Books, apps, TV and movie recommendations for kids
Photo by Jerry Wang on Unsplash
In today’s episode, Dave and Jim talk about their favorite books, apps, TV and movies for their kids.
During this episode we’ll discuss:
· Our favorite books, apps, TV and movies for out kids and why they’re our favorites
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Resources:
Additional Papa Est Fatigué episodes:
Books:
Elephant and Piggie
Pidgeon
Chris Houghton Oh no George, I’ve got a plan, Little Owl Lost
Amelia Bedelia
Boxcar Series
Cat Ninja
City Spies
Stewart little
Ramona
Crieghton Times Square
Roald Dahl
Harry Potter series
Kai and the Monkey King, Arthur and the Golden Rope, Marcie and the Pharaoh's Secret (Brownstone family mythology series)
Spy School
Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
Princess in Black series
Greetings from Somewhere series
Ada Lace
Investing for Kids
The Everything Kids Money Book
Mad Scientist Academy series
What Do You Do With series
I Am series (Ordinary People change the world)
Movies and TV shows
Wild Kratz
Word Girl
Story Bots
Super Y
Netflix originals: multiple languages
Lego masters
Disney + docuseries
My Octopus Teacher
Studio Ghibli
Apps
Storyline Online
Dualingo
Queens and Castles
RingFit
Kodable
Osmo: math, logic, coding with physical pieces
Graphogame: learning to read
Epic: reading app
Geocaching
Games
Catan Jr.
Spot it
Apple to Apples
Duck a roo
Flash Point (firefighting board game)
Game Wright games
Outfoxed
Zeus on the Loose
Sushi Go
Forbidden island
Subscription boxes
KiwiCo
Little Passports
Groovy Lab in a Box
Transcript
Dave: In today's episode, we're sharing our favorite books, movies, and TV shows and apps. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Papa est Fatigué Podcast, the podcast for dads by dads. We often talk about big parenting issues, the challenges of being a father, sleep deprivation, tips for minimizing the risk of getting separated from your child. Today we're going to lighten things up a little bit by talking about our favorite books, movies, and apps. First here's my deal. I'm Dave. I have an eight-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son.
Jim: I'm Jim, I've got two daughters, five and eight.
Dave: Jim, let's just get into this. Why don't you share with us some of your favorite books and what you like about them?
Jim: We had the kindergarten open house just recently. One of the things that the teacher was really emphasizing is the read program, read every day, read something with your kindergartener every single day. I don't know where we started that, but we've been reading to our daughters probably every night since they were very young, even when they were infants. I guess it's a big indicator of language development, and problem-solving, and so on and so forth. I think it's been working. When I was thinking about this, we've got a whole range of books from the board books, and the pop-up books that we read when they were really babies.
We've got some other picture books and storybooks. We're in a transition now where the older daughter is now getting into chapter books and she's reading on her own, and the younger is not reading yet. We've got to find-- and she's really-- but she's bored with the kids' books, certainly the board books she's passed those, but the picture books are getting old for her. We'll try to find some way to get her involved in everything. Anyhow, these are the things that I came up with is that for the younger one, I let her pick out a ton of library books.
There's really nothing very special about those titles other than there are things that she likes, and they've got good pictures, and she gets to take a whole bunch of those. We'd read those as much as we can. As far as titles, any of the Mo Willems stuff, Elephant and Piggie, or the Pigeon, all the Pigeon books. Those are lots of fun. Those have always been a big hit even now for the younger one. There's also a series of books by Chris Haughton, I guess, H-A-U-G-H-T-O-N, that are cute little books. Oh No, George! Shh! I've Got a Plan, and Little Owl Lost that are big, bright, bold colors, and simple stories.
I don't even know if they rhyme, but they're good simple stories for the younger one. The standards, Amelia Bedelia and some of those other cute books that are not quite kid books, but not really reading books. For the older one like I say she's reading her own chapter books now. We went through a couple of series The Boxcar series, which is nice, because it's got this weird domestic-- I don't know, I'm having a hard time describing it. It's mysterious in a really innocent way. There's big mysteries to solve, but they're like the lost puppy things like that. It could be very compelling and you've got the cliffhangers at the end of the story, but it's also fairly innocent.
We didn't get through all of those. We got through three or four of them before we moved on to other things. Cat Ninja, which we started thanks to you and your daughter's recommendation. We also we just got the City Spies book that you had recommended and I just-- that's advanced reading. I was just reading the back of the covers about this girl who is hired by MI6 to hack and fight the villains. Anyhow, it's going to be interesting so we're going to start that. Anyhow, to bridge that gap between the younger one and the older one I'll read the both of them at the same time.
We've read Stuart Little, The Mouse and The Motorcycle some of the Ramona series, The Cricket in Times Square, which is one that I enjoyed when I was a kid and then a lot of the Roald Dahl books. Some of those I've had to edit as I read because some of those are a little-- they've got some things that are-
Dave: Outdated, shall we say?
Jim: Exactly. We've read the Giant Peach, and the Chocolate Factory, and a lot of the short stories. Anyhow, that's the gamut. We're reading Harry Potter now, and both of them are just thrilled with it and they won't let me put it down at the end of the story, at the end of the chapter. There's the other one, I think it's the Incredible Benedict. Oh gosh, I should've looked it up before we talked, but its Kai and the Monkey King, and Arthur and the Golden Rope, and Marcy and like the gold-- the Pharaoh secret or something like that. They're great picture books that have really big words and they are loosely based on mythology, English, Norse, and Chinese mythology.
They're interesting stories, pretty pictures, big words that kids love them because they look like comic books. They've always new-- I'm waiting for them to come out-- there's only those three and I'm hoping that they'll have another one soon.
