SWIM LIKE A GOLDFISH

**  Sponsored by Goldfish Swim School **

My daughter has been excited this summer that we've been able to spend some time at some of Michigan's great beaches putting her swimming lessons from Goldfish Swim School to use.  The state's lakes may be a bit cold and the water is murkier than you'll find when visiting an ocean location, but on the positive side they're filled with fresh water and you don't need to be worried about bumping into a shark during a swim.  That being said the water can still be dangerous if you don't treat it with caution and respect.  Goldfish Swim School has provided my kids with the necessary skills to be confident swimmers who know what they need to do to be safe in the water.  This lets them have more freedom and fun at the lake or in a pool; and while I still keep a watchful eye over them it makes me a lot less nervous about something bad happening when they are in the water.

In addition to teaching a mastery of a variety of swimming strokes, Goldfish Swim School's lessons also include aspects that help kids develop an increased comfort level in the water and essential safety skills.  Before we attended Goldfish Swim School, my kids really hated putting their heads under the water.  Now they love swimming underwater and really have demonstrated some incredible breath control being able to stay submerged longer than I actually can based upon the diving ring drill incorporated into their swim classes.  They LOVE diving to find toys, rocks or shells underwater whenever they can!  Plus whether it is for leisure or an emergency occurs they know how to handle themselves underwater now.

Beyond learning swimming strokes being able to tread water for an extended period of time is a skill that is reinforced at Goldfish Swim School.  So if children find themselves in water where they can't touch instead of panicking they have the ability to tread water and think about their options.  Maybe it is staying in place waiting for help or it could be swimming to a safer spot.  Avoiding panic and making intelligent decisions is one of the best ways to stay safe when trouble in the water arises.

Get dragged away from the shore by a current or have to evacuate a boat that is too far to swim to safety?  Goldfish Swim School makes sure kids are able to flip from various positions onto their back to do the dead man's float.  This is one of the most important water survival skills to have because it allows people to stay safely afloat preserving energy and oxygen when they may not have the stamina or swimming skills to handle the circumstances.  It is also an invaluable technique for kids with limited swimming experience who may find themselves in a deep pool.

For beginning swimmers, Goldfish Swim School also works on making sure little ones know how to get in and out of a pool.  They have a drill Jump, Turn, Swim to the Wall where kids learn what to do when they become immersed in water to safely get out and work on it repeatedly to make sure they have the routine down.  The kids are also taught the Fin, Fin, Belly, Flipper (Elbow, Elbow, Tummy, Knee) which shows them how to get out of a pool by manipulating their bodies.

Yes we aren't going to have to avoid sharks in Michigan, but there are still dangers to be aware of such as cramps, currents, drop offs and reckless behavior.  Goldfish Swim School provides kids with practical guidance on how to handle these type of situations.  Plus thanks to their lessons my kids are really good swimmers now too! So while you aren't likely to see a shark in the Great Lakes State there is a very good chance you'll come across a ... Goldfish.

Goldfish Swim School has nine locations in Michigan and also has franchises in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Ontario, Canada.  Classes range from parent-tot sessions to swimming lessons for kids up to 12 years old.  For more information, visit goldfishswimschool.com

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC KiDS ALMANAC 2018

My kids love swimming in the lake when at the state park where we go every summer for family camping trips.  Yes lakes in Michigan may be filled with murky water but at least you don't have to worry about encountering a shark while swimming.  Well actually we did have a run in with some sharks in the lake during a recent outing courtesy of Melissa & Doug.  As part of a promotion with National Geographic to highlight a shark being the "cover animal" for the most recent National Geographic KiDS Almanac 2018, we were provided a Melissa & Doug Spark Shark Toss & Catch water toy set. 

Spark Shark Toss & Catch is a fun game played in the water where two people toss a ball back and forth trying to get it to land within the mouth of the shark they are holding in their hand.  It may sound easy but the game can actually be fairly challenging.  Our whole family got in on the action and had a great time playing the game.  When you need to take a rest a nice feature of the shark nets is they float in the water so you can just grab them again when ready to pick up the game.  This game is nice for helping kids with their gross motor skills and hand-eye coordination as they toss and catch the ball plus is nice for encouraging interpersonal skills as you are working with a partner instead of competing against an opponent when playing Spark Shark Toss & Catch.

