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Product & Book Reviews

Product & Book Reviews

Here We Go Again: Time To Plan Your Nerd’s Summer Camp

CuriousGroundhog Day was just last week, but we parents already know what time it is regardless of Punxsutawney Phil’s predicting we’re in for another six weeks of winter. It’s summer camp sign-up season!

For a few weeks now, parents across the country have been organizing their summer calendars and scrambling to get online as soon as that perfect drama or nature camp’s registration goes “live.”

Oh, were you five minutes late registering? Say hello to the waiting list and move on to the next sleep-away or day camp’s website to try, try again.

A Wealth of Options for Summer Camp

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Creativity Product & Book Reviews

Nerd Book Review: I Am Jim Henson by Brad Meltzer

Henson2Jim Henson’s beloved Muppets made their debut with Sesame Street on November 10, 1969, just six months after I made my own debut into the world. Like millions of other parents, who are about my age now, I grew up with Jim Henson, Kermit, Grover and Big Bird.

By the time I’d outgrown Sesame Street, Henson’s creatures had moved into prime-time, network TV with The Muppet Show, and helped usher me, laughing and dreaming, through adolescence to adulthood.

The worlds Henson created are ones we’ve all, at one time or another in our lives, wished we could inhabit. … READ MORE

Product & Book Reviews

Raising Nerd’s Best of 2016 STEM/STEAM Nerdtacular

It’s been a blur. What a wild, exhilarating, challenging, Nerdy year, huh? However heart-pounding, heartening or heart-breaking 2016 has been, Raising Nerd is thankful for all the Nerd parents who have joined us to help inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, and creative problem solvers. In just six months, our staff grew five-fold from just one Clueless Dad toiling in obscurity, to a virtual team of writers, designers, and social marketers working hard together to crank out enough useful content to get friends, family, and colleagues to share so others would notice.

And, boy, did they ever!

As 2016 … READ MORE

Engineering Product & Book Reviews Science & Tech

How to Extend the Magic of Santa by Appealing to the STEM/STEAM Side of Kids’ Curious Minds

How to Extend the Magic of Santa by Appealing to the STEM/STEAM Side of Kids’ Curious Minds

Are your kids at that age when their curiosity has them pondering the truth about Santa Claus? Raising Nerd’s Imperfect Dad is in this situation and was wondering how much longer he could stave off a potentially harsh reality for his inquisitive 7- and 9-year-old Nerdlings. In our first-ever guest post courtesy of We’ll Eat You Up, We Love You So  blog, he decides to continue nurturing their imaginations and holiday spirit with – you guess it – a heavy dose of STEM/STEAM and Rifftrax Live! He hopes to extend the magic of Santa and that wily Elf on … READ MORE

Product & Book Reviews

2016 Mega Holiday Wish List: Bonus Stocking Stuffer Edition

For many kids, the highlight of Christmas morning is waking up, running to the living room, and seeing their stockings so overloaded that Santa had to lay those cornucopias of goodies on the ground for everyone’s safety.

But when it comes to selecting the best stocking stuffers for creative Nerds, aside from finding things they’ll cherish, one of the biggest hassles for you, Santa, and his helpers is finding useful stuff that will actually fit into a stocking.

To that, we at Raising Nerd simply say, “No problem. Get a bigger stocking!”

Once you see all the fantastic, smaller-scale STEM- … READ MORE

Product & Book Reviews

2016 Raising Nerd Mega Holiday Wish List: the Book Edition

Two decades ago, I lived in Dallas, Texas. Not far from my old North Dallas apartment stood the flagship of one of the biggest new-used book and music stores on the planet, Half Price Books. Founded in an old laundromat in 1972, HPB claims to “buy and sell everything ever printed or recorded (except yesterday’s newspaper).”

That’s no exaggeration.

For four years, to escape the stress of work, the extreme heat, or just to surround myself with the wall-to-wall promise of finding a good story or three, I browsed that mammoth book exchange once a week for at least … READ MORE