Dave: How are you guys approaching Harry Potter? We talked about this in the episode about movies and things that we're looking forward to. When Harry Potter starts out, it's very innocent and we've talked about this by book five with Cedric Derry, it takes a dark, dark turn. Are you just going to bang through the first four? I thought about maybe reading the first one and then giving it like a year in a similar release schedule that kids actually experienced it when it came out. How are you guys thinking about those?
Jim: You and I have talked about that and I think maybe that's how the books were written so that they advance at the same level that the readers advance. They come out a year every two years or whatever. What I'm learning, I'm forgetting how good a book that is. We're just reading the first one, it is a really good book and I can see how it spawned a sequel and so on and so forth. I think that I've got some theories about why it really changed his character, but the first one's really good. We're going to read the first one. I'll let them see the movie; we'll read the second one so on and so forth. I think four might be enough. Maybe if she wants to read four on her own I'm not going to stop her, but I don't think I need to read beyond that.
Dave: Going back to City Spies, I was thinking about City Spies. We pounded through the first one and my daughter loved that, she just couldn't get enough of it. She's constantly like when we're done reading, she's like "One more chapter, one more chapter." She's just bugging me all day long just bang through this book. One thing I like about it is City Spies to me is the same age as the-- I think it's the Spy School series. I think it's actually the same author, but the difference to me was that I'm not-- For starters, the protagonist of the City Spies is a girl who's 12. I think the protagonist for the Spy School series is a 13-year-old boy.
To me, the main difference was I was looking at those because somebody gave us the Spy School series is that I think the Spy School series tackles a lot more-- I was just reading through the backs of them and there was talk about assassination attempts and things like that, which I'm not clear that I want to get into yet. Versus the Spy School series, I think is or City Spies there's-- At least in the first book we hadn't had to deal with any of the assassination plots and people dying left and right and things like that. It felt a little bit more age-appropriate for an eight-year-old.
I really liked that one and she's already bugging me to get the second one and the third one comes out in February. That's a good one. I also like that it's pretty dense, it's like a 400-page book. There's some hip to it and some meat around the story. Prior to this, my daughter had banged out Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with my mom and they're going through The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe series, which I completely didn't realize how short the Lion and Witch-- it's like 150, 200-page book. It's like an afternoon. I liked that the City Spies because there's some hip to it and it takes a little bit of time. She has to stay invested and involved in it and follow the storyline.
As we're reading through it there were some parts in the book where I'm like, "What do you think is going to happen here?" Because also at this age there's some inferences that they're supposed to be dry and at least as they're understanding through their reading comprehension. I liked that one a lot for her. I think also for her when she was a little bit younger, I liked The Princess in Black Series because it really was-- I know it wasn't counterculture but it was very much like, hey, this is a by day she's a princess, but by night she's this kick-ass superhero.
I think all the girls were reading that, that must've been what about kindergarten, which I think is the right age to have that. We'll go back to those occasionally just because she wants to hit it every once in a while, but my son really likes them too. I think I liked that book because I think it's got a great storyline. One also that we like, which I actually got from you guys was the Greeting from Somewhere Series.
Jim: Yes, we got through that series in school.
Dave: That's a great one. That is one of the few series that she will go back to frequently. I look at her books and I love how they're just all banged up and creased and folded up. That's a loved book. That's what a book should look like. It shouldn't look new. I like when my books look new, but I really want her to really tear it all up and I want the books to be loved and frayed and everything like that. She really enjoys that there are, I think, 10 or 11 of those and she keeps asking me when the next one's coming out. If you go to the website, it doesn't seem like there's another one, and she's like, "Come on." She really, really enjoys that one.
Another one that I like is it the ADA Lace Series, there I think five of those, and we banked through all of those, and I like that. There's a little bit of learning for adults. At least for me, there are some things that I've learned. The writer she's very accomplished professionally in the sciences and she sprinkles a lot of terms and just fun concepts into the books. The kids are learning a little bit without understanding that they're learning, so I like that one. Then something that we just picked up is as we are thinking about getting our kids on track for just understanding money and being financially responsible, I've picked up a couple of books.
These aren't recommendations yet because we're in the process of going through these, but I picked up Investing for Kids and The Everything Kids Money Book. I like them because I think they're going to provide at least the solid background for us to talk about investing and saving money and the stock market and stocks versus bonds, all these other kinds of things. I think that it provides a framework to discuss finances and she's only eight, but I think now's a perfect time to start introducing those concepts to her. She's trying to save money up. For her, I like those series a lot.
For our son, one thing that we picked up recently from the library was The Mad Scientist Academy. That's a really fun book. It's written in comic book style, but the one that we have now, The Mad Scientist Academy, Ocean Disaster there is a ton of actual learning in that book. They have an actual consultant who works with them on making sure that the science is correct that they talk about it. It's a great storyline. There's a lot of learning in there and they don't know that they're learning. When I read it to him for the first time, I think probably the next 10 days straight, 15 days straight, that was the requested book at bedtime.
It was enough that I was starting to get sick of this book and I'm glad we're like-- Now, I'm starting to say like, "Let's read these ones" because I'm sick of it, but it's a great book. I think we'll probably buy a copy. Usually what I do is we'll check it out from the library first and see how it takes, but that's a good one. The other ones that I like for him also are the-- There's a series called What Do You Do With and there's three of them. It's, What Do You Do with a Chance? What Do You Do with an Idea and What Do You Do with a Problem? I like them because, so if we take the problem, for instance, it talks about how at first-- it turns problems into these physical things, maybe a butterfly or a ball or something like that.
You see with the problem first, he dodges it, and then it becomes bigger and bigger, and that he finally has to tackle it. There's I think the chance there's a little bit of hesitancy, like do I take the chance? Do I not? What do I do with it? The more that he doesn't embrace the chance that he's provided the smaller it gets. Its visually it starts to shrink and then he's like, "Well, maybe I should take a look at this thing." I like how it personifies these, I don't know, opportunity's not the right word, but these things that ultimately, I'm trying to teach them about seizing the opportunities and not running away from your problems and taking on an idea.