When the kids weren't playing in the lake they spent some of their down time reading the new National Geographic KiDS Almanac which features one of the biggest creatures to live in the water on its cover...a great white shark.  While sharks may seem scary they really are an important part of a healthy underwater ecosystem.  Actually humans are more dangerous to shark than they are to us.  Millions of sharks are killed by people each year!  National Geographic KiDS Almanac 2018 has a special section devoted to "Save Our Sharks" in an effort to reverse that trend.  So while we were nowhere near where sharks may be they are all my twins wanted to talk about during this camping trip.

In addition to providing information about the oceans' sharks, National Geographic KiDS Almanac 2018 also is filled with impressive photos, fun facts, craft ideas, interesting activities and some incredible features on creatures, scientific topics and technology.  Enhancements to this year's almanac include three new chapters (Engineering / Space / Life Sciences), a guide about the city of New Orleans to celebrate its 300th birthday, an updated Fun and Games section filled with all-new activities, comics, crafts, jokes, games and weird-but-true acts, along with every chapter in the book highlighting "18 Facts for 2018."  Of course all the reference material throughout the book has been reviewed and updated as well.

The National Geographic KiDS Almanac 2018 has earned A Geek Daddy's nod of approval for being a book that is both educational and entertaining that will have children enjoying learning while they read it.  Recommended for children aged 8 to 12 between the second and seventh grade this is a resource parents can depend on to capture the interest and imagination of their kids. With the reputation of National Geographic behind it this publication is a trust-worthy resource that will keep kids attention whether they are looking for a distraction to pass the time during a long road trip or doing some after-school reading for homework or fun.

Sea-ing the new Toledo Zoo Aquarium is Fin-tastic

When our family heard that the Toledo Zoo's Aquarium was open after having been closed for two and half years for an expansion and renovations we just had to make a road trip to go check it out.  This new $25 million investment in the exhibit has transformed a 46,000 gallon aquarium that had mostly displayed local freshwater varieties of fish into a 178,000 immersive underwater experience where people can view more than 3,000 creatures from a variety of ecosystems.

One of the key additions to the renovated aquarium is its interactive touch tank and ocean lab area.  Children and kids at heart of any age can experience touching sting rays, sharks, crabs, and sea stars.  There is a large open tank you can walk around and simply place your hand in the water to pet something.  The sting rays will actually seek out submerged hands to get a nice rub against.

There is also a second tank area where you can walk up to get a close up view of creatures like crabs and sea stars plus give them a pet if you'd like.

My daughter really enjoyed a display they had with jelly fish.  It featured a control panel where you could switch the coloring of the lights in their tank allowing visitors to illuminate the jelly fish in different shades of colors.  My kids were just wowed by this and I do have to say it was a stunning sight to behold.

My son's favorite part of the ocean lab was a wheel you pushed to open and close the jaws of a Great White shark demonstrating the pressure of its bite.  That's definitely not something you would want to experience in real life.

The heart of the new aquarium facility is its brand new 90,000 gallon Pacific Reef tank.  Prior to the renovation, the largest tank in the aquarium has held 7,600 gallons of water to highlight the scope of this exhibit's expansion.  The Pacific Reef tank is full of colorful coral and fish plus of course what people come wanting to see at an aquarium, sharks.

 

The touch tank and ocean lab section isn't the only interactive aspect of the aquarium.  The Pacific Reef tank features daily presentations at 11 am, 1 pm and 3pm where trained divers give feeding demonstrations and wear microphones so they can talk to people who are watching them.  During our visit the diver swam up to where my kids were my kids were viewing her and begin communicating and interacting with them.  It was really a memorable moment that my children have brought up quite a few times in conversations since our visit.

 

The renovation has expanded the saltwater displays in the aquarium from 37% of its space to 87%.  In addition to the touch tanks and the Pacific Reef tank some other new displays include the aquarium's second largest tank which highlights the Gulf of Mexico and features a rays, a sea turtle, and sharks, a Kelp Forest with leopard sharks and bat rays, and a view of the Deep Sea with giant Japanese spider crabs.

Freshwater fish haven't been forgotten or tossed aside in the renovation either.  There are displays highlighting South America's Amazon and Asia's mangrove forest underwater ecosystems.  Of course the aquarium needed to preserve its local educational aspect as well so there is a Lake Erie Islands & Ohio Waterways display as well featuring fish that range from tiny minnows to incredibly large growing sturgeon. The alligator turtle was quite an impressive sight as well and not something I'd want to bump into while swimming in a river or lake.

