Non-profit organizations founded by girls and women that are changing the world!

After the rush of Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping, it's time to take a moment and give back! For the sixth year, people are celebrating Giving Tuesday, a day dedicated to donating money, time, and talent to charitable organizations around the world. By bringing together supporters from countries across the globe with organizations making a difference, Giving Tuesday provides a chance to amplify the small donations that each of us can make into big change!

To celebrate this day of giving at A Mighty Girl, we're highlighting ten incredible grassroots organizations founded by girls and women that we hope you'll consider supporting on this day and throughout the year. From helping orphans in Nepal to providing solar power for obstetricians in developing countries to growing healthy vegetables for people in need in the United States, these groups are making a real difference both locally and globally. Your donations can help magnify the efforts of these inspiring girls and women and ensure that their life-changing work reaches even further! Continue reading → Continue reading

Today's deals feature Hape wooden toys and craft kits for kids!

With a week full of great deals — perfectly timed for holiday shopping — we know that our community has their eyes open for exciting options for the kids on their gift lists. For Wednesday only, Amazon is offering a special promotion on toys from Hape, a company that makes high-quality, gender-neutral, ecologically-conscious toys, and we wanted to make sure our community didn't miss out!

Their solid wood construction ensures that they're durable enough to take everything that your Mighty Girls have to dish out! Parents will also appreciate eco-friendly details like the sustainably sourced wood, BPA-free plastic, and non-toxic dyes used in Hape's construction. In addition to a selection of Hape toys, we've also featured a variety of craft kits that are available as part of this one-day deal. Whether you're looking for a ride-on for a toddler, pretend play toys for a child, or a creativity-inspiring craft for a tween or teen, there's something here for every Mighty Girl! Continue reading → Continue reading

"Your kid doesn't just want to take risks. She needs to take risks."

"Middle school gets a bad rap," says Michelle Icard, educator and author of Middle School Makeover: Improving the Way You and Your Child Experience the Middle School Years. "Middle school can be scary. But there is a lot to love about middle school, too. One of my favorites is that middle school can offer a buffet of new experiences." When kids start acting differently from the little kid you've known for so long however, whether it's wanting to dye their hair strange new colors, wearing only black, or hanging out with a new group of friends, many parents start to worry. Icard aims to set parents at ease, asserting that, while it may seem counterintuitive, one of the best way to keep your middle schooler out of trouble is to let them take risks — with a little guidance. “Who a child will become is not a foregone conclusion, and without trying a lot of new things, how can a young person truly know who she is?” Icard asks. "Becoming an independent adult, after all, requires a lot of bravery.... Your kid doesn’t just want to take risks. She needs to take risks." Continue reading → Continue reading

25 Mighty Girl Halloween Costumes Celebrating Mighty Women

A popular theme among the over 2,000 photos of Mighty Girls in costume submitted to this year's A Mighty Girl Halloween Gallery were costumes that honored a pioneering woman from history or present day. In this blog post, we've showcased 25 of these Mighty Girl's incredible costumes and, to help you and your Mighty Girl learn more about the amazing women depicted, we've also linked to our character collection and biography section where relevant in a "Teachable Moment" feature. Continue reading → Continue reading

Our top picks of Mighty Girl superhero costumes from our Halloween costume collection and photos of Mighty Girls in costume shared by our community!

Who doesn't love pretending to be a superhero? Flying through the sky, using your skills, wits, and super powers to save the world is an exciting idea, especially for young children. So it's no wonder that superhero costumes are tremendously popular at Halloween! If a Mighty Girl wants to dress up as a favorite superhero, there's no shortage of Iron Man, Captain America, and Superman costumes but what if she wants to dress up as a female superhero? Costumes for even popular female superheroes such as Wonder Woman, Batgirl, and Supergirl are often nowhere to be seen. And if the costumes are available, often they are either highly sexualized, with short skirts and cutouts — hardly the right outfit for someone busy saving the day!

To make it easier to find empowering superhero costumes for fans of every age, from newborns to adults, we've showcased our favorites based on characters ranging from Black Widow to Bumblebee. In addition to being fun to wear, these costumes remind everyone that the world of superheroes has plenty of strong, intelligent, and courageous female characters to inspire costumes and dress-up wear. Dressed as her favorite superhero, your Mighty Girl will feel ready to take on the world!