I think also in so much as I like the concept of them having an entrepreneurial mindset, and it doesn't mean that they have to go out and create the next big company. I think that if you have that entrepreneurial mindset, it will do you well in life. I think these are those things that help them to understand that. They probably have not been as successful in terms of how often my kids want to read those as I would like them to be. I think they're beautifully illustrated and I like the stories that they tell them. It's actually the one what do you do with a problem? I actually like that one. I bought that one for myself. I just like these because I think even for adults, it's just a nice storyline.
The last one that I like for him is The Elephant and Piggie Series like you said. I think those they're so great. They have storylines that are fun and there will be times when we'll quote a book title in particular things like he'll be like, "I don't want to wait for this. I don't want to wait for that." I'm like, "Oh." Like Cara, what's the name? I'm completely blank. What is the-
Jim: Waiting is not easy.
Dave: Yes. There you go. I say, "Waiting is not easy," and he knows exactly what I'm talking about. I think that those-- it's a quick reminder and it's a way of when they enjoy that book it's just reminding them, "Hey, remember, at the end of this, there's going to be something great." Maybe it's just dinner but there's a reason we're waiting and there's something there. I think those are all really good books. I like you-- I go to the library and do the research and then we'll bring a bunch of books home and they see which ones they like, and then we'll usually add those to our collection.
Jim: That's one of the reasons this conversation's helpful because I do go to the library and what I want is a list. Usually, I'll look at the Newbery award winner--
Dave: [crosstalk]
Jim: Yes, and just figure those are probably good winners literally, but quick goals are, so what was the author in The Golden Rope is the Brownstone Family Mythology Series. I think that's great. We got that recommendation from their older cousin. One of the other books I didn't mention, or the series of books was the Ordinary People Changed the World Book. There are books that's the, I am and then there's these names from history. Everybody from George Washington and Benjamin Franklin to Walt Disney, Sonia Sotomayer, I'm looking at the list right now, and Jim Henson, that's a favorite one.
What's great about these is that they've got lessons about exactly that ordinary people changed the world. This is how they grew up. This is some of the formative experiences. Obviously, it's not in-depth biography stuff, but it's helpful context and its history. It's a way for them to learn history. I am [unintelligible 00:16:24] We talk a lot about what the United States was like and what happened and the westward expansion and what that means for everything. They like them, they're cute books, they're visually nice to look at. They look like comic books. There's lots of inside jokes and things like that. I think we've got every single one of those and the girls love them.
Dave: One of the things you mentioned about is how you choose books. One of the things that I'll do is I'll look for something that I'm trying to convey to the kids. I'll maybe Google books with strong female characters or books about whatever financial, learning about finances or books that teach about resiliency or perseverance. Then I'll take those, scan them, run them up against the library list, and see what they have. The last time, because of COVID the libraries are not-- they haven't all been open and it was harder to get books transferred from branch to branch. This last time we went and I maxed out their cards. That's like 50, I don't know. We must have like almost 60 books or something like that.
We just can't get through them, especially when you have chapter books. At this point, I'm taking pictures of the ones that, oh I got to remember to re-read this because you just can't get through it. It was one of these, like my eyes were just bigger than capable of doing, but I also think one of the things you talked about is how your daughter, when she goes like, you just pull stuff off the shelves. I think though, there is something I like giving them that experience too, to be like--
Jim: Me too.
Dave: -just take whatever you want and we'll just figure it all out because it'll be fun and to foster that love of reading, which I'm really trying to convey in them. The City Spies, it's funny. That would have been the perfect book for me as a 12-year-old boy. It just, it didn't exist. I had in my mind, I'd invent all these stories about being a spy and stuff like that, but the amount of, and the breadth of books that are available now, it's just, I mean, not that there weren't before, to me it more closely matches I think what my kids are looking for, and maybe I was just a little bit more lazy when I was their age, but giving them the opportunity to go do that. I like it when they're like, when I say, "Hey, we're going to go to the library" and their eyes light up and like "Yes, how many books can I get?"
Jim: That feels like a win.
Dave: To keep that up. I wonder how long the bedtime reading will last. I'm fine to read to both of them as long as they want, but our daughters are eight at some point, are they going to say like, "Hey, you know what, I'm too old. I'll read Harry Potter on my own," which is fine. Although it will be one of those moments where you're like, "Man, they're getting old fast."
Jim: I remember I had a sleepover with a friend's house when I was in sixth grade. We were in the bunk beds and it was great. His mom came in and started reading to us and I thought, "What the--" I mean, it was really pleasant, but I just, I didn't realize that some people did. I don't remember what it was, but it was definitely an older chapter book, which by the way, speaking of older chapter books, have you looked at the Hobbit? I know some other parents that have read it with their children and I'd like to. I like JRR Tolkien but I don't know.
Dave: I haven't. I didn't read it as a kid. I'm not really familiar with it. I think for me, probably to slowly start moving into that world would probably be to just get through the entire line, The Witch and the Wardrobe Series to introduce that fantasy world. Then if we can make it through five, seven of those, I only read the first one when I was a kid but I had the whole series somewhere. I think it's like if she's interested enough to make it through that entire series then yes, I'd probably start looking at larger more pervasive books. I think we'll have to see.
I think part of this with the kids too is seeing what they're interested in and what they're willing to learn more about and where they're like, "Nah, I'm going to pass on this." I've certainly brought home books where I'm like, I really want to read this to her because I think there's something interesting and she's like, "Pass." Actually there a couple of books that I just rented this last time. One was about I think entrepreneurship I'm like, "This is going to be great."
