Jeremiah and Z have been saving up a variety of items for another "Nature Box," and spent a couple of hours this weekend putting it together. It's more varied than their previous nature boxes, and includes:

• A real or concrete-generated fossil of a small clamshell Z found in our driveway


• A tuft of animal fur from the road, probably rabbit


• Half of a geode purchased at a museum and smashed in our driveway with a hammer


• A painted shell Z bought in on a trip to Galveston with her grandmother


• A dragonfly found in our yard


• Two moths, one found on our porch and the other in our garden


• An inch-long thorny leaf tip from a century plant (large agave) from our driveway


• A dead ladybug and a dead cranefly, both from our home office


• Part of a bird's egg found on a walk in a local park

One of the most interesting developments for this project, though, was the "map" they created in the box lid to identify specimens. Jeremiah drew circles to indicate each object, and then Z labeled them, and learned in the process how the "map" (a legend, really) can show a viewer what is in the box, without directly labeling the objects themselves. We've been working a lot on maps lately - a topic we'll discuss in another post soon on Punnybop, as it all started with a couple of great kids' books - and this plays into that learning well. As Z is busy learning to write, we are also very keen to use applications that are highly purposeful and meaningful to her, and labeling something she can refer to later offers tangible evidence of the value of writing things down!

Children's sun-protection company Protect-a-bub (they sell UV swimwear and stroller sun shades) is clearing out their UPF-50+ sunwear for babies and toddlers. ("UPF" is a measure of both UVA and UVB protection.) But you won't see the sale on their site. More on that in a second.

We haven't tried the Protect-a-bub brand, but we have used UPF sunwear last year for Z and loved it. It cut down on the amount of sunscreen we needed to put on her (and thus the amount of time she had to stand still looking longingly at the pool). Their long-sleeved shirts are also great for outdoor play and activities like gardening.

If you want to order these suits (sizes 0-8) the process is a little unusual: Email them at info@protectabub.com with the subject line "swimsuit." Include your name and ship-to address along with what you want to order, and they'll get back to you with payment instructions. They are estimating $5 shipping for the first item and $1 for each additional item. At $9 per suit (before shipping), it's still 40% of the list price of $25-$29 even with the shipping added. You can also get the long sleeved shirt - great for outside play time or gardening - for $9 or any of the hat for $6. Stock up now for future years.

Evolving standards of safety on playgrounds have made a lot of old design obsolete. The old vs. new, fun vs. safe argument about playground equipment isn't one I'm personally interested in - I'm pretty sure you can have both, and that if we have uninspiring, unfun playground design, it's because we've failed to attract good designers and architects to the business of designing playgrounds.


Photo by Googiesque, shared via Flickr.

We've been browsing through a fantastic (and gigantic) Flickr set of photos of old playground equipment. You can view the dozen or so of our favorites here (shown below) or tackle the full set yourself.



Or you can find out more about what happens at the Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse, which has been serving up playtime for kids for free since 1899. The giant slide pictured above, originally built in 1905, was rebuilt in 2005. Sometimes, cool stuff doesn't have to change.



My favorite discovery of the day is the Sesame Street segment that document the process of a group of kids designing their own playground, which local big people then built for them.

A new game, not for the faint of heart. Brought to you by your slightly negligent parks department.

Z has had a bike since she was two, and at four is just now getting into riding it. She's off to a bit of a late start.

This is not a bicycle, mind you - at least, not the kind you're probably used to. It's a balance bike - a two-wheeled, bicycle-styled conveyance lacking pedals or gears, designed for kids who are too young to ride a proper bicycle. Essentially, it's a way of teaching kids how to balance on a bike that is the direct opposite of the American preference for training wheels, and it works better. Kids learn to balance before they learn to go fast, and their abilities increase as their balance does. Once they've mastered the balance bike, they can do all kinds of fun things - like riding fast and even doing little tricks - that they wouldn't be able to do on a full-sized, far heavier bike, and by the time they're ready for a larger bike, they won't need training wheels at all.

Our vision was that Z would learn to ride this instead of a bike with training wheels or a tricycle. Grandparents intervened, and Z now has a beloved trike and bicycle at the home of one well-meaning set of grandparents, and another to come this Christmas at the other. Our entreaties to help her work out the balance bike have largely fallen on deaf ears, but we work it out by removing the training wheels from new bicycles while the grandparents are distracted, and making them disappear. We are sneaky that way, and we hold out the offer to Z of riding those bikes once she's ready for them.

