Sutter's Fort – Outside the Bay

Sutter's Fort – Outside the Bay

Another great spot to visit for kids interested in California history is Sutter's Fort in Sacramento. Many of the rooms of the fort have been restored to demonstrate their original purpose. The fort isn't large, and we took our time exploring and reading signs, even revisiting spots that the kids wanted to go back and see again, and still finished in les than two hours.

Our kids liked being in charge of the map and looking up the purpose of various areas of the fort. There is also a lot of open space in the center of the fort for little legs that need to let out some energy in running around before they can pay attention to the history again.

Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for children, and kids under 5 are free. The State Indian Museum is on the same grounds as Sutter's Fort, just outside the fort gates, and I believe a discount pass can be purchased if you plan to visit both places. We did not go into the State Indian Museum, but would like to go back to do so.

In addition to Sutter's Fort, our kids wanted to spend some time at the walkway and pod next to the fort. The pond is home to ducks (there were baby ducklings when we visited) and turtles and squirrels, and the kids did not seem to tire of watching the animals.

Letterboxing – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Letterboxing – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

After last week's introduction to geocaching, I thought this week, I should introduce geocaching's low-tech predecessor: letterboxing.

Geocaching and letterboxing share a lot in common. The idea for both is to go out into the world, often into nature, and find the hidden container. In geocaching, there will be a logbook, and possibly some swag for trade in the container. In letterboxing, there will be a logbook and a stamp. You can bring your own stamp to mark the logbook with, or just write your name, and you can use the stamp in the letterbox to mark your own book to show you made the find. You should not trade or take anything from a letterbox.

The benefits of letterboxing is that no special technology is required (other than looking the letterbox up online before leaving home.) Instead of GPS coordinates, letterboxing uses landmarks and more old-fashioned treasure hunting terms. For example you could be instructed to find a particularly noticeable tree, and go ten paces to the north, then turn right, and so on.

The downside of letterboxes is that there are far fewer of them around than geocaches. The website we've used is www.letterboxing.org, but we've only found two letterboxes. If you are an experienced letterboxer, and have other online resources you can share, please do so in the comments.

Pleasant Hill Park – Pleasant Hill

Pleasant Hill Park – Pleasant Hill

Pleasant Hill Park is located just off highway 680 on Gregory Lane in Pleasant Hill. Pleasant Hill Park has some great features that make it one of our favorites to visit if we're in the area.

There are three structured play areas. One is for older kids and has a traditional jungle gym, and a few other spinning sorts of pieces of equipment. There is also a separate gated off toddler play area with smaller equipment for the littler ones. In between these two areas is a sandy play area with a strange sort of low climbing tunnel structure that my kids love. There is also a digging contraption in the sad area, but of course you can bring your own sand toys to enjoy there as well.

Even when I had a child that was young enough to use the toddler play area, we didn't use it much. It is great if you only have very young children, as the fence will keep them from running off when your back is turned, but if you also have older children, it is very difficult to see the other play area well from the toddler area.

In addition to the play structures, there is a good amount of open grass, and sidewalks. There is usually some biking as scootering going on along the sidewalks when we visit.  Also, some basketball courts, and swings are available some distance from the rest of the playground.

In the summer, I like that there are lots of mature trees all around the Pleasant Hill Park, so finding a shady spot to sit and rest is not a problem. There are three reservable picnic areas, and two open picnic areas. We did do a birthday party at Pleasant Hill Park once and were able to claim one of the open areas to set up for cake, etc. without too much trouble, but availability will vary every weekend I would expect.

There is street parking available right on Gregory Lane, but when that is full, there is a parking lot adjacent to the park where I have never failed to find a space.

Geocaching – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Geocaching – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

I've wanted to write a post about geocaching for a while now, but couldn't decide where to put it. I can certainly be done almost anywhere in the Bay Area, but I think it could deserve it's own full review like the Thursday activities get. So, I decided to do both.

This week will be just a quick introduction to geocaching, and in a future week, I'll write a more expansive post with ideas to take you deeper into the hobby of geocaching.

Basically, geocacaching is a treasure hunting game played with a GPs device, and the website geocaching.com. There are other websites as well, but this is the main, and most popular one as far as I know. The website offers a few different ways to search for nearby caches. You can enter an address and get a list of geocaches close by. I personally like the 'search on the map' function. It gives me better information about where a cache is than just how many miles from the entered address.

Not all geocaches are kid or family appropriate. There are a number of different attributes that can be added to each cache listing to describe it. For your few outings, you may want to look for caches that are labeled as "kid friendly" or listed as "beginner" caches. I've hunted for caches along busy roads and other places I wouldn't have wanted to take my children. That's another reason to check out the map on geocaching.com before heading out to your hunt – make sure it is an area you'll all feel safe.

Luckily, most are very family friendly. If you have a popular walking trail near you home, or park, or regional open space, there are great odds there will be several geocaches there for you to find.

What my kids like best, is the swag. If you are looking for a cache labeled 'small' or larger, then there may be small toys, coins or other little items inside. If you bring small items to trade, you can put in your item, and take some other trinket out of the cache. My kids have traded for things like beads, rubber bouncy balls or matchbox cars. Try to keep the trades fair, so the next kids to come along have something fun to pick out too.