Jim: Kids love entrepreneurship.
Dave: She's like, "No" but I was like--
Jim: Bonds too. Kids love bonds.
Dave: We'll see. Yes. Some of it is lesson in life. We'll see, there are a few things that I would still-- I think it's like food where I'm trying to get my kids to try stuff. Let's make it through the first 20 pages and if you don't like it fine, you gave it a shot, I gave it a shot. I can feel that I did my best if you read this book. I'll just go find another entrepreneurship book with another protagonist and another storyline and I'll sneak it in there somehow. Jim, why don't you tell us about your favorite movies and TV shows?
Jim: We had a whole podcast about screen time. I think at the time we had just cut back and there have been some things, some episodes with the screen similar to some of the things that have been happening with your family. We stopped doing TV for a while and we would just do the Friday and Saturday night movies. Friday night movie would be the family movie and then Saturday night the girls could watch the movie and mom and dad could have some peace and quiet for a little bit. That's gone out the window. Summertime we've had some chaos around here and so they've been able to watch more TV.
I'll let them watch TV but it's got to be something that's got some redeeming value to it. One that you and I talk about a lot is the Wild Kratts Series. There's 20 seasons of that. They could watch that all day and they repeat them. They like watching their favorite animals and they learn things. They'll pop up with these facts and figures from when we're at the-- when we used to be at the zoo or whatever, and even some of the animals in the backyard. WordGirl is a winner. I even like WordGirl, it's got some pretty funny writing to it. They've got two words that they use throughout the episode that illustrate the point of the word.
I'll let them watch it, but I'll listen with one ear when I'm in the kitchen or whatever and I'll quiz them. What was that word? The word they say at the beginning, 'The words today are so-and-so,' so make sure that they're not just watching it like a cartoon and they're actually learning something. We recently found the Story Bots Series, which frankly is just a little bit above them, certainly the younger one but it's really good, really educational. They teach this stuff in a way that's really accessible too to children. I'm letting them watch that as much as they like when they sit down and do screen time.
One that the older one did, the younger one hasn't gotten into so much was Super Why? About reading and that little fill in the blank with the letter or the word, and they write a story together. That's a helpful book. Other TV shows there's one that they watch that is just like pure cotton candy for the eyes. It's True and the Rainbow Kingdom. It is it's just bubblegum. It's pretty sugary, but it does have a problem-solving angle to it and some other features that make it tolerable. Those are most of the TV shows. What are-- probably do movies. Tell me about your TV shows.
Dave: Like you mentioned, we're still on a video time-out. It's been months. At this point, I would suggest that there are probably still a few more months to go, but that being said, one of the things that I do, basically all of the Netflix original series if your child is learning another language, those Netflix originals are dubbed into I think, six or seven different languages. These guys quote major language, if your child is learning that language, then there's an opportunity there to at least sit them in front of another-- for them to get some more exposure to that during the summertime. I like those, I think Octonauts is one of them that falls under that rubric.
I think True and the Rainbow also fall under that. Although if your kids have been used to watching that in English, they're going to have a hard time when you say, "I'm going to switch it into Spanish now moving forward."
Jim: Do you put the subtitles on when you do that?
Dave: We haven't really done much of it mostly because the shows that they've watched, I do feel like I'm going to get some pushback if I'm like, "All right, you've enjoyed watching it in English. Now I'm going to switch the language on you." Then again, part of it is just that they have not watched anything in a while, and because of that, they don't ask anymore because they know the answer is they're on an indefinite timeout because there was a few rule infractions there. Yes, I think Netflix, again if Netflix originals if your child is looking for another language. I like also the Lego Master Series that's on Fox.
When that show first came on, I guess it was last year, maybe my calendar might be two years now, but my daughter had just started playing with Lego a little bit before that. What I noticed was that she always just stuck to the instructions, despite the fact that we had just all these loose Lego. I'm like, "You know you can do whatever you want." She had a really hard time grasping, I can make whatever. I felt that Lego Master Series would help her understand, I should be able to just dump a bucket of Lego on the table and you should just make stuff. It really did.
After that, they were really into Lego. My son actually can play Lego all day long. Just sit there with a bunch of different stuff and just play all day long and make-- What's interesting is when I was a kid, I would make something and then I would never take it apart. I'm like, "This is the coolest thing ever." What he'll do is he'll build something. He might ask me to take a picture of it and then as soon as that's done, he'll completely blow it up and then build another version of it, which is pretty cool to see that just constantly changing it.
I like, I think he's very creative and I think that Lego Master, I don't know whether Lego Master was necessarily responsible on him, but I think for her, it helped her understand that you don't need to follow the directions. Oh, by the way, most of the bricks that we have anyway there's no directions with them anyway. I like that and it really shows off people's creativity and it gave them something to look forward to.
Jim: What service is that?
Dave: It's just on Fox.
Jim: Oh, interesting.
Dave: It's one of the few because we've cut the cables. We cut the cord, so actually, we don't watch any network TV or anything, but through the app, we can do that. That's basically the only thing. I think like you also Wild Kratts, the kids love that, and there's some learning there. Then going back to the struggles that we've had during movie night, as we've talked about in previous podcasts, Disney+ for me, was great, and that it has all this national geographic content. There's all this great stuff on animals and geography and all that stuff. I think any of those series are pretty good, the docuseries.
We really got into the behind the zoo. There's I think, behind the zoo when they do three or four different zoos and there's a whole series of them. I think the Tampa Bay one, there's like four seasons of that. You can follow that. I also think about those as they don't sugarcoat what happens to the animals. You won't literally see animals pass away on the show, but there will be animals that become very sick. The way that the show is set up, you think that the animal has made it through surgery okay. Then on the way back to their enclosure, they have a seizure and they run back and they try and save it and they're not capable they just can't.
