Doc Green The latest in my ongoing quest to do every challenge in The Dangerous Book for Boys with my sons in one year: I keep being surprised by the accidental discoveries we make. When we’re doing a specific challenge from The Dangerous Book for Boys, we have a task at hand and we’re focused [...]
Archive for March, 2009
Accidental Discoveries
Posted in Boys and Girls, Easy, Indoors, Moms and Dads, Six and Up, tagged Ancestors, Boys and Girls, Coin Collecting, Moms and Dads on March 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Getting Serious
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Goal-Setting on March 28, 2009 | 2 Comments »
This is the latest in my ongoing quest to do every challenge in The Dangerous Book for Boys with my sons in one year: I figure if I am truly going to get serious about this thing (though I never want to get too serious), I’d better take stock of what we’ve done so far [...]
A Pox on Cuteness!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Fathers, Moms and Dads on March 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The latest in my continuing quest to do every challenge in The Dangerous Book for Boys with my sons in one year… This being a blog about fathers and sons and families and children, with pictures of same, there is an inevitable tendency to lapse into cuteness. I refuse. I will determinedly, decidedly and forcefully [...]
Turning Passive into Active
Posted in Boys and Girls, Easy, Nature, Outdoors, Parenting Tips, Science, Six and Up, tagged Boys and Girls, Cloud Watching, Moms and Dads, Photography on March 25, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Thursday, 5:28 p.m. Light fading, beautiful clearing sky after storms. Gabe is playing basketball at our hoop in the side yard, and I see a striking set of what I think are altocumulus and stratus clouds in the eastern sky. Gabe stops what he’s doing—being constantly in motion, Gabe is always doing something—and we grab [...]
Poems for My Sons
Posted in Boys and Girls, Eight and Up, Indoors, Moderate Difficulty, Moms and Dads, Readin' & Writin', tagged Boys and Girls, Moms and Dads, Poems on March 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The latest in my continuing quest to do every challenge in The Dangerous Book for Boys with my sons in one year… While I was looking over the “Coin Tricks” section of The Dangerous Book for Boys, my attention strayed to the pages before it, “Seven Poems Every Boy Should Know” (p. 185). Every boy [...]
A Reader Writes: Bogus Paper?
Posted in Boys and Girls, Crafts, Indoors, Six and Up, tagged Crafts, Making a Battery, Moms and Dads on March 25, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Faithful readers of this space may recall our hunt for blotting paper in our as-yet-unfinished quest to build a battery. According to the recipe provided by the DBFB, you use blotting paper, metal foil, a stack of quarters and some other things to form a primitive battery-like contraption that can light an LED. But I [...]
Learning Responsibilty … Through Cards?
Posted in Boys and Girls, Eight and Up, Indoors, Moderate Difficulty, Parenting Tips, tagged Boys and Girls, Moms and Dads, Poker on March 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The latest in my continuing quest to do every challenge in The Dangerous Book for Boys with my sons in one year… While the DBFB gives the basics of poker and betting (see my post, “Playing Poker—and Dress-up”), it misses a crucial step in teaching children how to play cards: how to shuffle and deal. [...]
Non-Essential Gear
Posted in Ten and Up, Uncategorized, tagged Boys, Gear on March 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“We think pockets are for cramming full of useful things,” write the brothers Iggulden on page one of the Dangerous Book for Boys, kindly supplying a list of what they describe as “essential gear” for every boy: Swiss Army knife, compass, handkerchief, matches, a marble, needle and thread, pencil and paper, flashlight, magnifying glass, band-aids [...]
Snow Day
Posted in Boys and Girls, Easy, Moms and Dads, Nature, Outdoors, Six and Up, tagged Snow Activity on March 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
We live on the western edge of California’s Central Valley, an ideal jumping-off point for going to the Sierra Nevada mountains. The boys had the day off from school and I thought it’d be fun to see the snow before it all melted in the spring, so the three of us piled into the Highlander [...]
The Quest Continues
Posted in Boys and Girls, Indoors, Moderate Difficulty, Moms and Dads, Science, Ten and Up, tagged Fathers, Making a Battery, Moms and Dads on March 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The latest in my continuing quest to do every challenge in The Dangerous Book for Boys with my sons in a year… So far, at least two people at Ace and three at Raley’s have been stumped by blotting paper (not to mention yours truly). My wife and the old man in the paper aisle [...]
What the Heck is Blotting Paper?
Posted in Boys and Girls, Indoors, Moms and Dads, Science, Ten and Up, tagged Making a Battery, Moms and Dads on March 19, 2009 | 4 Comments »
The latest in my continuing quest to do every challenge in The Dangerous Book for Boys with my sons in a year… We went to Ace Hardware today to get the ingredients for our homemade battery. Stopping at the front cash register, we asked the clerk if they had any blotting paper. Blotting paper is [...]
Hearing the Voice
Posted in Boys and Girls, Indoors, Moderate Difficulty, Moms and Dads, Science, Ten and Up, tagged Making a Battery on March 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Trying to heed my own advice (always a dangerous thing) and be more child-led in this endeavor, I asked each boy which activity or project he’d like to do next (but no building a treefort or tanning skins; I’m not there yet). Hank chose “Making a Battery,” upon which a question immediately popped into my [...]
Playing Poker—and Dress-Up
Posted in Boys and Girls, Easy, Eight and Up, Indoors, Moms and Dads, Parenting Tips, tagged Boys and Girls, Moms and Dads, Poker on March 19, 2009 | 3 Comments »
The latest in my continuing quest to do every challenge in The Dangerous Book for Boys with my sons in a year… One of the first things I learned about The Dangerous Book for Boys is that it isn’t just for boys. A friend of ours was visiting the other night, and so her six-year-old [...]
Paper Folding Throwdown
Posted in Boys and Girls, Crafts, Easy, Indoors, Moms and Dads, Parenting Tips, Six and Up, tagged Fathers, Paper Folding on March 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The Dangerous Book for Boys issues a challenge on page 100: “No piece of paper can be folded in half more than seven times. Try it.” Well, we did—and I’m here to tell you, that’s not true. Not precisely anyhow. Of course, it depends on your definition of “paper.” It was after breakfast one morning [...]
Cumulonimbus Sighting
Posted in Boys and Girls, Easy, Nature, Six and Up, tagged Cloud Watching, Photography on March 19, 2009 | 2 Comments »
3:14 p.m., Tuesday. Stormy day, rain showers off and on. Lots of heavy cloud action overhead as Gabe and I walk home after his school. This makes me think of the “Cloud Formations” section in The Dangerous Book for Boys (p. 112). Our goal is not just to read about the various cloud formations but [...]
