'App-cessories' named hottest holiday toy trends

— -- The nation's toymakers have decided that your kid doesn't need a bike, sled or even a laptop to have fun this holiday.

Your kid needs an iPad. But don't stop there.

With iPad in hand, your job — as gift-giving, techno-parent — is to make sure your kid unwraps lots and lots of gifts with kid-targeting apps for Christmas or Hanukkah. Toys R Us Wednesday will christen "app-cessories" one of 2011's hottest holiday toy trends even as it rolls out at least a dozen such toys, from a Crayola app that writes like a crayon when it touches an iPad to a Disney-Pixar app that lets kids recreate Cars 2 on an iPad.

"Even a 4-year-old can play on these devices without training," says Troy Peterson, vice president of merchandising at Toys R Us. "We'll be going out more aggressively because demand is developing quickly."

But there may be some push-back from parents. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends limiting a child's screen time to no more than one or two hours per day. Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative has taken a similar tack and recommends no screen time for children under age 2. But these new toys tend to only increase screen time.

"Most of these reinforce the notion that kids can't have fun without screens," says Susan Linn, director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. "This is just another way that we're depriving kids of imaginative play."

Among this holiday's apps for kids:

•Crayola app. It costs about six times more than a $4.99 Crayola 64 box of crayons, but the $29.99 iMarker Digital Stylus (which comes with the Crayola ColorStudio HD app) can simulate Crayola crayons, markers and paints when it touches an iPad. It targets kids as young as 3. This is just the beginning of products with apps at Crayola, says Vicky Lozano, vice president of marketing. "This allows kids to be creative in a digital world," she says. "I don't believe all screen time is created equal."

•Cars 2app. At $19.99, the Disney-Pixar Cars 2 AppMates also target kids as young as 3. The kit, which comes with two cars, turns an iPad into a veritable raceway. Cars can be customized with unique sounds and racing stripes.

•Arcade app. Think of it as a high-tech pinball machine that doesn't take quarters. The $99.99 iCade Arcade Cabinet for iPad is a retro-designed, desktop arcade into which you plop your iPad.

•Helicopter app. You might say kids earn their wings operating the $49.99 Helo Touch Controlled Helicopter. The control plugs into an iPad and translates user commands into infrared signals that beam to the helicopter.