SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 2, 2025--
Nex, maker of Nex Playground, the active play system that gets families moving year-round, in collaboration with Sesame Workshop, the global nonprofit behind Sesame Street, today launched their sweetest learning experience yet: Cookie Monster ’ s Cookie Factory. Now baking exclusively on Nex Playground, this delicious and playful puzzle adventure engages children’s minds, bodies, and senses through play. Access is included with Play Pass, the subscription that unlocks the full Nex Playground experience.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250702367284/en/
In Cookie Monster’s Cookie Factory, players will use their bodies to control factory widgets such as sliders, conveyor belts, claws, springs, and fans to transport and sort cookies from a source pipe to destination boxes. Different widgets utilize different body motions, including jumping, squatting, moving arms, and tilting shoulders.
“From Elmo to Grover to Cookie Monster, these games with Nex combine joyful movement with purposeful learning,” said Tina Moglia, Sesame Workshop Supervising Producer, Digital Production. “ Cookie Monster ’ s Cookie Factory is a sweet finale that shows how educational play can be just as fun and active as it is meaningful.”
What’s cookin’ in Cookie Monster ’ s Cookie Factory?
The launch marks the fourth and final game in the multi-title collaboration between Nex and Sesame Workshop. Cookie Monster ’ s Cookie Factory joins Elmo Says, Elmo & Abby ’ s Magical Letter Hunt, and Move & Groove with Grover to create an educational and active play experience that supports key areas of early childhood development in gross motor, early literacy, communication, and now, with Cookie Monster, problem-solving skills.
“From the beginning, our collaboration with Sesame Workshop has centered around one goal: to support whole-child development through joyful, active learning experiences,” said Dr. Emily Greenwald, Chief Pediatric Advisor, Nex Playground. “Across all four titles, we’ve intentionally focused on early childhood skills–gross motor, early literacy, communication, and now, with Cookie Monster’s Cookie Factory, puzzle-solving. This final game is a perfect example of how movement-based learning can spark cognitive growth and giggles at the same time.”
Cookie Monster fans can play Cookie Monster ’ s Cookie Factory, along with the entire suite of Sesame Street games, exclusively on Nex Playground with a Play Pass.
Families interested in purchasing Nex Playground can find the active play system on Amazon as well as in Best Buy®, Target® and Walmart® online and select retail stores nationwide. Store availability can be found at https://nexplayground.com/stores.
About Nex
Nex is on a mission to help families rediscover the joy of movement. Created by parents for parents, Nex combines technology and play to deliver fun, social, and interactive experiences powered by natural body motion, encouraging kids and adults to move more, play more, and have fun together. Nex Playground, the company’s award-winning active play system, is purpose-built to get families moving year-round, with safety and privacy as core considerations in its intentional design. It is certified kidSAFE+ COPPA compliant and built to support healthy, active play for all ages and abilities.
Nex Playground features a growing library of 40+ experiences, including motion and dance games, fitness and educational experiences, and Nex Originals. Content includes collaborations with partners like Hasbro, Sesame Workshop, and NBCUniversal. Nex has been recognized by Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, TIME’s Best Inventions, and Parents’ Best Entertainment System for Families, and has earned Red Dot, IDEA, and Core77 international design awards.
To learn more, visit https://www.nex.inc or follow the company on Instagram and Facebook.
Cookie Monster's Cookie Factory is now available exclusively on Nex Playground
BAGHDAD (AP) — An American journalist who was kidnapped in Baghdad had tried to cross from Syria into Iraq three weeks earlier and was initially turned back, an Iraqi official said Wednesday.
U.S. and Iraqi officials said Shelly Renee Kittleson had also been warned of threats against her in the days before her abduction. A freelance journalist who has worked for years in Iraq and Syria and was described by those who knew her as deeply knowledgeable about the region and the communities she covered, Kittleson was kidnapped from a street in the Iraqi capital Tuesday and remains missing.
Hussein Alawi, an adviser to Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, said Kittleson had sought to enter via the al-Qaim crossing from Syria on March 9 but was turned back because she did not have a press work permit and because security concerns due to “the escalation of the war and aerial projectiles over Iraqi airspace as a result of the war on Iran.”
She later entered the country after obtaining a single-entry visa to Iraq valid for 60 days issued to allow foreign citizens stranded in neighboring countries to “transit through Iraq to reach their home countries via available transport routes,” he said.
Kittleson entered Baghdad a few days before she was kidnapped and was staying in a hotel in the capital, he said.
“The incident is being followed closely by Iraqi security and intelligence agencies under the supervision of” al-Sudani, Alawi said. He noted that one suspect believed to be involved in the kidnapping plot has been arrested and is being interrogated.
Iraqi security forces gave chase to her captors and arrested one suspect after the car he was driving crashed, but other kidnappers were able to escape with the journalist in a second car.
An Iraqi intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, said Iraqi authorities believe she is being held in Baghdad and are trying to locate her and secure her release. He said authorities “have information about the abducting party” but declined to give more details.
U.S. officials have alleged that Kittleson was taken by Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-linked Iraqi militia that has been implicated in previous kidnappings of foreigners. The group has not claimed the kidnapping and the Iraqi government has not publicly said anything about the kidnappers' affiliation.
The Iraqi intelligence official said that prior to Kittleson's abduction, Iraqis had contacted U.S. officials to notify them that there was a specific kidnapping threat against her by Iran-affiliated militias.
Dylan Johnson, U.S. assistant secretary of state for public affairs, said on X Tuesday that the “State Department previously fulfilled our duty to warn this individual of threats against them.”
A U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, said, “She was contacted multiple times with warnings of the threats against her," including as late as the night before the kidnapping.
Kittleson’s mother, 72-year-old Barb Kittleson, who spoke to The Associated Press at her home in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, said she heard about the kidnapping from a news report on Tuesday and was visited by the FBI at her house on Tuesday night.
When asked how she felt about the kidnapping she said, “Terrible. Scared. I’ll pray for her.”
Barb Kittleson said she last exchanged emails with her daughter on Monday. Shelly Kittleson sent photos of herself from Iraq, her mother said.
“Journalism is what she wanted to do so bad,” Barb Kittleson said. “I wanted her to come home and not do it, but she said, ‘I’m helping people.’”
Surveillance footage from Baghdad that was obtained by the AP shows what seems to be the moment the journalist was kidnapped. It shows two men approaching a person standing on a street corner and ushering the person into the back of a car. There appears to be a brief struggle to shut the car door before the men get into the vehicle and it drives away.
Iran-backed militias in Iraq have launched regular attacks on U.S. facilities in the country since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Bauer reported from Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
The street corner in central Baghdad's Saadoun Street where U.S. journalist Shelly Kittleson was kidnapped in central Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, April 1 2026. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
U.S. journalist Shelly Kittleson poses for a cellphone photo in a cafe in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo)
U.S. journalist Shelly Kittleson poses for a cellphone photo in a cafe in Baghdad, Iraq, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo)
A street view shows the street corner in central Baghdad's Saadoun Street where U.S. journalist Shelly Kittleson was kidnapped in central Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, April 1 2026. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
A street view shows the street corner in central Baghdad's Saadoun Street where U.S. journalist Shelly Kittleson was kidnapped in central Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, April 1 2026. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
