The Geek Dad’s Guide To Weekend Fun by Ken Denmead Is The Perfect Book To Provide Hours Of Father’s Day Excitement!

Title: The Geek Dad’s Guide To Weekend Fun

Author: Ken Denmead

240 pages, Publisher: Gotham Trade Paperback

Ken’s Info: Website | Twitter

Buy The Book: Amazon

Summary:

Ken Denmead struck a chord with parents and kids across America with his GeekDad blog on Wired.com, which receives more than one million page views per month. His debut book, Geek Dad, was on bestseller lists and in its seventh printing just two months after hitting store shelves. With The Geek Dad’s Guide to Weekend Fun, he keeps the nerdtastic novelties coming, with projects that teach readers how to:
•Build homemade robots from scratch
•Write and direct simple stop-motion movies
•Hack into mechanical toys to add cool electronic twists, and more
United by the premise that to really understand science and how something works you must design and build it yourself or remake it better, Geek Parents everywhere will celebrate this latest installment of weekend workshop wonders. (Summary provided by Gotham Trade Paperback.)

I was so excited to receive a copy of The Geek Dad’s Guide To Weekend Fun by Ken Denmead from Gotham Trade Paperback  just in time for Father’s Day weekend! It is the perfect Father’s Day gift for my husband. He loves all things technical and is always on the lookout for the latest gadget or cool electronics project. So when I noticed this book was full of projects like that for technologically minded Dads (or Moms) to do with their children, I was stoked.

With over 25 projects  of varying skill levels that will appeal to a wide variety of ages, Ken Denmead has put together a great resource for summer days when the kids are out of school and in need of something to do. Most of the projects (with names like like “Go Medieval At Home with Make-Your-Own Weapons” and “Alien Drums”) can be completed with household items and tools from the garage.

This afternoon I decided to test out one of the projects with my four-year-old son British. We chose the “Geeky Art Prints” project (pages 209 – 211). The following is paraphrased from The Geek Dad’s Guide To Weekend Fun. For full instructions and tons of other cool ideas, buy a copy of the book!

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had all of the materials to complete the project with around the house.

Step 1 Spray a rectangle of foam shaving cream onto a cookie sheet or other work surface.

Step 2 Add droplets of food coloring to the shaving cream in whatever pattern you like.

Step 3 Use popsicle sticks to swirl the food coloring into the shaving cream. Be careful not to mix the colors. This was British’s favorite part. He loved seeing the shaving cream turn different colors. My one-year-old Bruce was watching in the background.

Step 4 Take a 5×7 piece of card stock and smoosh it on top of the shaving cream.

Step 5 Use a squeegee to scrape the shaving cream off the paper. British really liked getting to use a squeegee!

Step 6 Take a look at the cool swirly picture you’ve created and let it dry!

British really enjoyed the project. He liked getting to play with shaving cream – something he is not normally allowed to do! Also, he thought the end result was really cool. I’m going to let British give his daddy the picture he made along with The Geek Dad’s Guide To Weekend Fun for Father’s Day this Sunday. Hmmm… now what can I have Bruce give hubs for Father’s Day? Maybe I’ll find another project in Ken Denmead’s book!

Look below to check out the trailer for The Geek Dad’s Guide To Weekend Fun:

What are you giving your significant other or Dad for Father’s Day? Leave a comment and let me know!

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