GeoGuessr: The Global Game

by Amy Kraft on May 11, 2013

geoguessr-nowhere

I’m warning you, don’t read this post if there are productive things that you’re meant to be doing right now. I happened on GeoGuessr in a friend’s Facebook feed on Friday afternoon, and the remaining memories of Friday are a little hazy. It’s possible all I did was play this game. Fortunately, the kids dig it too.

GeoGuessr plunks you down somewhere in the world. You could be anywhere. (Well, anywhere covered by Google’s Street View.) Imagine if you really were dropped somewhere and you didn’t know where you are. You’d start to look for clues, right? You can navigate around and start to narrow it down. What language are the signs in? What side of the road are the cars driving on? What’s the architecture and the foliage like? When you’re ready to guess, you can click the world map and get points for how close you come.

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We’ve been discussing house rules for this game. My husband got one down to the street by looking at signage, and at first Olive and I thought that was cheating. We softened when we started to Google what we were finding.

For instance. Look at this pretty scenery. Got a guess as to where it is?

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Wait. Turn to the left. A tunnel! Hmmm. The plot thickens.

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Go through the tunnel and find a sign on the other side. Well that’s a pretty good clue.

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Google break….

We found a map and got pretty darn close.

geoguessr-goodmap

We also found YouTube videos of driving through this Ohmori Tunnel in Kamoenai Village, Hokkaido, Japan. Isn’t that crazy and amazing? GeoGuessr is such a great path to global discoveries. And now all Ozzie wants to do is watch YouTube videos of tunnels.

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Interview with a 3-Year-Old

by Amy Kraft on May 4, 2013

oz

Tomorrow’s a big day. Ozzie is turning 3! I know I should be wistful for the end of the baby years, but it’s so much fun to have a big boy. He’s not yet a reliable witness for this interview since he pretty much only thinks about what he’s done in the last 15 minutes, so the rest of the family determined the favorites from Ozzie’s time as a 2-year-old.
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Favorite Book: No, David!
A great fit for any 2-year-old, really. We went through quite a long spell where Ozzie would want every one of the No, David series that we have in the house (including David Goes To School and David Gets In Trouble) at bedtime, and nothing else. Honorable mentions for the year go to Go, Dog. Go! and Taro Gomi’s Bus Stops.

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Favorite App: Toca Train
Ozzie’s a whiz with the iPad, and loves all of the Toca Boca apps, but Toca Train tops them all. I think it’ the power of driving the train. Pepi Bath got quite a bit of play this year, too.

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Favorite eBook: Hansel and Gretel
This is a new category for these interviews, but interactive eBooks have really become a thing this past year, and the one that Ozzie plays most frequently is Hansel and Gretel by PB&J Publishing. It’s got beautiful art and nice voiceover. There are parts of it that freak Ozzie out a bit, but I think that may be part of the draw, like he’s building up his courage or something like that.

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Favorite TV Show: Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood
Yo Gabba Gabba was knocked out of the top slot in Ozzie’s TV roundup thanks to the new Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. I think he sees in Daniel a totally relatable kid with experiences that model his own. The musical jingles in each episode are a big draw, too. SuperWHY has also been in pretty heavy rotation lately, and he dabbled in Sid the Science Kid this year, too.

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Favorite Museum: Museum of Mathematics
I think both of the kids have been favoring the new MoMATH, with its math-themed rides, puzzles, and projects. The size of the museum is also nice — two floors that never feel overwhelming.

Favorite Music: “Bubble Factory” by Recess Monkey
Ozzie lives and breathes this video. He’s obsessed with both garages and Recess Monkey’s mascot, Mayor Monkey. Everything that even remotely functions like a garage door in Ozzie’s daily life — the medicine cabinet, the butter door of the refrigerator, the hood on his jacket — becomes a space where he can imagine Mayor Monkey inside. He’s also very big into hiding in the curtains with his microphone so that he can pretend he’s on Yo Gabba Gabba introducing the Super Music Friends Show. When he does, he always introduces the same video, Of Montreal with “Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast”.

oz-garage

Favorite Toy: Little People Wheelies Stow ‘n Tow Garage
Did I mention a garage obsession? It’s no secret in our family, so for Christmas Ozzie received two different versions of the Stow ‘n Tow Garage (on is Cars-branded). They’ve got handles at the top and Ozzie will walk around the apartment carrying his two garages. It’s pretty darn cute.

I can’t wait to see what the next year brings!

Previously:

Interview with a 2-Year-Old

Favorites From the First Year

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A Last Minute Fix for National Poetry Month

April 30, 2013
AmazonPilots

Leave it to me to finally post about Nation Poetry Month just minutes before it ends. I know you’ve spent every April day lounging around reading poetry to one another, but if there’s a chance that you aren’t all poetry-ed out, here are some books for your enjoyment. I’d heard of Jack Prelutsky for a [...]

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Amazon Originals: Pilots With Potential

April 30, 2013
Amazonlogo

In case you haven’t heard, Amazon is getting into the content business. Having devoured all of House of Cards on Netflix, I like where this trend of new players is headed. What’s cool is that these Amazon Originals include children’s shows, and all six of the pilots have potential. I highly recommend watching them all [...]

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New Picture Books for Bedtime

April 21, 2013
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A few of my books to be reviewed have lately made it into heavy rotation at bedtime, largely in the same order. Two of the books get Ozzie all wound up, and the last winds him down for sleep. Funny thing is that Olive’s been hanging out around the edges of this picture book storytime, [...]

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Tween Review: Percy Jackson and the Olympians

April 12, 2013
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I’m so happy that my niece, Elizabeth, is back with another book review. Today I had the pleasure of Skyping with four 6th grade Language Arts classes in Elizabeth’s school, and a bunch of her friends are gearing up to write some reviews! I always love hearing what the kids think.  The Percy Jackson and [...]

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Spring Break, Desert Cowgirl-Style

April 9, 2013
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Our choice for a spring break destination was an easy choice this year. My in-laws just moved to Phoenix and we’ve never been there… or anywhere else resembling the desert for that matter. We knew so little about Phoenix, so we had no idea of how much we’d discover. On our first day, we headed [...]

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Ready for The Storm Makers

April 5, 2013
StormMakers

Right around the time Hurricane Sandy hit, a book called The Storm Makers by Jennifer E. Smith made its way to the top of my review pile. Funny thing, I didn’t quite feel like reading a book by that name at that time. Many months later, I’m glad I picked it up again. Ruby and her family [...]

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Freaks: Weirdest. Crime Fighters. Ever.

March 29, 2013
Freaks

The winner of the Fourth Annual Chicken House/London Times fiction contest is an imaginative mystery called Freaks, by debut author Kieran Larwood. First we meet Sheba, part girl, part wolf. Sheba’s life is looking pretty bleak. She knows nothing about where she came from, and life consists of a cage at the end of the pier [...]

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Scholastic’s Learning Toolkit

March 27, 2013
ScholasticParentsBlogs

Scholastic Parents has just launched a redesign since the one I did some work on a couple years ago. It’s looking great, and remains a super helpful resource for you to facilitate and encourage your kid’s reading and learning life. With the redesign comes two new blogs, Raise a Reader and The Learning Toolkit, and I’m pleased [...]

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