Kids + Swimming – For Parents
The author recalls the shock of learning his ten-year-old son couldn’t swim!
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Tag: Recreation
General Grievous vs the Cats: When Is It Okay to Glue Lego?
There’s a bit of an unwritten law among Lego geeks that gluing a kit together is taboo —unless you’re creating something for use in Legoland, where presumably, large scale models that could be pulled apart would pose a danger to …
Continue ReadingGeeked About the Greeks
Every summer I run a History through the Creative Arts camp for homeschoolers in my area. It started as a way to do history with my own children that was based on something other than war and politics. I find …
Continue ReadingA Lego Wall Worth Peeking Over (GeekDad Weekly Rewind)
This amazing Lego wall is the work of Denmark-based Lene Rønsholt Wille. The circular wall, called “Metaphorical Horizons,” took six weeks and 270,000 white LEGO blocks. It is located in the central hall of the World Trade Center in Amsterdam. …
Continue ReadingBuilding LED Models With Laser Pegs
With three kids in their prime Lego years, we have amassed a considerable collection of bricks. However, while we do have some motorized components, we don’t have any illuminated gear. I know Lego does sell an LED kit, but we …
Continue ReadingGiveaway: Gogo’s Crazy Bones
Have you heard of Gogo’s Crazy Bones? If not, and you have school-aged kids, I suspect you’ll know all about Mosh, Hiraku, B-Boy and hundreds of other characters before too long. Although they’ve been around since the ’90s (310 million …
Continue ReadingReview: Find Your Next Letterbox With the Clue Tracker iPhone App
Geocaching tends to have quite a few electronic helpers, based on the fact that it’s an electronic sport. Letterboxing, however, the old fashioned analog version of geocaching, has usually been a pen-and-paper kind of activity. I recently reviewed BoxFinder, an …
Continue ReadingSummer Vacation Reviewed: GeekDad Visits Canada’s Wonderland
My wife and I took the kids to Canada’s Wonderland last weekend to kickstart the summer vacation season. I was a little worried about how this was going to turn out. Wonderland is located just a few minutes north of …
Continue ReadingTake Your Kids for a Hike with National Geographic’s Trails Illustrated Maps
Summer is fast approaching, and it’s a great time for hiking. Whether it’s a quick trip of a few miles with your whole family (and peanut M&Ms, of course), a day trip with three square meals and plenty of water …
Continue ReadingPreparing for Summer: Projects and Playtime
Image by mikebaird via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution License We’re still in the middle of spring, but summer is approaching fast, and summer break from school even faster. Even though we homeschool, we still take a nice long break in …
Continue ReadingSWAT Team Takes Down Man Armed With LEGO Gun
According to the National Post, a Toronto man who happens to be a big LEGO fan, was working in a downtown office on Friday when the replica gun made from LEGO that he’d ordered from online retailer BrickGun arrived. He assembled …
Continue ReadingToronto’s Historic Sites Free For Kids This Saturday
Just a quick note to let readers in the Toronto, Ontario area know that the city is offering free admission for kids 12 and under to the city’s numerous historic sites. This includes Fort York, Gibson House, Spadina Museum and …
Continue ReadingGeekDad Camps At Bon Echo
We just wrapped up the 2009 camping season after taking the kids out of school for a few days and booting it up to Bon Echo. One thing we learned about camping during the week in September is that this …
Continue ReadingGeekDad Visits The Western Fair
Fall is almost here (officially, at least, although it’s felt fall-ish for much of the summer where I live) and that means fall fair season is in full swing. London, Ontario’s Western Fair has been going strong since 1868. This …
Continue Reading30 Classic Games for Simple Outdoor Play
When I was a kid, we played outside with the other kids in the neighborhood with most of our free time. We also made the most of recess at school. We kept ourselves quite occupied without any of today’s modern …
Continue ReadingDriving To PEI: a Dinosaur, Potatoes and a Bridge! Oh, My!
I’m just back from a few weeks off camping in Canada’s smallest province, Prince Edward Island (or PEI for the acronym crowd). It was a long drive, but completely worth it. I’ll post something about the experience in the next …
Continue ReadingNational Park Service Offering Several Fee-Free Weekends this Summer
This summer, over 100 of our national parks that usually charge an entrance (or commercial tours) fee will offer several weekends during which the fees are waived. Specifically, these three weekends will be fee-free: * June 20-21, 2009 (Father’s Day …
Continue Reading“Shared Worlds” Offers A Creative Alternative To Summer Camp
Looking for a summer camp for your teen that offers something a little different? How about an immersive two-week program where students work with noted authors to create a detailed world, then use their shared creation as a basis for …
Continue ReadingA Night At The Science Center
It may not have been a Night At The Museum, but my daughter, Natasha, and her Brownie troop experienced the next best thing when they had a sleepover at the Ontario Science Centre. Besides having a day to explore the …
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