To round out your child’s media diet, you can add some fun resources, including Tiptoi interactive books and games.

Tiptoi is a German product made by the famous Ravensburger publishing house, which makes puzzles, games, and children’s books (Tiptoi website). The Tiptoi pen contains software and a speaker, which kids can use to interact with dedicated physical books and games independently and in a unique way. For example, when the child taps on different parts of the book they can access audiobook text, additional context, songs, and quizzes. The audio feature makes Tiptoi particularly helpful for families with weaker German skills. Your child can hear the correct vocabulary and pronunciation while they are making a visual connection with the content. Most Tiptoi content is geared to kids age 3-6, but there is good content for kids as old as 10.

Tiptoi is on the expensive side, but now that it has been available for over a decade, you can also find books and games secondhand on eBay, Medimops, etc. The way it works is that you purchase the pen and books and then go to the Tiptoi website to download the software for the interactive content to the pen for free. If you decide to buy a Tiptoi pen, the charging station is a very valuable upgrade, as it makes it a lot easier to download the content for each book vs. doing it manually while connected to the computer, which we have found to be frustratingly glitchy.

In the US, Amazon.com has a good selection of Tiptoi books and games in the $25-35 range. A good starting place for toddlers would be the Suchen und Entdecken series by Sandra Grimm, who is a wonderful author of books for the youngest kids: Meine Welt, Fahrzeuge, Die Jahreszeiten. For older children, we like Wir entdecken die Dinosaurier (ages 4-7), Der Weltraum (ages 6-10), and Mathe 1. Klasse. All ages enjoy the sing-along books, such as Meine schönsten Weihnachtslieder.