Here's a crafting project that's accessible to even non-crafty people like me. Kevin Kelly and his young son made a wreath out of plastic toys from a dollar store:

First we cut a torus from a piece of scrap plywood. Then we hot glued on to it several bags of plastic toys from the dollar store. It was fun building up patterns. Time flowed quickly. It made us giggle at times. The thing is completely useless. But it evoked something vague when we hung it outside my studio door. It's pleasing in a strange way. Looks like art to me.

Link via Boing Boing

The Jedi Temple, a Star Wars-themed martial arts academy, has just opened in Quilpué, Chile. Students learn Jedi values along with yoga and taekwondo:

In the classes, the children are given a chance to breathe life into a Star Wars' fandom (sometimes inherited from obsessed parents), by wielding light sabers made popular by Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, Vanguardia.com reported.

A genuine Star Wars experience is provided by "an exact replica light-saber, that has the sounds and the light reminiscent of the movies," William Berrueta, the creator of the school, told BBC Mundo.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2011/03/11/star-wars-school-opens-chile-teach-children-martial-arts/#ixzz1GKIxn1uc?test=faces via Geekologie | Photo: Getty

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Emerson, at the age of five and a half months, isn't sure what to make of nose blowing. It's both freakish and hilarious. My guess is that he'll grow up a fan of horror movies.

via Urlesque

This is quite funny. Matthew Archbold notes that mommyblogging is a far more prolific field than daddyblogging, and that this is unfair. After all, it's harder to be a dad than a mom:

1) When we gain weight we can’t blame the pregnancies.

2) When one of your daughters gets in a fight at school and your other daughter yells, “Sweep the leg Johnny” everyone blames you.[...]

5) “Wait until your Mommy gets home” just doesn’t sound as scary. It just doesn’t.[...]

10) When women see Dads out with kids they assume we’re sensitive people who like to chit chat. We’re guys. We don’t chit or chat. When we see people we know we say “hey” but we don’t stop moving. We never stop moving. We’re like sharks in that way.

Link via Brian J. Noggle | Photo by Flickr user JeffS used under Creative Commons license

Yesterday would have been the 107th birthday of Dr. Seuss. Chris Menning of BuzzFeed commemorated the event by writing more explicit titles for several classic works by the good doctor including The Sneetches and Other Stories.

Link via GeekDad

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This kid, who may henceforth be referred to as the most fortunate child in America, has his own high-tech backyard make-believe spaceship. Jon Howell and Jeremy Elson built the Ravenna Ultra-Low Altitude Vehicle. It has many lights, switches, and an audio countdown. The assembly even shakes on liftoff.

Link via Make

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Did Dr. Seuss' Oh, The Places You'll Go! ever strike you as a bit optimistic? Maybe the right approach is to prepare your children for the lives of tedious mediocrity that will surely mark their insignificance.

Redditor gljo took his/her kids on a surprise trip to Disney World. To hide their true destination, s/he created this fake flyer for their supposed destination.

Link via Boing Boing

Britain is getting ready for the next generation of aircraft carriers and accompanying fighter jets, and so is selling off those assets. These include Harrier Jump Jets, at least one of which was on sale on eBay. An overly-enthusiastic young boy, while signed into his father's account, saw the fighter jet and his opportunity to own it. So he hit "Buy It Now" to immediately acquire the plane. Which, by the way, cost £69,999. That's about $113,000 (US):

A youngster hit the "buy it now" button to purchase the restored fighter jet, causing his father to quickly apologize to the sellers and tell them his son was not able to buy the aircraft out of his pocket money.

"His dad rang up and profusely apologized to us, so it's still for sale. We've put it on as an auction now so that won't happen again," said a spokeswoman for Jet Art Aviation, of Bradford, central England, which is selling the Harrier.

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

So much of parenting is watching your kids destroy your stuff. The other part is making the kids take responsibility for having done so. eBay seller daney21 is selling his sons' collection of Beyblades -- that's a type of manga-inspired spinning toy -- to pay for the bathtub that the boys destroyed while playing with them:

We are selling 8 Beyblades, 2 of them light up. As you can tell they are not happy about this! They have been using their bathtub as a "battle arena" and Beyblades + Bathtub = Destruction!!! With the metal ones they managed to scrape the enamel off the tub, take a chunk of tub out and break off the soap holder. SO if you "win" this auction DON'T play with in a bathtub!!! We have recieved a quote of $500.00 to replace the tub, some tiles, and soap holder + labor of course! They had approxamently $125.67 in their piggy banks that will be going to toward the cost. We will use the profit from this auction towards the balance and then it is onto other toys!

So far, the bidding is over $9,000.

Link via Kotaku

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Comedian Weird Al Yankovic has written a children's book! It's called When I Grow Up and is about a boy pondering his future career options, including giraffe milker and circus snail trainer. Yankovic, as you can imagine, is a great narrator for this type of story.

Amazon Link via Geekosystem

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A chemist is born. Rose, who is 26 months old, can identify more than fifty elements by their physical appearance and symbols from flashcards.

via Gizmodo

Over at Neatorama, we've mentioned the development of robotic avatars -- robots that could attend meetings and conferences in place of the physical presence of their controllers. Lyndon Baty of Knox City, Texas, uses one of them, but he's not a business traveler. He's a high school freshman with a diminished immune system. It's not safe for him to attend school in person, so he maneuvers a robot around school from the safety of his own home:

The Vgo telepresence platform is a four foot tall bot on wheels with a small screen, camera, speakers and microphone at the top. Baty logs into the robot remotely from his home, using his PC and a webcam to teleconference into his classes. Baty can drive Vgo around his school, switching between classes just like regular students. For a boy that has spent much of his life sick and isolated from his peers, Vgo not only represents a chance at a better education, it’s also an opportunity for freedom and comradery.

There's a video at the link.

Link via slashdot | Image: KFDX News

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