One final note - you're going to want to bring your swim suit with you to this aquarium.  No you won't be swimming with the fishes but the Toledo Zoo has added a very nice oceanic themed splash pad and playground behind the aquarium for families to enjoy during their visit.  Yes that's a whale spouting out water at you and a crab you can swing from!

We really enjoyed sea-ing the new Toledo Zoo Aquarium and had a fin-tastic time!  If you happen to be visiting Toledo or not too far away to make a road trip, A Geek Daddy highly encourages you to pay it a visit.

National Geographic Kids Summer Boredom Busters

** As part of the National Geographic Kids Insiders, A Geek Daddy blog was provided a complimentary Kids Summer Boredom Buster Book Kit plus one to giveaway**

Do the words "I'm bored" grate on your nerves like finger nails being scratched down a chalkboard when your children start whining on a rainy summer day or when it may be to hot to go out and play? Or even worse hearing the pestering of "are we there yet" during the drive for a summer vacation road trip.  Our friends at National Geographic Kids have a solution to these annoyances with their Summer Boredom Buster Kit.

National Geographic Kids provided A Geek Daddy with a FREE downloadable Summer Fun Pack filled with animal stories, fun facts, crazy quizzes. recipes, jokes, puzzles and games to share with our readers.  Please download and print out the following Summer Fun Pack activity sheets courtesy of National Geographic Kids:


That's not it though! We've also been provided with some Summer Boredom Buster Book Kits featuring 5 great National Geographic Kids selections for both my children to enjoy and to giveaway to one lucky A Geek Daddy blog reader.  For a chance to win you  must be a U.S. or Canadian resident over 18 years old and submit one or all of the following entry methods to earn up to 4 entries prior to 11:59 pm EST on Sunday August 16, 2015.  All valid entries will be assigned a number in the order they are received and one number will be  selected to determine the winner using random.org.  E-mails will only be used to contact the winner and deleted following the selection of a winner.

**UPDATE** Congrats to Jake from Toledo who won the National GEO Boredom Busters Prize Pack

EMAIL (1 Entry)  E-mail thegeekdaddy [at] yahoo [dot] com your name and mailing address.   Email subject line should be National GEO Boredom Busters. 

FACEBOOK COMMENT (3 Entries) Visit A GEEK DADDY on Facebook and leave a comment on our contest post sharing what your favorite family summer road trip is.

These 5 National Geographic Kids books are really great for summer because they are jam-packed with interesting activities, jokes, and trivia that will keep a child's attention occupied yet are relatively small in size making them easy to pack for a trip or store around the house.  They also meet A Geek Daddy's philosophy of combining entertaining and educational elements together to help kids learn.  "Learning" and "Fun" shouldn't be considered polar opposites by children so books and products that can combine the too in a meaningful way like these National Geographic Kids books get A Geek Daddy nod of approval.  Here are the five books included in the National Geographic Summer Boredom Buster Book Kit:

FUNNY FILL-IN: MY AMUSEMENT PARK ADVENTURE

Combining National Geographic Kids’ photography and illustrations in colorful laugh-out-loud pages, this engaging, entertaining, and educational book takes you on a fun-filled adventure through the amusement park and invites you to imaginatively enter a new world by writing your own wild and wacky story.

FUNNY FILL-IN: MY RAINFOREST ADVENTURE

Sort fact from fiction in this fun and informative adventure. Filled with excitement and hilarity, this compositional challenge lets you tell your very own story starring…YOU!

QUIZ WHIZ 5

Discover 1,000 more fun, fascinating, and funny quiz questions in the fifth installment in this popular series, with all-new content. Packed with fantastic photos and a dynamic design, kids will have a blast quizzing themselves, friends, and family members on tons of fun trivia!

JUST JOKING ANIMAL RIDDLES

Authored former U.S. Children's Poet Laureate, J. Patrick Lewis, this collection of animal-focused jokes and riddles will keep kids reading, rhyming, and laughing like a hyena.

SHARK STICKER ACTIVITY BOOK

This super engaging activity book is packed with mazes, spelling and pattern games, drawing activities, shark facts, and more. Shark-crazy kids are sure to love these pages loaded with fun, learning as the go!

