As I was saying, my four year-old daughter loves bugs. This evening, she was playing with a banana slug, carrying it all around the back yard. After gently depositing it on a leaf, she went in to wash up. Ten minutes later, I heard a bewildered cry from the bathroom. Prolonged scrubbing with soap had […]
Continue ReadingWith parents braving the vagaries of tourism with younger and younger children, "stroller tours" are all the rage; Philadelphia’s "Constitutional" or Golden Gate Park’s stroller-friendly "exercise walks" are just a couple of the many examples. For families who’d rather roll solo, Bugaboo Daytrips offers stroller-friendly excursions in more than a dozen cities around the world, […]
Continue ReadingIf you’ve got some Alka-Seltzer tablets, a drill, some string, and lots of water, you’ve got all you need for a fun, summer-time (outdoor) game. Set-up is very easy: drill a small hole through the center of an Alka-Seltzer tablet thread a string through the hole. Make sure the string is long enough to tie […]
Continue ReadingRocks. Kids. Time. Your basic ingredients for rock stacking. You take rocks and you balance them on top of each other. No glue, no pins, no tricks. Just plain old gravity. Just getting one rock to balance is a supreme achievement. Getting four on top of each other is…. magic, or black magic, or superpowers, […]
Continue ReadingThe GeekMom and I recently purchased the Crayola Sidewalk Paint Sprayer for the (younger) kids. However, we found that even our teenager got into the fun of painting our driveway, sidewalk, and yes, flowers the last couple of days. It takes 4 AA batteries, and you need to water-down the paint a bit more than […]
Continue ReadingHere’s a great summer geek project for kids: Tie Dye! It’s fun, colorful and chemistry in action. It’s also perfect for groups of kids. We found doing tie dye fits perfectly well with being in a bathing suit — less worry about getting clothes stained. This was our staging area for one tie-dye-in at a […]
Continue ReadingMy wife and I recently visited the number one shell hunting beach in the US, Sanibel Island, FL (as picked by Coastal Living Magazine). I read that Ponce De Leon named this island "Costa de Carocles" (Island of Shells). It’s easy to see why. You don’t have to be a shell enthusiast to be […]
Continue ReadingWhen my son expressed an interest in fossils I saw an opportunity to geekdad Old School style and pretend I was one of the original geekdads, the gentleman naturalists that are stock characters in most movies about Victorian England. Not knowing much (anything) about fossil hunting, we turned to the internet where I found sites […]
Continue ReadingI was invited to a Memorial Day event by a fellow geekdad who will be there. I’m not going to be able to make it, but perhaps one of you can stop by. . . Just fly down to Atlanta on Sunday and drive 90 minutes down to Fort Benning. First Call on Memorial day […]
Continue ReadingTo follow up on this post, it looks like inflatable water-parks for home use are all the rage this summer. I’m thinking there must be some way to monetize this with the neighborhood kids… Via Uncrate: Your kids hating on you for canceling vacation to spend more time at the office? Make their summer a […]
Continue ReadingWe’ve had a good stretch of warm weather here in the east. The Sourland Mountain preserve in central New Jersey is the perfect place for outings in all seasons. Spend enough time there, and you will encounter just about every bit of wildlife NJ has to offer. One end of the preserve is about 3 […]
Continue ReadingThe boys and I spent a day at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. An historical, hands-on, GeekFamily-friendly exhibit in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. A place to see a World War II submarine, to learn about shipping on the Great Lakes, and where the kids can experience water hands-on and it’s importance for agricultural and economic interests. The […]
Continue ReadingMy kids have graduated to their own bikes this past year, but before they got their own two wheels, they traveled next to me in a Chariot SideCarrier. Most bicycle child carriers put your kid behind you, subject to tires kicking up water, sand and gravel – not to mention a constant view of your […]
Continue ReadingKids can’t spend all summer hacking up cool projects and mastering the latest video game, there has to be some splashy fun around our yard when the weather starts getting warm. I’m not about to shell out $600 for this version of the ultimate slip and slide, but the kids and I are sure lusting […]
