Kids Off The Couch Podcast Unknown

In a mesmerizing one-man show, Darryl Van Leer channels historical figures such as Muddy Waters, Frederick Douglass, Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King, Jr. and makes them come alive. Our kids loved how Van Leer set the stage as a folksy storyteller and then seamlessly shifted into each character using only simple props and the power of performance. Figures that feel as one-dimensional as the books they inhabit seemed to walk off the page and shake our kids hands, providing an exciting glimpse into our country's history. The Power of Earth was a hit -- Van Leer's unique gift for not talking down to kids grabbed them, and his compelling performance held them rapt. Grab the chance to see this popular show, which tours the country and at The Geffen Playhouse for only one day.

WHERE: The Geffen Playhouse , Westwood Village

WHEN: March 14 from 11:00 AM -12:00 NOON. Doors open at 10:30 AM

SPECIAL KOTC SUBSCRIBER DISCOUNT: If you aren't already a member, sign up for Kids Off The Couch to recieve you free weekly kid friendly, mom approved adventure here. Now you are eligible to receive a free adult ticket with every child's ticket purchased ($15 value), use offer code: SCENE. Please mention the code at time of purchase. A service charge/handling fee applies. Discount cannot be applied to previous ticket purchases or combined with any other offer. Call the Geffen Playhouse Box Office at (310) 208-5454 or online at www.ticketmaster.com

AGE RANGE: Recommended for 6-12

LUNCH? Head over to one of our favorite lunch spots, The Stand, for excellent hot dogs, burgers and fries after the show, and take 20% off your meal by showing them this email. Offer good in Westwood's store on March 14 only; discount does not include tax.


Diane and Sarah
Founders, Kids Off The Couch

info@kidsoffthecouch.com

Kids who expect a multitude of information to magically appear from their computers don’t always understand the power of a free press. Watching All The President’s Men as a family opened up a conversation about how reporters follow a story and tell the truth, which makes this movie newsworthy in our household. It was front page news all over the world when Richard Nixon became the first American president to resign and the film, which won four Oscars in 1976, is a thrilling look at how the investigative reporters at the Washington Post became political heroes. We had fun bringing the headlines home with a tour of our local paper’s printing facility, where our kids watched robots load reams of paper on to four story-high printing presses and enjoyed a sneak peek of the weekend comics section four days before the Sunday paper landed on our doorsteps.
Click here for more about the movie, a link to Walter Isaacson’s article in Time on How To Save Your Newspaper, and our tips on visiting your local paper.

No matter where you live, kids and snow go together like hands and gloves. Whether your kids are starting out with a pizza-pie wedge between their first skis or just biding their time until their next snowboarding trip to a serious mountain, getting some slope savvy at your local ski resort makes for a wonderful wintry weekend. There's not a kid in the world who needs much of a push to slide down a hill, so get yours ready to sled or ski or snowboard by watching Snow Dogs on the drive to the slopes. Ours love this improbable tale that stars Cuba Gooding, Jr. as a Miami dentist who travels to Alaska to collect his inheritance... which turns out to be a team of sled dogs!
Click here for a list of other fun ski films -- we love the vintage James Bond ski sequences -- and a link to our chapter on tracking the Itidarod sled dog race (starting March 7) from your computer.

 



With this week's much heralded re-release of Disney's Sleeping Beauty, Princess Aurora is sure to win over another generation of little girls, just in time for the Halloween costume rush. What's a parent to do? We know that most of our kids just can't resist the allure of those Disney dames strutting their stuff, so we developed our own Princess Counter-Programming, which we share with you this week.
Click here to visit our website and find a book list that serves up a batch of princesses whom reject daft suitors and ditsy life goals. Please come back and share what you do in your houses to make sure your princess-wanna-bes have girl power goals.

Our kids' faces lit up like Jack-o-Lanterns when we told them we were upping the pumpkin ante this year by letting them loose in a Corn Maze. After sampling the delicious produce, we set off into plants that reached high above our heads. We bonded together over a map, trying to figure our way out from beneath the stalks and laughed ourselves silly every time we got lost -- our kids triumphant that the adults in the group steered them wrong plenty of times.
Later that night, we popped up some corn and plopped on the couch for It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Charles Schultz's magic pulled us back to our favorite believer, Linus, who waits in a pumpkin patch for the arrival of The Great Pumpkin. Given the current economic crisis, it's nice to know that hearkening back to simpler times can be so reassuring. Click here for more to learn about the corn mazes near your city, and to find a YouTube link to the old television special.

We shed real tears at the loss of Paul Newman, whose legendary looks and powerful screen presence dominated the movies for years and whose charitable work (through the Hole in the Wall camps for seriously ill children and Newman's Own) set an elegant example of how one man can make the world a better place.
The easiest way to introduce your kids to one of our greatest movie stars is to show them Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Starring Newman at the height of his confident power and featuring Robert Redford in his breakout role, the film is a giddy love-poem to the vanishing ways of the West. Cool, even vintage cool, always translates... The kids were immediately grinning along with the comedic relationship between the two stars and can quote the film's most famous lines , "Who ARE those guys?!".
Butch Cassidy has plenty of gun play -- the two heroes famously head out to their deaths in the last frame of the picture -- and shows the men with prostitutes and drinking alcohol. But, we think this classic is fine for kids over 10, as long as parents get on the couch and discuss the racier scenes (fast forwarding works, too.) You'll remember the plot turns -- it's just like riding a bicycle, which is exactly what Redford and Newman do with Katherine Ross to the tune of "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head". (Rated PG for violence, Directed by George Roy Hill).
The Sting reunited Redford and Newman as two card-playing con men in a beloved and complicated film which won 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Don't try to explain (or even understand) the plot. Just sit back and enjoy the Joplin rags as you watch these two movie stars win over a new generation. (Rated PG, also directed by George Roy Hill).
Paul Newman played the voice of Doc Hudson in Cars, a great film for younger kids. We happen to have covered this film last week - for more, please visit our website. Kids get a charge out of knowing Newman was a race car driver in real life, placing second in Le Mans in 1979. (Rated G, directed by John Lassiter and Joe Ranft).
If your kids know Newman only because they've seen his face on Newman's Own popcorn bags and salad dressing bottles, that's okay, too. Be sure to let them know that Newman's Own gives every single penny of profit to charity. For more about Newman, click here to last month's Vanity Fair article - the photos alone are worth five minutes.