American Girl "McKenna" Movie Screening at American Girl Place Washington, DC

We brought our youngest tween out to American Girl Place at Tysons Corner for the new "McKenna" American Girl movie tonight. We decided to make an evening of it with dinner first at the American Girl Bistro and then the movie.

Dinner at the DC American Girl Bistro was very much consistent with our prior expeditions to American Girl in New York and Boston. The setting was fanciful and very PINK with doll-size settings everywhere. Our tween was particularly taken with the giant pink flower chandelier hanging over our table.

The fixed price menu offered a lot of choices, even for vegetarians, and we both loved our sides and entrees. Pink lemonade was the beverage of choice for the tween, while mom had a choice of wines. The starters were pleasantly starter-size (we opted for chicken noodle soup and the pretzel bites)and left room for the main course (penne pasta with a garlic sauce and roast salmon). Dessert was, of course, chocolate mousse in adorable green glass flower pots. We went through the entire box of "table talk" questions over dinner - which was perfect for a bit of mother-daughter bonding.

We had time for a quick photo-op with the McKenna movie cut-out and then picked up our hot pink wristbands.

The movie screening was held at the Tyson's Corner Marriott. We're local residents, but for families visiting the DC area, the Tyson's Marriott offers a special American Girl package.
The hotel converted a ballroom into a movie screening room complete with a colorful and well-stocked candy buffet, bags of popcorn, and an expanse of space that dozens of tween girls immediately sprawled out on. "McKenna" was projected onto a huge screen, and the atmosphere was very much like a giant slumber party.

Even though the movie was shown on television last week, the ballroom was full of girls attentively watching the screen. Some came in American Girl outfits, a few had brought blankets to sit on, and they all applauded when the lights came on.

The Chamber of Secrets Has Been Opened

Are you the heir of Slytherin? Pottermore recently opened the second book (CoS) up for students of the Slytherin house only! We have two girls in Slytherin house here who are very pleased about this new development. But, if you are in another house, don't worry the book will open soon for the whole school to enjoy!

Camp Gear for Tweens

'Tis the season to gear up for camp. Whether your tween is headed to sleepaway camp or on a summer getaway, here are our picks to keep her in fun fearless fashion all summer long:

Neon is a big trend this year (Exhibit A: tweens at One Direction concerts), and we think these neon duffle bags in neon yellow and neon pink are not only right on trend but also practical (because they help her to find her bag in the crowd). $97 from Deux Lux

She can never have enough towels for the beach or pool, so we found these adorable seahorse towels (bonus: they're on sale!). $20 on sale from Lands End

For those camp color wars, face paint that's easy to apply allow her to deck herself and her cabin-mates out in team colors. At the shop we stocked Sport Face because it was super easy to apply and was no-fuss (think ChapStick as face paint - no brushes needed). $3.50 for two from SportFace.com

One of our tweens is on a swim team, so we go through a lot of swimsuits. Our favorite brand has a funny name: Dolfin Uglies. These suits are so NOT ugly - they have the most fun prints we've seen! We especially love that they stand-up to a lot of wear and have terrific, sporty-cuts. The best deals for Dolfins seem to be online at SwimOutlet.com; prices range from $20-38

We loathe the lugging of multiple bottles on every outing, so we look for products that do double-duty. Avon's Skin So Soft makes an SPF30 sunscreen combined with a bug repellent that works perfectly for our tweens. It's on sale now, 2 for $15.00 at Avon.com

'Speaking of sun protection, here's another fun product mash-up: UV sensitive craft beads. We're sending our tweens to camp this year with packets of color-changing UV energy beads that she can craft into friendship bracelets, hair barrettes, bag tags, and more. Packets of 500 beads are $17 from Steve Spangler Science

Sadly our tweens' mom (yours truly) is not talented in the hair style department, so we always look admiringly at the cute hair styles done by Mindy at CuteGirlsHairstyles. Her Fourth of July glow-in-the-dark bun looks easy enough that even we could manage it, and the fun Glowby sticks are perfect for tucking into camp care packages. Glowby's are $5/apiece and come in 8 colors

Make it easy for her to send letters home or keep in touch with friends the old-fashioned way: by writing letters. Especially for those no-electronics camps, fun stationary is a must. We love these fun, no-fuss send and seal stationary packs from Iscream. $6.80 for a packet of 40 cards - just add stamps and she's good to go!