I appreciate that there is at least some level of realism to that. It's a little bit hard to figure out when your kid is ready for that, but I thought my kids were ready for it. I was still-- the first time we saw one of those because you don't necessarily know what's coming up. You're experiencing it at the same time. I'm like, "Okay," looking over at the kids, how are they going to handle this? Is everybody going to be okay? I think overall, those are all educational, and so those are the ones that I go to. That's most of the TV shows.
I actually don't have a lot of movies just simply because since the movie piece of movie night has been so difficult because my daughter is ready and my son is not, she just hasn't watched a ton of movies. There are a number of ones that I think she's ready for, but because of him, we held back. Then also the fact that we're in this indefinite screen time, time out has meant that I haven't had to show [unintelligible 00:29:37] yet. She can still wait on that. How about yourself for movies?
Jim: It's hard to say. I could list all the titles, but really, we're just desperate for content. We're doing two movies a week, and we do a lot of repeats too, but we've just gone through the entire Disney repertoire. What we do is we just find age-appropriate movies and the younger one she's a little bit more adventurous than even the older ones. If something is for seven- or eight-year-olds she'll ride fine with that. We use the common-sense media, which I'm sure everyone does just try to find some things that are age-appropriate and if there's anything that we need to talk about ahead of time, we will.
One worth mentioning that I don't know that I have before is My Octopus Teacher was just a beautiful movie, and it was also like the zoo series. It's about life and death and cycle of life and connection to nature. It was a really pretty movie, and it seemed to really resonate with both the girls. Other than that, all the Disney princess movies Studio Ghibli, is that how you pronounce it? We got through those. We haven't seen Spirited Away yet. That one seems a little too fantastical or dark spooky, frankly, just spooky. So long as it's, I don't want to say redeeming pro-quality, but some sort of lesson, some sort of, I don't know, just good media, so long as it's good media, we'll go ahead and do that.
Dave: What favorite apps and websites do you like?
Jim: We went through this too, I think in another podcast and the ones that come to mind. A lot of the ones that you mentioned or you're going to mention also storyline online which is the SAG-AFTRA, you know what I'm talking about?
Dave: Yes, Screen Actors Guild?
Jim: Yes, thank you. They've got the famous actors that'll come on and they'll read books and maybe there's a video series. Sometimes I'll let them watch that while they're having lunch and so people just reading stories. They've got the pictures of the book and then the people actually telling stories. It's fairly wholesome. Duolingo, we'd do that for the younger one in particular, it helps her with her letters and they get to trace the letters and sight words and things like that. There's one called Queens and Castles, which is just a game. It's just a video game, but it is a problem-solving game in that you've got to do the right action.
It's like a puzzle, now you got to do one thing before they do the next, if you do it wrong, then this one's blocked off. It's a trial-and-error coding mentality where you have to do all the right things in the right order in order to get the result. I'll let them watch that one, and then a bunch of reading and letter apps again, particularly for the younger one so she can learn her sight words and trace out the letters and things like that. There's one in particular that I can't recall the title of, but there's tons of them on the app store.
Dave: Is your daughter asking to play Minecraft or Roblox or any of those games? Is she starting to bring those up?
Jim: She's interested in Minecraft just because I think her classmates were interested in it. A lot of her friends are interested in it, but she doesn't really have any interest in-- She's curious, she's interested in it, but she isn't interested in playing it. She just wants to know more about what is it like. We went over to their cousin's house recently and he's the same age. He's got the Nintendo switch for COVID and so he's really into video games. She got to play some of the Mario card games and the Mario-- I wasn't even familiar with it. It's a whole suite of games that you play with the Mario characters. She was interested in that but other than that, she doesn't really play video games.
Dave: The reason I bring it up is because our daughter is asking about Minecraft and I've never played it, but it feels like there's a physics engine to it and it's much more than--. I think at school there is a Minecraft class because there is some level of education to the game.
Jim: That's good to know.
Dave: I think that that's one that you can embrace if she does look forward to it. Actually, since you mentioned gaming, I have a switch although I got it before lockdown. One of the things that I did get during the lockdown was I got the Ring Fit Game, which is during COVID during the lockdown, that's an $80 game I think that was selling for $300 to $500 because people couldn't go to the gym. What we're doing right now, since the kids are-- they're home from school and we just don't have a lot of time to go out, certainly on the weekdays is that's her exercise. She'll have to play for whatever 30, 40 minutes. When it's time to play Ring Fit, she gets her water bottle, she puts on her shorts. It's a thing, but she does-
Jim: Is it like the Wi?
Dave: Yes.
Jim: I'm not familiar with it.
Dave: Yes, there's a physical, there's a ring, there's a circular hoop that you push or pull or manipulate. There's some, I guess, for the back where you pull like a bow and arrow, so you hold one in the one hand, you pull the other end back and then you can do, you can work your legs by putting it between your thighs and crushing it or doing squats. Because you attach the ring controller to it, it can sense itself in space. It can tell if you've put it over your head or if you're moving into the left or to the right. It does sense in three dimensions.
You do get a pretty decent workout out of it and which is why the thing was just completely astronomically high drain during the early days of COVID when really nobody was even going outside because nobody knew how you caught it. That's been something that she's played and yes, it gets her off the couch. It's funny because our son when she's running and doing this stuff, he'll mimic here with, I also have Wi which we don't play with, but there's a wheel for that. It's actually a racing car wheel, but he'll use that as if it's the controller. He'll mimic the same movements that she does. I feel like I get a twofer with that and it keeps them busy for a little while.
