So, to clarify: Hobbits have large, hairy feet. If you'd like to get your little LOTR fan off to a right start, crochet up a set of baby booties like these by Penwiper. You can read the pattern at the link.

Link via Geek Crafts

5-year old Noah has an idea that would, by default, create the most interesting show on PBS. Many redditors are flocking to the idea and want to persuade PBS to follow through. There's a dedicated subreddit, so go forth, login, and upvote.

Link via Geekosystem

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Jorge Narvaez and his young daughter Alexa became an Internet sensation after a YouTube video of them singing together circulated widely. They're quite talented and they've clearly practiced, as you can see from this appearance on the television show Ellen. Be sure to watch until the end for the adorable interview.

via Urlesque

As I've said before, if you're going to start kids out to be well-adjusted geeks, you've got to start them young. That's why during bathtime tonight, I had my daughter practice her Klingon language skills. The parents of Mateo, who are of the Whovian persuasion, are on the same tack. The boy's father works in graphic design and corrugated paper, and so made a properly-sized TARDIS.

Link via io9

Panasonic developed a new type of heat insulation. In order to promote it, the company built a snowman and shipped it to Bahrain. There, children encountered snow for the first time:

It all started with a young girl named Amna Al-Haddad. The SPARKS team, who share their experiments and lifework on Facebook, received a message from this young girl in Bahrain on their fan page. "Snow never falls in Bahrain, so I would like to show my little brother his very first 'snow'."

Moved by her story, the SPARKS team knew what they had to do. "Let's deliver a snowman to Bahrain, to the kindhearted girl and fulfill her wish." And so the experiment began.

Upon seeing the snow for the first time in his life, Saleh and his friends were elated. “It was amazing. I didn’t expect the snowman to be so beautiful. I want to thank Amna for making all this happen for me,” said Saleh.

http://www.financialpost.com/markets/news/Snowman+Goes+Desert/4133330/story.html via Technabob | Photo: Panasonic

Google is holding a contest that invites children to draw Google's doodle -- the stylistic Google logo that appears on that website's homepage. Entries are due by March 2. The winner will get a $15,000 scholarship and a $25,000 technology grant for his/her school:

At Google, we believe that dreaming about future possibilities leads to tomorrow’s leaders and inventors, so this year we're inviting U.S. kids to exercise their creative imaginations around the theme, "What I’d like to do someday…"

Whether students want to find a cure for cancer or take a trip to the moon, it all starts with art supplies and some 8.5" x 11" paper.

Link via Geekosystem | Image: Google

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Mompetition, which we've mentioned previously, lampoons competitive mothering as well as other strange features of modern American parenting. In this episode, a mom a shocked to discover a man at the playground...and he's with kids! What's wrong with this guy?

If you find this video amusing, you might also like to read a more serious look at the same subject. Lenore Skenazy recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal that fears of men as universal predators are vastly overstated, and even dangerous.

Link via GeekDad

Journalist Christopher Elliott shared an email from one of his regular readers. It tells a tale that is both sad and heartwarming. A 3-year old boy was murdered by the boyfriend of his mother. The family decided to take him off life support, so the grandfather flew in to say goodbye to him. To make sure that he got there in time, one Southwest Airlines pilot delayed takeoff:

According to him, everyone he talked to couldn’t have cared less. When he was done with security, he grabbed his computer bag, shoes and belt and ran to his terminal in his stocking feet.

When he got there, the pilot of his plane and the ticketing agent both said, “Are you Mark? We held the plane for you and we’re so sorry about the loss of your grandson.”

The pilot held the plane that was supposed to take off at 11:50 until 12:02 when my husband got there.

As my husband walked down the Jetway with the pilot, he said, “I can’t thank you enough for this.”

The pilot responded with, “They can’t go anywhere without me and I wasn’t going anywhere without you. Now relax. We’ll get you there. And again, I’m so sorry.”