We have a hand held geocaching GPS, but you can geocache with just a smartphone ap if you don't have a GPS. (Car GPS devises don't work well for geocaching). Geocaching.com has their own ap that costs $10, but I have used and like c:geo, and it is free. You do need to go to geocaching.com and sign up there for an account first to use c:geo and some of the other free geocaching aps out there.

If you're ready to get started, the geocaching.com website can walk you through finding your first cache. Otherwise, I'll be back with even more geocaching fun for you and your family another week.

NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field

NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field

NASA Ames Research Center has an Visitor Center Museum that is free to the public and open Tuesdays through Fridays from 10am to 4pm, and Weekends from Noon to 4pm. They are closed on Mondays and Federal holidays.

Even though the museum looks small, my daughter and I spent the hour we had available there, and could easily have spent more time if we'd been able. It isn't that there is so very much to see, but many of the exhibits are interactive, and includes some games that she wanted to spend considerable time on. I eventually had to pull her away so we didn't miss our tour.

Fortunately, there is also a free website where they offer very similar games, if slightly simpler,  to the ones she enjoyed at the NASA Visitor Center. It is at: http://www.scigames.org/

From their website, it sounds as if the exhibits in the Visitor Center change on a fairly regular basis. If you visit the NASA Ames Visitor Center web page you can also see a schedule of events and presentations that happen throughout the day so you can time your visit accordingly if there is something your family would be interested in.

The NASA Ames research Center also offers free school and homeschool group tours. That was the main reason we made the trip there. We just stopped to check out there Visitor Center since we made it to Mountain View so early, and I'm glad we did. The Visitor Center would have been closed at the end out our field trip, and it was well worth the time we spent there.

Although I did not set up the field trip myself, I was lead to understand that setting one up is more complex than other field trips might be. Moffett Field is a working NASA research center and they take security seriously. I believe the mom who organized our group had some hoops to jump through, and as a chaperone  I had to make sure I had registered with our group appropriately, and had my identification all in order. Despite all of this, the trip was amazing and wonderful. When my youngest child is old enough, I would not hesitate to put in the work needed to set up a tour for her. And, on the plus side, it was all free.

The trip is aimed at kids in 4th through 6th grades. They get to do a lot of hands on guided lessons. They even did two mini 'missions' that involved assigned age-appropriate research tasks, and communicating their finding to the rest of their crew.

Information about how to set up a field trip is also available at the same link for the Visitor Center.

Stomp Rockets - Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Stomp Rockets - Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Since we have had such beautiful weather lately, it's been nice to get outside. Stop Rockets are a great outdoor, park going activity.

Stomp rockets work by forcing air up a tube into the hollow inside of the rocket and launching it into the air when the end of the tube is 'stomped' on. There are a lot of different brands that can be found at hobby shops or toy stores.

Kids love rockets, at least, every kid I've ever met. I'm sure there are some out there somewhere that don't. It takes them a long time to get tired of stomping. Then there's all that running after the fallen rockets to retrieve them, which is great exercise.

There is even a little bit of science and experimentation involved as they try stomping harder of softer and adjust the angle to see what will happen.

We have the rockets pictured below. I like them because they don't go too high, and are safe to use in our local park. I also found a book about how to make your own. That sound like a lot of fun too!

Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel – Book Review

Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel – Book Review

Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel was a quick favorite with my then kindergarten kiddo. Unlike many other things she loved back then, she hasn't 'outgrown' the Bad Kitty books. She squealed with excitement just last week (now a 4^th grader) when she saw that the library had the newest book in the Bad Kitty series.

The first Bad Kitty book (above) is a picture/alphabet book with one letter for the alphabet for each food Bad Kitty can try when they run out of her regular food, then again for each naughty thing Bad Kitty does, and then another one for each nice thing she does to make up for it. So it takes you through the alphabet several times. However, unlike most alphabet books, the words are not simple. I found it as amusing as my kids do.

The other books featuring Bad Kitty, however, are short chapter books, heavy with illustrations. They were perfect for my daughter when she was a strong enough for longer stories and chapters, but still intimidated by big blocks of text. She would read each book over and over again, and I could hear her giggling every time.

Attend an Event at your Local Library - Fun Stuff to do Anywhere

Attend an Event at your Local Library

Nowadays, every library system has a website including a calendar of events. I’ve found these calendars sometimes cumbersome to use however, and some events I know are happening, I have been unable to find on the calendar. So while the website for your local library is a good starting place to look for these fun sorts of events, a visit to the actual library branch you like to go to is even better. Most will have fliers listing all their upcoming events for the next month or even next several months. While you’re there, you can also then sign up for any event that requires registration to attend. 

There is a whole lot more to do at your local library than just check out books or attend a storytime. At the various placed we’ve lived around the Bay Area, we have attended all sorts of wonderful events at different libraries: movies, holiday parties, or holiday themed crafting events, special performances from magicians, comedians, or actors, author and illustrator talks, wild animal shows, and police dog demonstrations.

Nowadays, every library system has a website including a calendar of events. I’ve found these calendars sometimes cumbersome to use however, and some events I know are happening, I have been unable to find on the calendar. So while the website for your local library is a good starting place to look for these fun sorts of events, a visit to the actual library branch you like to go to is even better. Most will have fliers listing all their upcoming events for the next month or even next several months. While you’re there, you can also then sign up for any event that requires registration to attend.