That's a good game that we have, but on the app and website side, I think we do have a lot of similar ones because we were introduced to them in the same way. Codable is a great coding app and she likes to play it that. Cosmo, I like Cosmo. It's an app, but there are physical pieces. They have tangrams. Instead of on a lot of apps where you have a tangram and you would simply move them using your finger on the screen, here you're physically moving physical pieces and there's a mirror on your camera so it can detect where they are in space. I think there is something to having this physical, tactile piece that is better than just moving your fingers on the screen and manipulating these two-dimensional objects, but they also have coding and logic and there's spelling math.
There's all sorts of different games for that. I think that's a really good one. Grapple Game is another good one that we like and that one, both kids can use that. That's helping them learn to read. We'll start putting different letters together and understanding the combination of sounds and so there's a repetition to that and there's a game to that and they have that. I think Grapple Game has a couple of languages on that, but we have the English one. Epic, which I know we both use that's a great app for reading and some of the stories can be read to you. I've noticed that when my son uses it and he has the stories being read to him, you can set the settings so that it will highlight the word as it's going by. I think that's a nice way.
I feel less like it's just straight screen time, I guess, even though it might be, but somehow without having actually taught him to read just we were playing around it. I can't even remember how this happened, but we discovered that he actually can read. We were starting to put--
Jim: Swipe pies.
Dave: Yes, and we started testing them and you can put like little words together, like cat, bat, dog and just you put those two and if you can sound it out. I'm not sure where he's getting it because I asked the teacher, I'm like, "Are you guys-- I don't think you're doing this at school yet are you?" She's like, "No." I'm, "It's certainly not going from his parents so it must be coming from somewhere." My only thought is the only other thing are some of these apps that we have, and it was shocking. He actually there are a fair number of three-letter words that he can read and it did come out of nowhere. That was a fun, we video that whole thing because we were just not prepared for it.
Then the last app that I have is actually not really one for the kids. It's one for the adults, but it's one to use with the kids. It's a geocaching app. It's actually called geocaching, and we've recently started to geocache. It's a fun treasure hunt. They'll give you a location and then they'll give you some clues. It's up to you to figure out where this thing is. We've done some ones in urban areas which seem to be a little bit easier for us to find, but there's one, we have this huge mountain behind us in our backyard and we probably spent, I don't know, 40 minutes forging around for this clue that we never found. What I like about it is it gets the kids out of the house. It is a real live treasure hunt.
Just like a treasure hunt you might be successful, you might not be, but that's part of the fun of doing it. There was this huge public park that we went to and in that one park, there were I think, six different geocaches. We banged out a couple of hours at the park and it was a lot of fun. It's to the point now where my kids are asking, "Hey, can we basically have, make our own geocache?" Which you can do. I think it's just a fun way especially with city kids, it's just a fun way to get them out and for it not to be about the hike and "When can we go home?" More about like, "All right. We just got to walk 10 minutes and the treasure hunt begins. Keep your eyes peeled."
That's been a lot of fun and we'll probably use more of those. I've also-- there's one on a bike path near here. We actually biked and that's part of the reason they went as far as they did, because there was this potential at the end. It had it stuff-- actually, so far, I think my daughter despite the fact that I've looked pretty hard, I think my daughter's found almost all of our geocaches. She's probably found things-- We probably had seven or 10 of them. I think she-- well, she might have found eight of them, 8 out of 10. She's quite good at it. It's fun. She gets really excited about that. It accomplishes, it ticks a number of boxes, shall we say?
Jim: You're right. I like that one.
Dave: Then I guess last to close this out, Jim, I just put in a slot for miscellaneous favorite things from games to, for me, subscription boxes, whatever else do you have. What are some of the other fun things that you guys have in your life?
Jim: We do. We had a game night every Sunday, and so we've got a whole roster of games that we cycle through. Some of the favorite ones are Spot it. We've got a couple of different versions of Spot it. I don't know if you know the game, they've got little cards and you have to match your picture to the one on there. That particularly was good for the-- when they were a little bit younger. It's still fun. My wife and I have to handicap ourselves pretty heavily so that the girls can keep up but that's a fun one. We recently played the Catan Junior, which is based on the settlers of Catan. It's a pretty involved game. We pulled it out. It was just a couple of days ago actually.
We pulled it out in the afternoon to kill some time. I wasn't sure that they were going to really take to it because it is fairly involved and they both, the five-year-old and the eight-year-old, they really enjoyed it. That's one that I wouldn't be afraid to try. Apples to Apples is a fun game we play where you match some words and then you have to make a persuasive argument about why your word matches that word most correctly. It's really-- I love watching my eight-year-old say-- and this is why, because-- and then she does a very-- It might have been something that they practice in school, but she does a very good persuasive argument about why this, and then the younger one is just-- she's got some hilarious answers.
We end up having a good laugh. There's a game called Duckaroo which is pretty much just an easy memory game. I think the younger one got it for her third, maybe her fourth birthday, and it was a big hit and we don't play it anymore. For younger kids, that was a big hit. Then memory games we've got Dr. Seuss Memory Game and we flip over the cards and everyone seems to enjoy those. Then the usuals we got Jenga, we've never figured out Monopoly or Life. Those seem a little bit too involved. Anyhow, of all of those, I think the Apples to Apples and the Catan Junior are worth remembering
Dave: For us on the games, we've got a ton of games. I love games as teaching tools. I always find that they are a nice way to slip in some learning. The kinds of games that I really like, there's a bunch from Gamewright. I love that company. We've got-- I don't know, we must have 5 or 10 games from Gamewright that's the Outfoxed! with the logic, Seuss on the Loose, which I really like, it's a math-based game. You have to get to 100. There's these cards, they're numbered 1 through 100 and you have to get to 100. You play a card of a certain number and the game mechanic is that you're adding these cards up and the first person to 100 is the winner, but you can also subtract stuff.
