IRISH DANCING

After seven years of ballet, my daughter wanted to try something new that she said would be more fun to do. So for the last three months she has been learning Irish Dance via Zoom. No easy task with the pandemic preventing her class from practicing together in a dance studio but she has made the best of the situation.

Her beginner class had a performance today at a local park as part of the dance troupe's Spring recital. Have to give my daughter a lot of credit because she is starting off in an all-ages class full of little kids. I bet a lot of people her age would have been embarrassed to perform in this situation but she stuck with the class and led them all through their recital routine. The girl wanted to get involved in Irish Dance and if this is what it took she was all onboard to participate. I love the lack of ego she demonstrated!

After 7 years of ballet my daughter wanted to be involved with a dance that was more fun to do. So for last 3 months she has been learning #irishdance via Zoom. Today was her first public performance with the beginner class during dance troupe's Spring recital #motorcity #girldad pic.twitter.com/2alAPOCcLt

— A Geek Daddy (@GeekDad248) May 8, 2021

Proud of her for giving it her all during their first non-Zoom performance together as a group and for being a great team player at the Motor City Irish Dance Spring Recital. Hopefully by the end of the year she will be graduating to a level in the troupe where she is engaged with kids who are more her age and overall level of dance experience. You have to start somewhere though and she is very excited about her Irish Dance experience.

DJ SQUIRM-A-LOT ALBUM RELEASE PARTY

The Story Pirates are releasing their fourth full-length album, The Strawberry Band, on April 9th, and DJ Squirm-a-Lot is throwing a huge party on Zoom the night before, which is Thursday, April 8th at 7 pm EST, 6 pm CST, 4 pm PST to get the fun started. Admission is free for anyone who pre-saves the album on Spotify.

CLICK HERE for more information and the event registration link. Once fans save the new songs to Spotify, they will receive a link to RSVP and get the Zoom link for the event. The Strawberry Band album launch party will feature performances of several songs, games with DJ Squirm-a-Lot and the composers behind the album, plus a live Q&A with the performers and kid authors.

Every song on this Story Pirates musical album was inspired by a kid’s idea, and all these songs originally played on the top-rated Story Pirates Podcast. “The Strawberry Band” is a Beatles-esque song based on a story by Nathaniel, a 5-year-old Californian. The fictional British rock band has big dreams. Trouble is, they turn into strawberries whenever they perform. The seedy crew decides to create a concept album, and they reappear throughout the album to avoid a strawberry-eating shark, ending up in a psychedelic freakout before the final track, “I Have a Cookie” (performed by Broadway’s Eddie Cooper). Another recently released song and video is “Fun Crazy Weird Hair Store,” by a 9 year old named Sylvia from New Jersey.

Together, the songs tell compelling and hilarious stories about musical cinnamon buns, weird sisters, a wingless fairy, and a dreamy little hedgehog. The Strawberry Band features songwriting and performances by noted Broadway talent and upon its official release will be available wherever music is sold.

You can also get your hands on the album through this dad blogger's giveaway. Some lucky winners are sure to be geeked to get a free The Strawberry Band album through this blog giveaway. Have you entered yet? If not get your entries in!

For a chance to be one of our lucky winners in this Geek Daddy giveaway, you must be a United States or Canadian resident over 18 years old to participate. Just complete the rafflecopter entries below before 11:59pm on April 11, 2021 for a chance to win. Good luck to all our entrants!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

HALF TRUTH GAME

How are you staying in touch with extended family during the coronavirus quarantine? We recently had a family game night over Zoom. We brought together my parents along with some siblings, uncles, aunts and cousins to spend an evening playing HALF TRUTH the new party trivia competition from game designer Richard Garfield (creator of Magic: The Gathering) and one of the Jeopardy game show's most successful contestants Ken Jennings. Thanks to Studio71 Games for sending this dad blogger HALF TRUTH to try out.

The game is called HALF TRUTH because players must answer questions from trivia cards that provide six answers. Three are correct and three are wrong. You place bets to see how many answers you provide are right. Can you get 1, 2 or 3 answers correct?

Betting you can get all 3 answers correct can earn a lot of points but also presents risks that can cost you the game if you don't guess right. Being too conservative though can let risk takers leapfrog over you to gain insurmountable leads. Plus the risks and rewards change for each question!

There are 500 trivia cards with categories ranging from " Stars who never won an Oscar " to " Star Wars characters who say they 'have a bad feeling about this'. " The questions aren't all about movies though. You might be asked to name super-hot peppers, identify colognes for men or identify weird things that appear on national flags.

The types of questions vary so that this is an all ages can play for a family game night. We played in teams and I had to rely on my kids when faced with the question  "Creatures in Harry Potter books."  My dad and uncle had an edge on some questions like "Top 10 Billboard Hits of 1972" … hey most of us playing including myself weren't even born yet! I redeemed myself though helping us ultimately get the win by being able to answer "Comic characters who ran for President." There really questions that appealed to all the generations of our family in this all ages party game.

This tabletop game has a nice layout making it easy to set up and have people see over video connections like Zoom. You just need to designate a game master to move tokens about the board, roll dice, and read trivia cards but it worked out fairly well playing remotely. Especially since the focus of the game is on answering trivia rather than doing tasks or moving pieces around a board. A game lasts about 30 minutes making it just the right time for a Zoom session.

HALF TRUTH is for 2 to 6 players or teams with a recommended age of 12+. We had a really great time playing it while having fun and connecting with family haven't been able to see in person for awhile. Though it will be fun to play it together sooner or later in the same room when the pandemic  doesn't prevent get togethers. Until then we're planning on a few more HALF TRUTH rematches via Zoom.

If you are looking for a game that is both entertaining and educational for some family fun, pick up HALF TRUTH for yourself. Based upon the good time we had, I give it a Geek Daddy nod of approval. It is available from a number of retailers or you can purchase it straight from Studio71 Games.