We're taking a summer road trip to Toronto which will be a 5 hour drive each way and these National Geographic Kids books will definitely be along for the ride to help keep our kids amused while the miles go by.

DISCLAIMER:  A Geek Daddy Blog will be responsible for selecting the winner of this contest, but National Geographic is responsible for fulfillment and delivery of the prize.  By participating in this contest you waive any liability towards A Geek Daddy Blog or its publisher that may arise from your involvement with this promotion.  If you win this prize on another blog, you will not be eligible to win again.  Winner is subject to eligibility verification. Prize will be delivered by UPS or FedEx so no P.O. Boxes are allowed as mailing addresses. A Geek Daddy Blog did not receive any financial compensation but did receive free products for the blog to review and the prize that is being awarded to one of our readers for this contest.  A Geek Daddy Blog is hosting this contest as a benefit to our readers. Any opinions in this post are my own.  #NGKINSIDER

Welcome to Michigan BENSON the Sea Turtle

My kids and I were invited to welcome Benson the Sea Turtle to his new home at the Sea Life Michigan aquarium in Auburn Hills' Great Lakes Crossing Mall.  Benson was rescued in 2014 at Anastasia State Park in Florida after having been hit by a boat, which caused an injury called a caudal carapace fracture and induced a hypothermic reaction called cold-stunning.  He was treated for his injuries by the Georgia Sea Turtle Hospital in Jekyll Island, Georgia.  Unfortunately, the injuries the turtle sustained won't heal enough for him to be able to survive if released back into the wild. So Benson has been adopted by Sea Life Michigan and this ocean dwelling creature will now have a new home in the Great Lakes State.

Benson spent a week in a special med pool at the aquarium adapting to his new environment and getting a checkup by the staff at Sea Life Michigan prior to his big introduction.  Our family was invited to come out to give Benson a warm welcome and witness as the turtle was introduced to his new home, a 120,000 gallon ocean tank.

Notice the black square on his shell? That pad needs to be permanently affixed to his shell to bind its crack and provide buoyancy when Benson dives and swims making him non-returnable to his natural habitat and in need of Sea Life Michigan's long-term care at the aquarium.

Prior to opening the gate from the med pool to the ocean tank, Benson was weighed and measured.

A representative from Kroger was on hand announcing that the grocery store chain was pledging to sponsor Benson's food tab.  Benson's diet consists mostly of fresh produce such as broccoli, brussels sprouts, cucumbers, lettuce, and peppers, which will be donated to the aquarium by Kroger.

 The kids all cheered as Benson was released into the ocean tank!

Benson the Sea Turtle appeared very happy with his new home in Michigan as he swam around exploring his new surroundings in Sea Life Michigan's ocean tank which is also filled with sting rays, sharks, and a variety of fish.

After we watched Benson dive into his new home, the kids and I were also provided an opportunity to walk around the aquarium before it opened to the public.  Wow! was it a treat to have the place pretty much to ourselves.

The aquarium has a nice display area focused on turtles, and with that being the theme of the day, we spent quite a bit of time exploring there finding out all about Benson's relatives.

A nice touch in the layout of this aquarium is that it has lots of nooks and crannies where kids can get close up views of the sea creatures on display from a variety of perspectives.

Other kid friendly aspects of Sea Life Michigan include a touch tank (filled with a variety of starfish, shrimp, sea urchins and other creatures kids can pet and touch and dedicated staff working the exhibit providing interesting tips and facts while encouraging everyone in the audience to participate) and a waste level observation tank filled with black tip reef sharks and cownose stingrays which gives you a great up close view of the fish swimming around.

It was a memorable morning of the kids playing hooky from school and their dad skipping work for a few hours.  Then it was back to school for them and the job for me, but when I picked them up from class at the end of the day their teacher remarked to me how excited they were to tell everyone about their adventure.  Sometimes it is nice to just put everything aside and spend some quality time with your children because the time does fly by.  I can hardly believe they will be wrapping up Kindergarten in just two weeks but am looking forward to all the future adventures and road trips to come.

Welcome to Michigan, BENSON the Sea Turtle! My kids are really looking forward to swinging by the aquarium to see you again.

For more information about the aquarium: visitsealife.com/michigan