You also capture the figure at every multiple of 10. There's all these different concepts that go into that game. I like that one because the actual gameplay mechanic is math. Another one like that is Sushi Go. Both of these are Gamewright games. Sushi Go is another one. That's another fun card game where there's a math mechanic. There's some multiplication in there. There's always strategy in all these games. I think those are really fun games because I ask her to do the math. I'm not going to add it for her. If you want to play that, that's how you're going to do it. Sushi just-- she knows that's the thing and she embraces it.
It's an easy way to sneak in some math practice. We're doing a lot of also cooperative-based games right now. Forbidden Island, which I think is actually another Gamewright game, which is a lot of fun. There's a pandemic game that we've played. It's not the actual pandemic, there's a dice-based pandemic game. We've just started to play that one. That's a little bit harder because the mechanic-- because it's a real-time game. There's a time crunch. It's a little bit harder to strategize while the time crunch is happening versus the actual legit pandemic game. There's a whole bunch of these.
There's another one I'm completely blanking on the name, but I really like, it's a firefighting game where you're all firefighters and you have to go into the building and put out the fires and you win if you get everybody out and you lose, if you lose a certain number of people that are in the building or if the building collapses. There's a lot of strategy in terms of how far away you are from the fire. Who's closest getting the person out. One of the funny mechanics for us is that our son can play it. He's five, he's really into firefighters, but he will pass it. Sometimes the kids will argue over who's going to rescue the person in the building. Meanwhile, the building's collapsing down, but they're like, "No, I'm going rescue it."
Even though-- especially for our son, he might be one of the furthest firefighters away. It's just so much easier to let your sister save this person. You save the next person because of the distance. He's like, "No, no, no, I'm going to do it anyway." He'll basically blow a turn, moving into the room when she's just going to-- by the time it's his turn again, the person will already be saved and out of the building, but it's just funny.
Jim: You lose the game if the building collapses and there are people inside?
Dave: Yes. There's two ways to lose. One is--
Jim: It's a little grim.
Dave: Well, they're kids, they don't fully understand the importance of it. Yes, there's two ways to lose. One is if basically a number of the people in the building catch on fire, shall we say? [chuckles] The other as if the of all the walls, if you have enough walls that collapse, then the building collapses. It's a fun-- There's a whole-- There's series of them, but it's a really, really fun game. We play the base version but there's a more complicated set of rules, which is really cool where you can actually use the fire engine to put out the fire but the water hose is indiscriminate.
If there's a bunch of people in there, they get washed away or something like that. The game mechanic is quite fun. It' sounds ridiculous, but it's a really fun game. Those are the kinds of games that we're into right now.
Jim: You said, what is Gamewright? Is that what it was?
Dave: That one is not a Gamewright but the others are Gamewright games. This firefighter game is not. I'll actually-- I'm completely blanking on it. I'll put that in the-- I'll put the name of the game in the show notes because it's a really good game and we just got it. I think I got that from my daughter's birthday, but it's a lot of fun. There are some of these games that have slightly more complicated game mechanics than others. I think that pandemic-- I know that some of my daughter's friends do play pandemic. I think that's a fairly complicated game mechanic although maybe I should introduce that to her.
I think this firefighting game, the game mechanics is fairly straightforward. It's something that you can grasp pretty easily. Also, as we started to get more into these types of games, there are a lot of the game mechanics are similar, right? You draw a card, you make your move, you then draw cards to make it more complicated, and then you pass it on to the next person. You get into this similar type of game type. It just becomes a little bit easier as you play these different variations of games, but it's a good one.
Then the other thing I wanted to mention was subscription boxes. I have started picking up a few of these along the way. The one that I really like it is the stuff from KiwiCo and we have been subscribed to that one for a little while. They break it down by ages. They start-- I think the KiwiCo start as early as six months and they go all the way up to 14 plus. Every month they send you a project and you build it. My daughter likes the 14-year-old boxes. They're more complicated. The kinds of things that she's been building, she built a set of headphones that work, that she uses to listen to the iPad. She built a speaker.
One of the ones that we use right now is-- she built a soap dispenser. You press the button and dispense. We've been using this thing for over a year and it still works. If you think it's our primary soap dispenser. If you think about how many times you wash your hands a day, we're probably using that thing as a family what, 20 times a day for the last 365 days and it still works. These things are pretty-- they're built well, but other projects, some of the younger projects that we've done are making bath bombs. There's just a lot of-- it's a lot of fun stuff. Certainly, in the older crates, like the 14-year-old, they also teach you what's happening.
As we're building circuits, they're teaching you a little about electricity and it's grilled through the 14-year-old so she might not be getting all of it but as somebody who, she likes to work with her hands a lot. I think the Kiwi Crates are a lot of fun and they definitely keep her busy. She just built a desk, one of those folding desks just the other day, that was last one, that was a lot of fun. As she's building more of these things, I'm realizing that our poor son has been left out because the Kiwi Crates for him were to me less interesting. There is a subscription box and I've always been interested for the kids and it's called Little Passports.
This one is a, it's a geography crate. Unlike Kiwi Crate and a lot of these KiwiCo unlike a lot of these STEM-based subscription boxes where the subscription could last forever, you can literally go five years or whatever on these things that Kiwi goes. Little Passports has a fixed limit. There are a certain number of countries, they're 24, it goes two years, and then once you're done with those 24 countries, that's it, they don't make anymore. They automatically switch you over to their STEM series.
What happens in these little passports is every month these kids fly to a different country and then they send you a box about what's happening in the country. The first one is Brazil, and then there's these coins that you collect and they give you a map of the world, and then you put these sticker pins to show all the places that you've been to and there's a little project that's involved. What I like, they underplay it I think quite a bit in the marketing for Little Passports, but they send you a book, and I'm thinking, “Well, okay, it's whatever, 10, 15 pages,” it's a legitimate chapter book. It's 40, 50 pages and we haven't read it yet.