What are your tween's summer camp essentials? Please share your tips!



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GSCNC Rocking the Mall

How the girls and I are cooling down during an amazing event on the mall! Girl Scouts are here from all over the US! Amazing right? Let us know if your here with us! We have some SWAPs to trade!

Final Exam Study Tips for Middle School

Final exams are this week in our household, and the tweens have been busy studying for the past week. We asked the girls to share some of their study tips - we hope you find them useful!

• Put your exam dates on the family calendar. That way, your brothers know to not bug you and your parents remember to make you a good breakfast the morning of.

• Make digital flashcards. We found a fun app called Flashcard for the iPhone. It works great and made studying more fun - it was especially helpful for study groups.

• Turn studying for history into a craft project: make a paper timeline. This helped me to understand how long a king's reign or a Chinese dynasty really was.

• Take over your space - my sister turned her closet mirrors into a giant study guide for her Mandarin test by using colorful dry-erase markers on the mirrors. It looks really cool!

• Study outside! My mom didn't want us to miss pool-time during our Memorial Day vacation, so she put our study guide sheets in clear plastic sheet protectors - it worked!

We hope you like these study tips - we used them both for mid-terms and for finals. Last year was the first time we had finals, so our mom made us a Finals Care Package that was filled with all kinds of really fun things.

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One Direction in Concert: Our Review

UPDATE: 5/25/12: First Tween Malia Obama is also a One Direction fan and attend the show last night in Virginia.
As tweens put it, "Every generation has a boy band. 1D is ours." Another group of five lads from across the Pond lit up the stage at the Patriot Center last night and were met with record-setting decibels (122, which exceeds Verizon Center records as well) by their sold-out crowd of tween fans. The noise was so deafening that one couldn't hear the band until a few minutes into their first song.

One Direction has proved to be a break-out hit, and they put on a show that delighted their Washington-area fans last night. They performed hits from their "Up All Night" album (although many tweens reading this column will state that every song is hit on that record) and did several cover songs as well. Their cover of Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody" was a particular standout amongst the crowd and was notable both for their adept tweaks on the arrangement and their fidelity to the soul of the lyrics.

"Our boys", as they are referred to, kept the stage-set simple with a focus on their trademark, clean-cut ensembles and a band of four other people. They limited their footwork to traditional a-capella style moves, and their fans ate it up. The five-some (Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson) evenly shared center stage and acknowledged and thanked all corners of the venue. Fans threw all manner of gifts on the stage, including a baby doll, ping pong balls, a red Nationals baseball cap (which Niall promptly donned), and an Indian flag (which Niall draped over his shoulders - perhaps confusing it initially with the Irish flag, which has the some colors?).

During the concert, One Direction answered questions sent via Twitter from the crowd. Perhaps most entertaining amongst their responses was Mr. Payne's impersonation of Louis Armstrong using lyrics from "What a Wonderful World".

A new female recording star, Camryn, opened for One Direction, and she had arguably a tough spot to fill, what with a stadium full of tween girls screaming for One Direction. She did an admirable job of pumping up the crowd with songs from her own repertoire including "Set the Night on Fire" and a rousing cover of Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger". As an aside, the music that played before One Direction took stage that got the most spirited response from the crowd were songs from "Grease". The entire Patriots Center it seemed sang "Summer Lovin'" and "Greased Lightening" en masse.

Tweens documented the entire show with in their usual way with smartphone videos, photos, Tweets, Tumblr posts, and Facebook updates posted throughout the evening - almost certainly a Facebook query this morning will turn up several boot-leg videos from the concert. Many in the audience came wearing fan tee-shirts they had customized at home with puffy paint, fringe, and glitter, and day-glo colors were de rigeur.

More information on One Directon's Up All Night Tour can be found here.