Here are a couple of short clips of Z learning to ride her Kettler balance bike. She is just starting to explore its possibilities now because (a) her grandmother appears to be on board with it, as Z has a passion for fast tricycling and clearly needs somewhere to go from there, and (b) she has learned a bit of balance, and has seen videos of other kids on similar balance bikes, and now has a sense of the possibilities for speed and putting oneself in harm's way, which she is quite keen to do.





Here's a clip of a kid who has advanced a bit beyond Z's skills.



And here's another one, this one for a different brand of balance bike than the one we have. There are many brands out there, each with their own little design details, and prices for most brands are between $80-$120.

Quick Picks

Here are a few brands and models we'd recommend based on their specs and prices.

PV Glider: Made of lightweight alloy, Glide's balance bikes weigh only six pounds, making them very easy to maneuver. A hand brake may be overly complicating for younger riders, but other parents report their children using it effectively. Solid rubber tires. Features a 10" footplate for resting feet on during movement. $100 on Amazon.com.

Kettler Sprint: Mudflaps, cute styling, inflatable tubeless tires, a hand brake, and a kickstand. Based on our experience, this bike's a winner - the two limitations we found are (a) it takes a bit of work to put it together, although we were never stumped, and (b) you need to have a wrench handy to adjust the seat height. $110-$120 on Amazon.com.

Skuut: Made of wood, with inflatable tubeless tires and a seat with fewer height options. Ten pounds. $82 on Amazon.com. Similar to the SmartGear balance bike that is widely available, but Skuut has an established reputation for their balance bikes, while SmartGear is a new entrant to this market.

The one truly noncompetitive company in this arena, in our view, is the LIKEaBIKE brand, which sells its models for more than three times the price of any of its competitors. Their metal version, the Jumper, sells for $269, and the company's wooden design runs $315. Although LIKEaBIKEs come with higher-quality tires than other brands, the key difference appears to be in the country of manufacture - LIKEaBIKEs are made in Germany, whereas virtually every other brand's bikes - Kettler, Skuut, Strider, SmartGear, and the recent U.S. startup Glide included - are made in China. We tend to support domestic and European production when it can remain nearly competitive on price or when there is a clear difference in quality; in this case, the gap is just too large and the differences too subtle to justify the price gap from a consumer standpoint.

You can price and evaluate different balance bikes on Amazon.com.

We recently discovered a great line of kids' camping gear from HABA that is basically a collection of ourdoor-oriented toys. It includes a lot of the little gadgets you've probably already seen for kids, but done with a consistent theme if you like that sort of thing - whistles, emergency capsules for rolled-up personal info, and so on - but there are a few items in particular that we're really excited about.

One is this monocle, which the company sent us to try out.


It offers 10x25 magnification, adjusts smoothly, has a nice weight in the hand, and comes with a very nice neoprene pouch with a compass and carabiner. It costs $31, well above the cheapest monocles you can find online (they're popular with hunters for their ease of use and quick deployment) but without the scathing criticisms, too. Looks like a get-what-you-pay-for kind of thing. If you have found a cheap monocle brand you like, an alternate brand would make a good gift for a child in your life, probably age 6 or so - our four-year-old has a hard time not only adjusting it but closing the correct eye. But this makes a nice gift, given the case, the quality, and a couple of other elements of the Terra Kids line you might combine it with for a larger gift:

LED Camping Light: This five-LED lantern is powered by a hand-crank and sized for kids. You can buy hand-crank flashlights for kids, or cheap hand-crank lanterns on the cheap, but this one looks nice. If anyone has tried it, we'd love to hear how bright it is. This should be good for kids as young as 3 - Z was quite good with the hand crank for her Dynafly.

Outdoor Microscope: Handheld 40x microscope with a neoprene case containing tweezers, microscope slides, and specimen capsules. I could see our daughter playing with this in the woods behind our house in a couple of years. The microscope includes an LED light to illuminate samples. So cool, but I can't find it for sale anywhere.

Angler's Set: As a vegetarian, I am highly unqualified to evaluate HABA's $70 Angler's Set, but it looks cute and has a lot of stuff in it. If you're a fishing family or would like to be, this set looks like it's designed to be functional, not a toy, and HABA doesn't mess around making stuff that doesn't work.