Episode Twenty Six: Go Crabbing

As far as I am concerned, and my children would probably agree, this is the idea to end all ideas. If this website was made up of one idea this would be it. It is quite simply the perfect idea: Go crabbing.

If you're lucky enough to live in New Zealand,  you live within 10km of the coast. If you're even luckier you live near a harbour with low and high tides, this is prime crabbing country. Sorry international readers, I'm not well-travelled enough to know if you have harbours like ours - I've been to one other country and they did. So, here's hoping.

With low tide comes mud and with mud comes crabs. The particular spot we frequent for crabbing features thousands upon thousands of little crab holes which are full of tunnelling mud crabs (Helice crassa). These little guys tend to hide in their holes but if you stand still for a moment and cast your eyes over the whole mud flat, you'll see dozens of brave souls scuttling from one hole to another. It's amazing.

All of our family (toddlers, boys, parents and grandparents) love squishing around in the mud - some in aqua socks (haha) or barefeet looking for crabs. We challenge each other to find the biggest one, collecting each one in a butterfly net that we bring along for this very purpose.

Not only is there a competition to see who can find the biggest crab, there is also a challenge to see who is brave enough to pick them up with their bare hands. How big a crab can you pick up with your fingers? It's great for confronting fear and doing things out of our comfort zone.

For me, this idea ticks quite a few boxes: Family involvement, competition, pushing boundaries of fear, getting dirty, being outside and close to nature, compassion for animals/creatures, exploration, discovery and the thrill of the chase. What more could you ask for?

Watch out for those pincers, they're small but they still hurt. Have fun!

Episode Twenty Five: Answer Their Questions

When I was young I remember my father telling me about the hard questions we asked him. My brother asked why was the sky blue, my sister asked where do mountains come from and I can never remember what I asked. What I can remember is that he tried his hardest to answer them and when he was exhausted with the follow up questions he said "go ask your mother". When mum got exhausted of those questions she said "go ask your teacher" and the teacher said "go home and ask your father". Classic.

The other day while doing some yard work my wife found a bird's nest. I don't think I'll ever cease to be amazed by the way a bird can construct something so intricate and so ornate. They are incredibly complicated and I've often thought about how I could recreate one but I'm convinced I couldn't replicate the attention to detail. Incredible!

My children were equally impressed and we all took turns looking at it and examining it; wondering what sort of bird could possibly come up with such a puzzling piece of architecture. We also talked about the different strands that were used; not just sticks and twigs but parts of shade cloth, polythene and moss. 

My wife wondered aloud how the birds transport the mud that is used to put it all together (really hoping it's mud, otherwise ew!). My eldest boy wanted to know whether birds get taught how to build nests by their mothers or was it just 'natural ability', as he put it. My middle boy asked if they needed to be reminded how to make nests or if they learnt once and remembered every time. My youngest girl was just happy to poke and prod away at the nest.

With these questions in mind we went inside and looked for the answers on the magical internets. I always think about how lucky my children and I are to be living at a time where all the answers are stored on an easy-to-use network that can be accessed by anyone with a subscription and the technology. I think about how in the past knowledge has been kept guarded by those with influence or wealth. It was held in universities and other establishments that you had to get accepted in to. If you wanted to learn about how the brain worked you had to go to the school that had the best information about the brain. Now days you just do a search on Wiki. It's so awesome. People, who in previous times, wouldn't have had access to this knowledge have begun to use it in all sorts of ways.

Answering your children's questions honestly, properly and effectively is probably the best thing you can do for them. You're teaching them to think, to explore their ideas. You're teaching them that their thoughts and opinions have value. Anyone with a child going through the "why?" phase will know that it's so easy to just give one word answers and dismiss all the questions. But actually indulging these questions can be a pretty fascinating past time. Children seem to have the craziest brains that come up with all sorts of weird and wonderful questions ( thinking). If you don't know the answer, show them how to find out. Or do a search together. Knowledge is power and you can either be like the university that held on tight to it's research and knowledge or you can give it out for free and see what your children do with it.

 If you're interested, a bird knows how to build a nest by instinct and by looking at the nest they grew up in. Birds don't need to be reminded how to make nests but aren't always great at it to begin with. Birds transfer mud and clay in their beaks when building nests. We also found this awesome BBC footage on YouTube - check it out:

Have fun!

Episode Twenty One: Cornflour Paint

Some ideas take a lot of planning or forethought. Some weekends I have grand plans of trying out two or three ideas for this website and other weekends I just want to hang out with the kids with no pretense. These photos and this idea is from a day when I literally just threw some things together and hung out with my family. It just so happened that my wife captured it on film/memory card.

For this idea you will need corn flour or corn starch (same thing apparently), food colouring, water and a muffin tray. In each divit of the muffin tray put two tablespoons of corn flour, two drops of food colouring and enough water to make it runny - not super waterey but of a consistency that it can be painted with a brush.