It will talk about I think these kids as they're going through Brazil and learning about the culture, and then they'll be handed off next month is Japan, which I wish I had subscribed a month earlier because we're watching the Olympics right now, so it would have been perfect. They're going to go through all these different countries, all over the world, and I think it's just a nice way to introduce this more global concept to him. Actually, there's a little passport that you get and then they give you stickers to stamp your passport and to put it-- the very first crate comes with a suitcase and so you also will put your stickers from every country on the suitcase.
It's fun and I like that. They do have some STEM boxes, but the crates seem a little bit overpriced to me for the STEM stuff that they do, versus KiwiCo which I like. Then the last subscription box that I just ordered because I'm really curious is called Groovy Lab in a Box. They seem to have some association with Popular Mechanics, I think they're working with Popular Mechanics for these projects. What I like about this box, and we haven't gotten it yet I just ordered it a couple of days ago, is that unlike the KiwiCo box, the KiwiCo box, they give you all the product, all the stuff, and then they're like, “Here are the instructions, build this thing.”
The Groovy Lab in a Box gives you a bunch of different things, and then they give you a challenge. It sounds like the big thing that they're trying to do is teach you the engineering design process. I saw that there's a crate about aerodynamics and flying. They give you all these different types of flying contraptions like a helicopter with a rubber band and different types of airplanes and stuff like that. Then they will tell you, so they'll teach you how these things work, and then the challenge they present you is, “Build an airplane or build a project, build something that will fly 15 feet,” but you can do it any way you want. It's less guided.
Kiwi Crate is there's this is how you do the thing whereas Groovy Lab in a Box just says, "Here's what we want you to build, how you get there is up to you based on the materials that you've been provided with and what you've learned about whatever aerodynamics" or whatever these other things are electricity, electronics throughout the process. I think my sense is it's a little bit more free-flowing which I like and if it does teach this engineering design process, I think that's a good-- again, it's just another way of exposing her to different ways of thinking, and that there are multiple ways to get to an end result.
I hope that what it also provides is a sense of, here's how we take learning and turn it into achieving something. How do we leverage what you've learned in that project to make this thing without telling you how to get from point A to point B. It's up to you to figure out how to get from point A to point B based on what you've learned at point A. Really interested to see how this one worked out. I've gotten a couple crates because I feel like you have to try a couple of them to see you might have gotten one that was not great or one that was really great the others are not. I think if this thing works out, then we might just go all in on a subscription and see how it works.
I like the subscription boxes. I think there are a lot of fun. It's certainly for our daughter who really loves to manipulate things and work with her hands, it's a really great outlet for her, and also provide some level of additional learning on the back end that it's just the bonus that she's getting out of it.
Jim: You've mentioned the subscription boxes before and we haven't done any of that. Also, with mentioning and all this is the Highlights Magazine. We've got the high five, I think it is for the five-year-old and the older one for the or the older magazine for the eight-year-old. I mean they love those things. They will devour them the day that they come in the mail, so I can imagine that your daughter and your son having the boxes come fairly regularly, that's a pretty exciting day and have that come in the mail. That’s just the fact of it being a subscription serial project is pretty interesting.
Dave: Yes. Certainly, with the KiwiCo what I've done, as we've gotten through the summer is I bought a bunch of ones because they also sell the overstock on the website. I buy a bunch and I hoard them for the year and once she's really bored, I'm like, “Hey, there's a KiwiCo.” Yes, and it definitely does the trick. Some of the ones are pretty complicated. There was a fire one, she's like, "Can we do that?" Like, "Yes, when there's an adult who can sit here and work with you." There's one on powering a battery using, she's going to power a clock using salt water, just like fun stuff that she's learning along the way.
The challenge with a lot of these things, as you know from some of the science classes that we've had when the kids were younger is now you've got a bunch of stuff. You're like, “What do I do with this?” One of the things she made was this pinball machine which was huge. It was like 2, 2.5 feet, and we were like, "What do we do with this thing?" because she never played with it. There was a ping pong ball returner that came with ping pong rackets and balls and then you hit the ball back into the net and it would shoot it back out at you, which was fun. She played with for a little while.
Where we've gotten to it is build it, enjoy it but to me, if once she's done building it goes in the car in the garbage, it's fine. The point is the process. Yes, the process of building it, learning through that process, and truthfully, what are we going to do with all this stuff anyway? There are a few things that we keep around and then otherwise, she'll take a picture to be like, “I did it,” and then she doesn't play with it after a little while, then we check with her, but then it goes out the door because otherwise you just have this closet filled with these massive projects. Yes, I think there a lot of fun, and also gives me an opportunity to sit down and have a project with her.
The 14-year-old stuff, sometimes she needs a little bit of help, and it also the thing I'm really working on her with is the following of directions because it's small, you have to read everything. I'm like, “You did this wrong because you clearly didn't read the directions. Remember, let's take a step back, read everything and then go." That's what, it's funny my dad has a story when he was younger, in middle school, he sat down to take a test and the teacher said, “Read through all of it and then get started.” He read through it all, and at the very last line says, “Don't do anything, don't fill this test out, just turn it in after five minutes.”
Of course, there are a bunch of people that hadn't read that and just started taking the test. That's one of those things that I want to teach her like slow down, read it all, and then go through which we teach her too when she's cooking. Read the whole recipe and get into it. I think it's just another way to reinforce these things that we're trying to teach her. We hope you found today's episode informative. If you'd to support the podcast and hear more discussions around fatherhood, please subscribe and drop us a review. If you have any questions hit us up on the Facebook page, facebook.com/papaestfatigue, P-A-P-A-E-S-T-F-A-T-I-G-U-E. Thanks for listening.
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