Started by the MIT Media lab in 1993, Computer Clubhouse is a computer focused after-school program with 100 chapters worldwide.
The Computer Clubhouse provides a creative and safe out-of-school learning environment where young people from under-served communities work with adult mentors to explore their own ideas, develop skills, and build confidence in themselves through the use of technology.
Their learning model principles:
1) Learning by designing
2) Following your Interests
3) Building a Community
4) Respect and Trust
Computer Clubhouse also has programs focused on women, and guiding participants on college/career paths.
Computer Clubhouse Site
Here’s a neat tool created by the MIT media lab. It makes creating little flash type animations simple enough that a literate person with no programming experience could do it, all the while learning the basic concepts of programming. Calling it “Logo 2009″ wouldn’t be far off.
Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.
Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create and share Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.
Scratch website
Introduction to programming and Scratch (Harvard CS50 Lecture 2)
Baz, being all of two years and 6 days, has just gone 24 hours in dry underwear. We’ve hit the end of using diapers regularly, if not completely! All my diapering duty for two children done in under 4 years… oh hell yeah!
Q decided she was done with diapering at about the same age. I know part of this must be my luck in receiving two super awesome kiddos. Combine that with cloth diapers, elimination communication, honest dialogue about toileting and a small forfeit of privacy in the bathroom ourselves, and it’s a winning combination. Oh, and he likes the bright colored underwear we got him, so that probably helps too.
So yeah, Go Baz! Now to find some Maurice Sendak underoos…
My daughter has taken to play acting “Oh come to my arms my beamish boy!” with her brother. Then she exclaims “Oh, frabjous day! Callou, callay!” Guess what one of her top requests for me to recite is?
I just walked into the other room and she’s babbling… then I realize what dialogue she’s trying to reconstruct .
“Who?”
“Me who”
“That’s what I want to know!”
“Yes, I have it with me…”
I’m cracking up to internally, but trying not to distract her… 
Her favorite bedtime read though focuses on a girl who dies (because her parent’s won’t buy her a pony she wants.) She’s picking up the part of the little girl pretty quickly. Expect us on tour soon!
As a parent, the rate balloons accrue in my house has skyrocketed. Once they stop floating the kiddos tend to lose interest, and I had been using scissors to deflate them prior to tossing in the bin. No more!
1) Gather balloons that are to be disposed of.
2) Find the biggest butcher knife you can.
3) When no one else is in the kitchen, toss the balloons in the air and wield knife appropriately.
[Insert disclaimer here]
I often am charmed into remaining in bed after I read the final bedtime book by requests to make up a story or poem. I take pleasure in dressing forms that please me in the trappings of childhood story, as is the custom of fables. Absurdity also comes readily to hand. Tonights’ spin like this:
1) Once there was a turtle, who was freinds with a fish. The fish’s name was kitty, and the turtle’s name was doggie. One day they swam all the way to the other side of the pond, where they met a cat and a dog. Then the dog ate the turtle and the cat ate then fish. The dog’s name was turtle. Guess what the cat’s name was?
Horace!
2) Once, there was a little girl who said, “Dadoo, that story was short, tell me a long story.” So he did, and here’s how it went: ” Once, there was a little girl who said, “Dadoo, that story was short, tell me a long story.” So he did, and here’s how it went: …. (This one seems to have developed an endearing quality, as it results in snuggles, thus reinforcing my retelling.)
American Elf is the daily artblog of creative wonk James Kochalka. His band, ”James Cochalka Superstar“ has put out several albums and he has a few children’s books, including Monkey Vs Robot. He currently spends much of his free time composing bit-rock on his Gamboy.
I was prompted to write because not only did he recently open the archives of his daily, extremely candid, autobiographical webcomic American Elf to the public, but also because he and his wife just recently welcomed their second child into the fold. He may be one of the first fathers to capture some of the, um, funkier nuances of parenting.
American Elf updates daily.
Apparently those little blue imps are stocking their longships for another trans-atlantic invasion. that’s right. THE SMURFS ARE COMING (BACK).
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
“Mom, Dad, did you know I could shoot blood out my fingers?”
This is her way of engaging us, by calling us to question her weirdest fantasies.
“What if angry worms dropped out of the sky and ate our fingers?”
My dear little girl is three. I fear not for her future career as a horror writer.
(And no, I actually don’t watch scary movies with them, unless you count <u>Howl’s Moving Castle</u>. Maybe it’s hereditary)