It was a hard weekend and I just wanted to sit outside, take some time out and 'be' with my children. Luckily for me the corn flour paint kept them enthralled for quite a while. In fact they used up the first batch I made myself and so I talked them through making their own mixture.

I originally found this idea on Pinterest and that's something I've been thinking about as we get closer to the half year mark. This site has become less about creating the amazing ideas and more about carrying out the cool ideas you see on the net - and showing you that it can be done. Sure, I will still use my own ideas moving forward, but there has been a real shift towards trying out things we've all seen but thought it would be too much hard work. I hope you're cool with that.

The take away lesson from this idea is that spending time with your children can be spontaneous, it can be unplanned and still be fun. Sometimes, with this site in mind, our activities can turn into big productions which is cool, but they don't have to be. The little ones will still be curious about what you're up to.

Give this one a go, the kids will love the chance to get messy and paint all over things. The paint washes off so it's no dramas. It's not as tricky as it looks, I promise!

Have fun!

Friday, Funday VI

Hey Team,

Here are some cool things to look at while you're waiting for the next idea...

Some awesome industrial robotics footage of the Tesla Model S being made. Some incredible robots in this one. Not to mention cars made out of aluminium. Start saving those Coke cans.


This video is crazy! Rally drivers in Italy going incredibly fast. A great first-person view of what the driver, and ever-important co-driver, see.


A neat little documentary on toy sculptors. Sounds like a pretty awesome job to me. Some very cool toys in this video.


Some really clever guys got together and made a real-life Wall-E! It moves, looks and sounds just like the real Wall-E. Very interesting and very clever people.



Finally, some nice slow-motion footage of mud pools from Rotorua. I don't know if you've had a chance to see the mud at all, but it's pretty crazy stuff. So gloopy.



Have fun!

Episode Ten: Share Your Hobby

Whether it's fly fishing, portrait painting or stamp collecting most Dads have hobbies that often get attention on their days off or at the end of a long day. Some times these are the things that keep us sane, that little part of our life that gives us a break from being a Dad, an employee, a boyfriend or husband.

What if you were to share that hobby and let your children understand what you do when you're away from it all?

One of my hobbies is making music using samples off records. It's something I started doing well before I was a Dad. My equipment and creative space is well away from little fingers and so, it's almost off limits. I decided to change that for an afternoon.

I tried this as a one-on-one idea with my middle son and brought all the equipment out on to the kitchen table. I gave him and overview of what it was I do and showed him the end product. Then, I explained the individual steps I took to get that finished product.

We chose a record off the record shelf, listened to the record for a part we liked and then recorded it into the sampler. From there we put some drum sounds on top. After a bit of finishing touches, we had our finished product, a beat that he decided to call 'Otto'.

Often we will share our interests and get our children involved in the things we like doing. But these are usually things that we think will benefit them: bush walking, cricket etc. This is fantastic. It gives you the chance to teach your children skills that they can use in the real world. The difference between this idea and those types of activities is that this is a little bit of yourself that you're sharing with your children.

It doesn't mean it's no longer your 'thing', like me, you can still move all the equipment back in to your hideaway. It's just a chance to share a little bit of what makes your tick and give them an understanding of what it is you do once they go to sleep.

If you do do this idea, I'm really interested to see what it is your hobby is and how you shared it with your children so please leave a comment. Also, next week, we're going to reverse it: we're going to encourage our children to share their idea with us.

Have fun!

Bonus:

Episode Six: Ice Excavation

This idea is a bit of a favourite around our ways and for good reason. It combines one of my favourite materials to work with (ice) and the adventure of discovery.

For this idea you will need a freezable container (ice cream containers work best), some sort of child-friendly hammer, some treasure and water.

Get your children to choose out their treasure. In this instance, my middle boy was helping me so he chose two jewels for himself and two for his older brother. We put the treasure in the bottom of the container, filled it up with water and stuck it in the freezer. In about three hours you should have a solid block of ice ready to be hacked away at.

Just a few notes from experience: As you can see in our photos we had no foot or eye protection. This is up to you. In hindsight, when giving my children hammers to swing around a pair of covered shoes would probably be a good idea. Also, with all that ice being struck with the hammer, eye protection might be a good idea - even a pair of sunglasses would do the trick.

The boys had great fun smashing the ice with the hammer. Both the older and middle boy enjoyed the destruction of it all - the treasure was definitely an after thought. They were having so much fun that my baby daughter came out to see what all the fuss was about.

This is a simple, simple idea but hopefully your children will get a lot of joy out of it, as will you. Have a go chipping away at the ice with a screwdriver (or chisel) and a hammer yourself - there's something pretty satisfying about banging away at a piece of ice, flecks spraying everywhere and getting your hands wet. It's the ultimate tactile activity but there's no mess and all of the remains will melt in the sun after a few hours.

My children enjoyed this idea so much that they were still going long after I went inside to get lunch ready. Not only that, they raced back inside to choose new treasure, fill up the containers again and put them in the freezer.That is a huge sign of success in my book.

Have fun!