Link via Gizmodo | Photo by Flickr user Pylon757 used under Creative Commons license

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Gotta start them young! As for myself, I've already taught my 2-year old a few words in Klingon and Ferengi. Why? Because she's at the perfect age for foreign language acquisition.

via reddit

Comedian Danielle Harrison parodied mommyblogging, that strange genre of blogging that seems to captivate so many modern mothers. It's a pitch-perfect depiction of the hyper, over-sharing, cyber mom. A sample:

June 20, 2010

I haven't given any updates on Pat in a while! How awful of me! I've been getting your emails asking how he's handling puberty and let's just say...not well. Not well at all. Yesterday his face was absolutely disgusting. He was up for going to school but I sat him down and said, "No way." I explained that in high school, your worst-looking day is always how people remember you. "Even when the acne clears up," I said, holding his hand while we had tea at the kitchen table, "your whole class will think of you as Pizza Face after they see you today. One bad-looking day in high school can ruin a person, Pat."

He said that he'd still like to go because he had an important biology exam, but I pointed out that even if he aced the exam and got into Yale and became a molecular biologist, there would be two hundred and fifty people in America who had seen his pustules and would never forget it. Finally I got through to him and he locked himself in his bedroom, probably to drop to his knees and thank Heaven above for a mother who really understood what it was like to be a teenager.

Don't get me started on his erections! Email me if you're interested, I have some great stories.

Link | Image: Urlesque

When my father was nine years old, he built a functional go-cart from spare parts that he found around the family farm. This kid is sort of like that. Dylan Karam, 11, of Opunake, New Zealand, is building a house:

Since getting a hammer when he was five, Dylan has never been far from a construction site and has helped builders around Opunake in the last six years.

But it is his latest project that could be his most impressive.

The young chippy is voluntarily putting in eight to nine hour days to help build Beau LeProu a new house on Aytoun St.

"He started turning up last year with his apron and his hammer and he's been back every day since. He does more hours than any of us. He is here before us and leaves after us and he cleans up after himself," said head builder Phil Brophy.

"Yeah, I get here at about 7.30am I suppose and stay until about 5pm," Dylan said, hand resting on his 20-ounce Estwing hammer bought just days ago with some of his Christmas money.

He also picked up some magnetic screwdrivers, a tape measure and folding builder's ruler.

When these aren't hanging from his waist in his leather builder's apron they are at home safe in the wooden toolbox he built.

Link | Photo: Cameron Burnell/Taranaki Daily News

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When's the last time that you've used a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk? A long time, probably -- but you know what it is when you see one, right? Well, not the kids of today. This French-language video from Canada shows young children presented with items of technology from the 1980s and asked to explain what they are.

via Flavorwire

Prudent Baby, a parenting blog, offers this trick to encourage your young child (older toddler or pre-school) to stay in bed at night instead of wandering around the house. First, place three lengths of colored tape that align with the nursery door mostly closed, halfway open, and mostly open:

Explain the rules to the kiddo. Tell them they are a big kid now, and big kids use the tape system. At bedtime, the door will be wide open, aligned to the first piece of tape. The first time he/she leaves her room (for anything other than an actually necessary trip to the potty), the kiddo will be returned to bed, and the door will be closed halfway, aligned to the second piece of tape. The second time he/she leaves her room, she'll be sent right back to bed, and the door will be closed further, to just a crack, aligned with the third piece of tape. If Mr./Mrs. Cranky Pants leaves their room a third time, the door is going to be shut all the way. Make sure they understand the rules and act it out.

Do you think this would work?

Link via Wired

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"One more time: what does Ronald Reagan say?"

"'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.'"

Charlotte, the daughter of YouTube user jasonenglish1, really knows her presidents. She can identify many by name from a collection of portraits on a placemat, as well as provide quotations.

via Urlesque

Kathryn Aurora Gray, a 10-year old girl from Frederictown, Canada, already has an impressive item on her resume. She's an amateur astronomer and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada has credited her with discovering a previously-unknown supernova:

The society said that in this case the galaxy was "imaged" on Friday, New Year's Eve, and the supernova was located on Sunday.

A new supernova shows up as a bright point of light that wasn't visible the last time a galaxy was checked. Since supernovas can outshine millions of regular stars, they can be spotted with a modest telescope.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2011/01/03/nb-supernova-girl.html via Popular Science | Image: Royal Astronomical Society of Canada