Continue ReadingWhen I was a Geek Kid, I spent a lot of time building plastic model airplanes. World War II aviation was what I liked best, and of all the planes that flew during the war, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber was my favorite — I must’ve built a dozen of the 1/48 scale Monogram […]
Continue ReadingGeocaching is a great way to get your kids outdoors. There’s nothing like a genuine treasure hunt to fill an otherwise cartoon-oriented Saturday morning. At three, our little one is just catching on to the idea that the little boxes we go looking for have cool stuff in them. We, on the other hand, are […]
Continue Reading"Dad? How did people find geocaches before GPSes were invented?" A retro-GeekDad like me longs for a teachable moment like that. The short answer to my son’s question was, “We didn’t have geocaches back then – we just had buried treasure.” That got his attention! We found those treasures the same way they do it […]
Continue ReadingTools are meant to be abused, creatively. In Powertool Drag Races you take a powertool such as a drill, circular saw, or impact driver, and you add wheels (or not), then you race it down a wooden track. What could be simplier, or more fun? These off-center races have become a Bay Area geek subcult […]
Continue ReadingI just finished reviewing The Dangerous Book for Boys for Parent Hacks, and I’m thoroughly entranced by its premise and promise: that there exists an essential package of skills and knowledge each boy should master. In so doing, he unlocks the potential for a life of exploration and adventure. (Here’s a link to the full […]
Continue ReadingHere at GeekDads, we get bonus points for all projects that combine power tools and small children. So despite the relative lack of technology involved in this weekend’s Compost Bin Project, I still get plus five points for letting my 5 year old drill with reckless abandon. The compost bin has been a long time […]
Continue ReadingIt’s spring. Wind’s up. Time to break out the kites. Flying kites is one of those great outdoor activities that scales well with age. A preschooler can have fun helping to build and launch a simple kite. On the other end of the spectrum are the adult artists, photographers, kite surfers, kite-ice-butt-boarders (not for the […]
Continue ReadingOur son became fascinated by the Jordan Spreaders and rotary snowplows (the “rotaries”) of the Union Pacific after watching The Battle for Donnor Pass. (Where else can you watch guys blast ice from tracks and tunnels with everything from shotguns to dynamite – or learn how they re-rail an engine in a blizzard…but I digress.) […]
Continue ReadingLast week, my daughter and I had the opportunity to cheat death, with nary a lawyer in sight. Had we been in the U.S., we would have been subjected to endless lectures about safety, and forced to acknowledge our personal liability by signing in blood a 10-page release. After the inevitable accident, the experience would […]
Continue ReadingFor a bunch of Easters running, we have gone over to the house of our good friends Julie and Dan Lythcott-Haims. We have a traditional Easter Egg hunt, dye some eggs and eat bagels. But this year Dan decided to up the ante on the egg hunt. Instead of simply hiding eggs, Dan created a […]
Continue ReadingChris posted recently about MyMaps, the new Google Maps feature that makes it easy to create your own interactive maps. As it happens, I’d previously been playing around with a very similar non-Google mashup service called Wayfaring that does much the same thing. I haven’t used Google’s version yet, but by all accounts it sounds […]
Continue ReadingMy daughter and I have discovered the joys of race karts. It isn’t as productive a hobby as some of the previous posts, but I think there are some unique benefits – particularly for a father and daughter: All great great race drivers start in karts – from Michael Schumacher to Mario Andretti. You simply […]
Continue ReadingSpring is here and it’s time to dust the family off and take them for a fun hike, bike, or stroll around the neighborhood. Having difficulty motivating the kids to join you? Turn your outing into an adventure by adding Geocaching to the mix! Geocaching turns any outdoor activity into a treasure hunt. Simply point […]
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