For even more costume inspiration on themes ranging from superheroes to animals, you'll find hundreds of costumes for all ages from infants through adults in our Girl Empowerment Halloween Costume Guide. Continue reading → Continue reading

Our favorite occupation-themed Mighty Girl costumes from our own costume collection and photos of Mighty Girls in costume shared by our community!

Halloween dress-up fun gives kids a wonderful opportunity to imagine themselves in any number of roles, such as pursuing a future career aspiration! Whether she sees herself as a doctor, firefighter, ballerina, or scientist, she can "try on" her dream job for a night -- and perhaps even spark an interest that will last a lifetime.

In today's blog post, we share some of our favorite occupation-themed costumes, including a number from A Mighty Girl's costume collection such as veterinarian, astronaut, and chef costumes. Of course, many Mighty Girls enjoy the challenge of creating their own costume, so in the second section, we highlight a few of our favorite costumes inspired by careers that community members have shared with us in previous years!

For even more costume inspiration on themes ranging from superheroes to animals, you'll find hundreds of costumes for all ages from infants through adults in our Girl Empowerment Halloween Costume Guide. Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of new girl-empowering releases for children and teens.

September is always a big month for new book releases, but with so many new titles, it can be challenging to keep track of the best new Mighty Girl books. With gorgeous new picture books, inspiring tales about real-life female role models, new additions to popular chapter book series, and thought-provoking young adult fantasy, there's something new for every lover of girl-empowering literature! And, for even more options, you can find over 3,000 Mighty Girl books for all ages, sortable by recommended reader age and theme, in our main Book Collection. Continue reading → Continue reading

For the first time in history, a woman will serve as NASA's chief flight director.

NASA took another giant step for equality this week when it named Holly Ridings as its first female chief flight director! Ridings, who is originally from Amarillo, Texas, will lead the flight directors that oversee human spaceflight missions from Mission Control in Houston's Johnson Space Center.  "Holly has proven herself a leader among a group of highly talented flight directors,” says Director of Flight Operations Brian Kelly. "I know she will excel in this unique and critical leadership position providing direction for the safety and success of human spaceflight missions. She will lead the team during exciting times as they adapt to support future missions with commercial partners and beyond low-Earth orbit." Continue reading → Continue reading

Our top 60 picks of backpacks for children and teens that reflect Mighty Girls' diverse interests in a wide range of colors and designs.

Whether you're looking for a new backpack for school, need something to tote stuff for sleepovers, or want a heavy-duty, high-capacity daypack for hikes and traveling, it's important that the bag you pick can take everything your Mighty Girl has to throw at it! At the same time, backpacks are a fun way to reflect a child's interests and a tween's or teen's personality. The best backpacks are the ones that both go the distance and capture the wide array of interests of the Mighty Girls in our lives!

With that in mind, we've put together a selection of our favorite backpacks for kids, from toddlers to teens. In the first half of this blog post, we've showcased a variety of backpacks in fun, colorful patterns that cover a wide variety of themes ranging from animals to science, and then in the second half, we've shared some of our favorite backpacks featuring Mighty Girl characters, including site favorites such as Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, Moana, Star Wars, The Incredibles, Inside Out, and Doc McStuffins. We're confident there's one every Mighty Girl will love! Continue reading → Continue reading

These Mighty Girls are national finalists in the premier science competition for middle schoolers!

The Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge is the premier science competition in the U.S. for middle school kids and, like every year, the Mighty Girls in the competition continue to astound! The event challenges kids in 5th through 8th grades to use their scientific know-how to come up with an invention or solution that addresses an everyday problem. Whether it's an issue that affects themselves, their family, their community, or the whole world, they get to turn their ingenuity and drive towards making a difference — and every year, it's amazing what these young scientists think up!

This year, three of the national finalists are Mighty Girl scientists! These Young Scientist finalists will be spending their summers working with mentors to develop their visions into a more polished prototype, and we can't wait to see the results at the finals in October, where they'll be vying for a $25,000 prize and the title of "America's Top Young Scientist" for 2018.

In this blog post, we introduce you to these clever and creative Mighty Girls and their incredible projects. From using infrared light to detect microplastics in ocean water to designing a water-saving toilet flushing system to using alginate gel to relieve dental pain, these Mighty Girls' inventive solutions to everyday problems will inspire science lovers of every age! Continue reading → Continue reading