Ryan at Pacing the Panic Room confesses that he hates the playground. But his daughter’s at the age when she needs to make some friends.
GeekMom Kathy got a kick out of the “Barbie Blunders” she found over at the National Museum of Play. Did anyone (besides kitsch-loving gay men) buy Earring Magic Ken? What makes the earring magic?
OK, so we all love Buzz Lightyear and Wall-E and Carl from Up! What makes a CGI character lovable and what makes some of them just weird? Salon talks to a Dreamworks expert who says that too human = too creepy. The Incredibles worked so, so well because the family weren’t too realistic and all of varying shapes and sizes. What are your favourite CGI-animated characters?
Check out this 9-year-old Tanzanian boy reenacting his favourite movie, Commando. Via BoingBoing:
What we’re reading on the blogs today — science edition!
Curious as to what sort of effect the constant texting and steady stream of facebook updates has on your kids’ brains? Miles O’Brien tells PBS that the tech-savvy millennials might have better brains than we do. Via BoingBoing
Want your kids to get a start on that brain-boosting technology? Check out this interactive Cookie Monster science lesson video. Cookie and his pal Emma prompt the viewer to choose an object and then come up with a hypothesis as to what the object will do in a tank in water. Who knew Cookie could say “hypothesis”? Via BoingBoing
Scientists in South America have uncovered a previously unknown ancestor to the T. rex and other ancient predators. Its name is Eodromaeus (pronounced eyo-DRO-may-us) and it was only four feet long. Lightweight and quick-moving, the name means “Dawn Runner.” Excellent news if you have any budding paleontologists in your brood. Via Huffington Post. Read more...
As you might have noticed, we’re big vegetable fans here. So much so, we get rather peeved when someone tries to hide them away. That’s why we were delighted to see George Ball of the Wall Street Journaldeclare 2011 to be the Year of the Vegetable! Ball takes his cue from Michelle Obama and her Let’s Move! initiative. In order to fight childhood obesity, Ball says we need to teach by example — adults also need to eat more vegetables and the tomato slice on a burger doesn’t count. Interestingly (but not surprisingly) he says that kids get pretty excited about the vegetables they grown themselves. His answer: more community gardens! Now where is Margaret Atwood? Read more...
So long as the end results stay this awesome, we’d be happy to see these video invitations become a trend. Who doesn’t want to go to Tad and Elijah’s knight-themed party? (via ohdeedoh)
Have you heard of the Canadian Family Robinson? They’re a “homeschooling, RV-living, green-minded, traveling, happy family of 7 living their lives in the best way they can for themselves and the earth!” Follow their adventures and monitor the progress on their house. We can’t wait to hear from their 5-year-old, Ocean, who is described as a “mermaid scientist.” (Mermaid Scientist sounds like a superexcellent Saturday morning cartoon and/or graphic novel. We now wonder if this family has that phrase trademarked…) Read more...
We found this Adam Kodord illustration on BoingBoing and are just so entertained by it.
Speaking of the Naughty List, have you been misusing the Comic Sans font? You might be a Comic Sans Criminal. Take the pledge and set the correct tone for all your printed materials forever more. Please.
Do you stare hard at the nutrition facts on boxes of cereal, debating which product is best? (We do this with cereal, bread, toothpaste and shampoo) Globe and Mail health columnist Leslie Beck has a few tips for choosing the right way to start your day. Spoiler: Look for whole grains to be listed as the first ingredient. Read more...
If you want a boost in making Santa more believable, download this Elf Cam app for iphone/itouch. If you point your phone towards the North Pole, you can hear what’s going on in Santa’s workshop! And you can capture Santa in night-vision. No wonder this app is so cool, it was made by elves. (via BoingBoing)
If you’ve been humming Tchaikovsky in the recent weeks and days, you might be interested in this brief history of nutcrackers on Slate. Here’s an excerpt:
The dolls symbolize good luck in German tradition—one popular origin myth, related by Rittenhouse, holds that a wealthy but lonely farmer who found the process of cracking nuts to be detrimental to his productivity (efficiency even pervades German folklore!) offered a reward to whoever could come up with the best solution. Each villager drew on his own professional expertise—a carpenter advocating sawing them open, a soldier shooting the suckers. But it was the puppetmaker—a profession that seems to loom large in European tall tales—who won the day, building a strong-jawed, lever-mouthed doll. Read more...
