I came across this safe, non-toxic paint at this year’s NYC Maker Faire. Loads of great projects to experiment safely with electricity and art.

This electronics kit requires no soldiering and is a perfect way to introduce kids to electronics. The components are designed to be snapped together with small magnets to make all kinds of contraptions and devices.  The $129 starter kit includes a button, potentiometer, a pressure sensor, LED light, a vibration motor and more. Young inventors can easily create things just by snapping the components together. Its a great way to introduce kids to basic electronics. As the kids want to do more complicated circuits, they an snap together other littleBits.

Here’s a great little video they made to explain littleBits.

littleBits (re)intro from ayah bdeir on Vimeo.

Reminds me of the They Might be Giants song, “Science is Real“.

This is the second in a series of videos with children’s librarian extraordinaire Susie Heimbach, from the Mulberry St. branch of the New York Public Library.  In this video, she talks about six great books that are perfect to share with young aspiring astronauts in your life.

Here’s a list of the books from this clip (Amazon links):

Reaching for the Moon

I Wonder Why Stars Twinkle

Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon

I Want to Be an Astronaut

Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 (Richard Jackson Books (Atheneum Hardcover))

Find the Constellations

This is the first in a series of videos I shot with children’s librarian extraordinaire Susie Heimbach. You can normally find her sharing great books with kids of all ages at the Mulberry St. branch of the New York Public Library. She has an infectious enthusiasm for books and reading and impacts countless kids who pass through her library. Hooray for librarians! In this clip, she talks about five great books to get kids in the mood to go back to school.

Here’s a list of the books from this clip (Amazon links):

The Hair of Zoe Fleefenbacher Goes to School, by Laurie Halse Anderson

Welcome to Kindergarten, by  Anne Rockwell

Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten, by  Joseph Slate and Ashley Wolff

Miss Nelson Is Missing!, by Harry Allard

I Hate School, by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross

Saturday’s performance was meant to be the culmination of a full week of workshops, rehearsals, and set preparation at Stagecoach Theater Camp. The costumes were ready, the kids knew their lines, songs were memorized, blocking locked down. Friends and relatives cleared their schedules for performance day. Everyone was ready to break a leg – until we got to the theater and saw a rusty old chain locked to the front gate. Due to a custodian error, the school – and the theater inside – was locked shut.

Now, this easily could have turned into a case of no theater, no performance, a bunch of disappointed kids and pissed-off parents. But it didn’t. The ever-resourceful, composed, and positive principal of the camp, Beth Kent, had somehow secured another performance space – that morning. I don’t really want to know what favors she had to cash in or strings she had to pull, but she directed the little performers and their parents to a nearby space in the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims.

As the parents arrived at the new location, I noticed something unusual. No one was angry or grumpy or tossing a fit (adults or kids). They took Principal Kent’s lead and stayed positive despite the unexpected change of plan. Chairs were hastily arranged in a gym space there and the show began – not without a few more little hitches. The CD player worked, but the outlet didn’t, then the outlet did, but the player didn’t. The four and five-year-olds opened the performance with the a capella accompanyment of their counselor, Cassi, who single-handedly sang and directed the entire opening number of Barnyard Moosical.  Finally,  the CD kicked in – saving Cassi from singing the entire soundtrack, though she gave a lovely and energetic performance.

The crowd of friends and parents who came to watch the 4-16 year olds were in for a treat as the numbers rolled forward – an energetic rendition of Fat Sam’s Grand Slam Speakeasy, a rousing dance – conga line and all – to Hot Hot Hot, and a gripping piece of comic book drama with Captain Nuclear – the story of a girl who happens to have superpowers but is really just trying to fit in – brought to you by WHEATIES!

I couldn’t help being totally inspired – by the counselors and the kids. It didn’t matter that their costumes and sets were locked away. It didn’t matter that the stage blocking they had rehearsed had to be rearranged in short order. Or that they were performing in a gym instead of a theater. It might as well have been Carnegie Hall given how each of the kid gave their best. You could tell that some of the shyer kids were breaking out of  their shells. Some of the hams got their moment in the spotlight.  And everyone gave it their all – all the way to the show-stopping big finish, their version of Glee’s version of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing. I never thought I could actually cry to a Journey song, but there you have it. At least I wasn’t the only camera-toting dad having to “wipe his lens”.

My kids learned a lot that week,  but the biggest lesson of theater camp came on that unexpected Saturday lock out.  In theater and in life, things don’t always go as planned. But its how you handle them that matters. In less cool and calm hands (Beth Kent for President!), the lock out could have been a disaster. Instead, it was a triumph. As the campers head to school this fall, they can tell their friends about “the big performance day lockout!”  Then they can tell them how the show most definitely goes on – even when you are five and the theater is locked.

I have been enjoying watching the progress of this kid’s book make its way through Kickstarter. Written by Amber Jones, an award-winning concierge who knows a thing or two about how to show visitors the best sights – and smells – of NYC. Her scratch-and-sniff tour of NYC includes many of the smells that are all too familiar: Garbage, Pizza, Hot dogs, Sewer steam, Fish, Horse Manure, Shish-kabobs, Smoke, Bagels and more.

As a Kickstarter backer, I was given access to some preview pages and can share them with you.  Jones has covered all the key New York points – from the depths of the subway to a sidewalk cafe in Little Italy. The book is a feast for the eyes and will certainly be for the nose – IF it makes its funding. Jones is still $3,200 shy of her goal of $20,000 to fund the first print run with only a week to go.

Tim Probert’s illustrations are great on the eyes. I hope we all get to smell them.

Hopefully, she’ll get another last round of momentum. This is a fun book that I hope gets a chance to see the light of day and the dark of kid’s nostrils!

The Kickstarter link.

More about Amber Jones and Scentsational Books.

For chocolate lovers of all ages. How about snuggling up inside a candy bar – sweet dreams guaranteed. Also, what a great way to convince the kids to go to sleep. Mine would cooperate for at least one night.

Bed Toppings | Chocolate Bed Toppings.

The beautiful dragon crawled from the crooked trunk… Seems like the start (or end) of quite a story. I made this simple Android application using Google’s App Inventor program.

This program fill gaps “Mad Lib” style with a random word to create a single – and, most likely, silly sentence.

The _____ (adj) _______ (noun – thing) _______ (verb) _______ (preposition) _______ (adj) _______ (noun – place)

I have a button at the bottom that randomly picks  “Beginning” or “End”. So, the silly sentence is either the beginning or the end of a story. Me and the family has to fill in the rest.  Its a fun way to tweak our imaginations.

Every button (except for the two “the’s”) can be pressed, changing the meaning of the sentence in surprising, existential, and silly ways.

This is a project I made during the 1-in-1 (1 project in 1 day) challenge in early June. So far, the kids and I have had fun with it. Though my daughters obsessed with fairies, so she keeps clicking the subject button until its a fairy. Then the adjective until its beautiful.

Here’s what the block code looks like. If you have an Android and Google App Inventor, you can download the .apk file here. You can customize it with your own word groups.

Fed up with “clip-art” temporary tattoos for her kids, designer Tina Roth Eisenberg (swissmiss) founded a temporary tatoo company of her own. I think I’m going to surprise my better half with this “Mother” one and tell her that its not temporary. Hmm, wonder how that will go down. She has pulled together some great design talent to make a nice collection of temporary tattoos that are fun, whimsical, and smart.

Tattly™ Designy Temporary Tattoos — Welcome.