possible to my kids because I continuously hear how important it is for their language development. I am also a voracious reader and I would love for my kids to share this passion. They have both gone through varying phases of interest, but I always try to incorporate [...]
Weather looking bad? Inspirations for indoor fun!
by Nicole on 2/22/13 | 0 Comment(s)
It looks like we are in for a brutal weekend…weather-wise! In anticipation of the stormy days ahead, I’ve come up with some indoor fun for the whole family! 1. Build a fort – This never gets old. We did this last weekend and I rediscovered how fun it is! Use whatever you’ve got – blankets, [...]
Yerdle: Reduce your environmental impact, Get rid of clutter and Save money…I like it!
by Nicole on 2/19/13 | 1 Comment(s)
I have stuff – a lot of stuff. I am a mom to two toddlers living in a small Brooklyn apartment that always feels crammed full of stuff. Toys, books, clothes, baby paraphernalia, you name it. It’s easy to accumulate too much stuff (and equally hard to find places to keep it)! A lot of [...]
Keeping your kids Appy – Finding Apps for Kids
by Nicole on 1/24/13 | 2 Comment(s)
We were about 15 months into our first iPhones when I realized my husband hadn’t installed or used ANY apps. None. He was hardly using his phone as anything but a – a- a– phone. Let’s just say I was VERY disturbed. The budget-conscious part of me told him that if he didn’t start using [...]
New Kids’ Shop Open in Fort Greene: Hank & Jojo
by Nicole on 1/04/13 | 0 Comment(s)
Whenever I had a bad neck, I used to head to a local chiropractor’s office on Dekalb Ave in Fort Greene. He recently left that space and a new tenant has moved in that is getting a different kind of traffic. Kid’s shop Hank & JoJo has parents and their babes coming in for everything [...]
Cool Map Games on the Internet
by Nicole on 10/31/12 | 0 Comment(s)
Are you searching for a fun way to teach geography to your kid…and maybe brush up on it yourself? Here are a few that I really like: Rethinking Schools’ Map Game This map game is easy to follow. Just drag a country’s name to its proper place. I admit I made quite a few mistakes- [...]
Best and Most Hilarious Etsy Costumes I Could Find in Under 3 Hours
by Nicole on 10/17/12 | 0 Comment(s)
Just for fun I have been searching Etsy for innovative, creative and hilarious costumes…I spent way too much time looking (yawn….) Billed as a Nemo or fish costume, this outfit made me laugh more than any of the others. For $49 from pipandbean, I’m sure your kid would be the hit of the Halloween parade. [...]
Is Face Painting Dangerous?
by Nicole on 10/10/12 | 2 Comment(s)
It seems like every children’s event these days has an arts and crafts table with a face painter. But, is that face paint safe? Two years ago, I did a post on face paint and the report issued by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics where researchers tested 10 different face painting kits, all commonly found [...]
Favorite Places for Families in Greenpoint & Williamsburg
by Nicole on 9/20/12 | 1 Comment(s)
Williamsburg and Greenpoint are fast becoming THE place to raise a family in Brooklyn; between the pool finally opening and a sleuth of amazing places to shop, eat, play and ways to give back- it’s easy to see why. Jessica Glorieux and Donna Ladd launched Motherburg NYC in June 2012 to help parents in North [...]
Toxic Chemicals Found in School Supplies
by Nicole on 9/05/12 | 0 Comment(s)
I love the site Healthy Child Healthy World which publishes fabulous articles, initiates petitions and political action to try and make the world a cleaner, safer place for families. You should definitely sign up for their email alerts. I got a newsletter from them the other day about toxins found in childrens’ school supplies and [...]
Top of the Shop: Feliz in Fort Greene
by Nicole on 8/27/12 | 1 Comment(s)
This is the eleventh installment of our feature called “Top of the Shop”. A local photographer gives us her view of a Brooklyn establishment. I hope that you see some new shops to visit or old shops that you might have forgotten about. This installment is by visual biographer, Isabelle Dervaux. From Isabelle about her [...]
The East River Ferry to North Williamsburg: 12 Places to Visit
by Nicole on 7/05/12 | 6 Comment(s)
If you have a bucket list for the summer, then put East River Ferry on it. You can take a breezy ride on the East River Ferry to 7 various stops during the week and to Governor’s Island on the weekends. Each ferry stop is a trip in itself, with each neighborhood’s gems waiting for [...]
New iphone App Makes Lunch Planning Deliciously Easy
by Nicole on 6/10/12 | 0 Comment(s)
If you have yet to start camp like us, then you are busy labeling and wondering how to cram all your kids’ stuff into one backpack: including a nutritious lunch that’s supposed to stay cold through a scorching hot morning. I hate to cook, let alone plan meals, so packing camp lunches makes me dread [...]
Sand: What You Need To Know Before Getting In the Sandbox This Summer
by Jill on 5/23/12 | 7 Comment(s)
My kids happily play in the sand – beach or sandbox – for hours at a time. Now that Jenn has outgrown the sand-eating phase and is almost out of the sand-throwing phase, it’s fun for all of us. I have rolled my eyes at my friend who won’t let her daughters play in the [...]
Cool Map Games for Kids
by Nicole on 5/18/12 | 0 Comment(s)
Are you searching for a fun way to teach geography to your kid…and maybe brush up on it yourself? Here are a few that I really like: Rethinking Schools’ Map Game This map game is easy to follow. Just drag a country’s name to its proper place. I admit I made quite a few mistakes- [...]
Get Nailed! A Party For Moms!
by Nicole on 4/20/12 | 0 Comment(s)
I am really excited about this party we are having with Babeland and Polish Bar BK. It’s been in the works for a couple of months- and it’s finally here! So….Get Nailed with us! Get Nailed! Mom’s Party with Babeland, Polish Bar BK and A Child Grows in Brooklyn Need a break from the stroller [...]
Passover Craft: Frogs, frogs, frogs
by Nicole on 4/06/12 | 0 Comment(s)
If you celebrate Passover then you know why frogs are important. Frogs were one of the ten plagues that Moses imposed upon the Egyptians to convince the Pharaoh to release the enslaved Jews. It took ten plagues for the Pharoah to relent. During the plague of the frogs, Moses sent hoardes of frogs from the [...]
New Store in PLG Attracts Families From All Over
by Nicole on 2/02/12 | 1 Comment(s)
Parents in Prospect Lefferts Gardens have been thrilled with the addition of newcomer Play Kids to their area. Since it opened, it’s not only locals that come: parents from Ditmas Park, Prospect Heights, Park Slope and even as far away as Carroll Gardens are making the trip. What’s the draw? Their stellar lineup of unique [...]
The year’s top green toys
by Nicole on 6/13/11 | 1 Comment(s)
For the past few years, Dr. Stevanne Auerbach, also known as Dr. Toy, has issued a list of the year’s top green toys and children’s products. Dr. Toy acknowledges in a press release that these green products represent just “a small number among all the choices of play products available, but we need to start [...]
Deals on gear, clothes and toys this week
by Nicole on 5/21/11 | 0 Comment(s)
While we have some fabulous consignment shops in Brooklyn, sometimes it’s fun to go to an event where you swap and buy used items from parents you see and meet. One of the most famous tag sales for parents is the Manhattan Twins Club sale. Why is it famous? For its stock on double strollers, [...]
Toy of the Year Awards go to….
by Nicole on 4/27/11 | 2 Comment(s)
Birthday season is about to begin and that means finding gifts that are just right for that birthday girl or boy. In celebration, we are going to be posting award-winning toys over the next few weeks. This week we are featuring some nominees for the Toy of the Year Awards (TOTY), as presented by the [...]