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Another Reason For Tweens To Ride Bikes

Friday, May 18th, is the annual Bike to Work Day in Washington (cities around the country have held Bike to Work Days throughout this week) - it should just as easily be called Bike Everywhere Day to include kids. We stumbled upon a recent study that found that kids who are driven everywhere grow up alienated from their environments, whereas kids who grow up walking and biking in their neighborhoods feel safer and have better senses of both direction and belonging.
We want our tween daughters to be able to navigate a city, use public transportation with confidence, and learn how to be safe in a multitude of environments - and a big part of all of those goals is helping them to form a good sense of direction and be map-literate. We found the study to be very interesting and promptly went out and purchased bus passes for the girls. We'll all be biking tomorrow and have spent this month getting used to taking the bus home from school. Does your family use public transportation or bikes to get around? What tips can you share about teaching tweens to be safely independent?

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It's Viktor Krum's Birthday!

It's Stanislav Ianevski's , the actor who play Viktor Krum in the 4th Harry Potter movie ( GoF ), birthday today! Celebrate by answering this Trivia Question: Who did Krum take to the Yule Ball? Answer in the next post!

Finally: Athletic Gear Designed JUST for Tween Girls

Loyal readers know that we're constantly monitoring the market for gear that's designed with tweens in mind, and many of you will remember that we noted the launch of a new line of athletic gear by Ivivva from the founders of Lululemon back in 2009. The line is finally available State-side, and we were thrilled to have our tweens review their latest collection. We have three serious tween athletes in our house: a ballet dancer, a fencer, and an ice skater. Each girl reviewed the line - the tween fencer's review of three pieces from the collection is the first in this series.


Indi's Review of Ivivva:

I fence three days a week and attend a ton of tournaments all over the country. The sport requires you to wear fencing whites, but you have to wear workout gear underneath. You sweat A LOT, and the under layer has to be light and enable you to really MOVE. I field-tested three items from the Ivivva Athletica line - here's what I thought:

The hoodie was super cool! I particularly loved the thumb-holes on the sleeves because it was interesting, and I like that style of “skater girl”. Also, I liked that it was reversible because then I could pull it off and on, and it wouldn’t matter which way it was facing (so I didn’t have to turn it right side out). I also liked the styles of the jacket because one was plain, and one was patterned - which is great because then it could go well with the outfit you choose. I found the pony-tail hole in the back of the hood funny, but kind of odd. I still enjoyed seeing my friends reactions when I turned away from them and they could see my hair coming out of my hood.

The pants proved to be a great staple to my closet. They were plain black with a blue stripe on the top, giving it some pattern. It went well with most things I wore and was great to when I needed a pair of bottoms to pair with my top, I also enjoyed that flexibility they allowed me, a great thing when I need them to work out in. Overall, I liked them!

I really loved this tank! It was fitted (a good thing when you need it to wear under a lot of protective gear) and made me look professional and put together when I went to fencing practice. I also liked the color because it was different shades of blue that had a subtle, though interesting pattern. I also appreciated how it seemed to help me not be drenched in sweat at the end of a practice, but relatively dry - it's well named as the "Keep Ur Cool Tank". I thought it was awesome!!!

Hoodie, $64, Pants, $56, Tank, $22 - all from Ivivva Athletica

Mom's note: As a parent, I'll note that Ivivva is worth the premium price. The items have held up very well in the wash (cool water, tumble dry), the material really "breathes", and the fit flatters our tweens of all body types. We've bought budget athletic gear from Target as well as pricey items from Under Armour in the past, but this is the first line that's really worked for our girls - probably because it was designed with tween girls in mind from the get-go.

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Tweens at the USA Science and Engineering Festival

 
This weekend was the second annual USA Science and Engineering Festival. Last year's event was on the National Mall, and this year's festival graduated to the Washington Convention Center. The Expo was packed with vendors ranging from NASA to NOAA to Girl Scouts to the University of Maryland and more. Families with kids of all ages made their way to the Festival throughout the weekend and were treated to workshops from Bill Nye the Science Guy, Potato Chip Science, and Dr. Molecule.

For a tween girl interested in science, #SciFest was the place to be. There were giant DNA models, a chance to chat with astronauts, goop to muck through, giant bubble hula hoops, and instant snow demonstrations. Demonstration winners earned free t-shirts, NASAtote bags, and other science swag. STEM educators and organizations were well represented across every age group.

The Festival is funded primarily by enterpreneur Larry Bock and enjoys support from a Congressional Host Committee.

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