BONUS TIPS: 5 Rainy-Day Activities
The next time bad weather or a canceled play-date changes plans, try one of these Mac-based projects.
1. Produce a Stop-Motion Movie
Snap still digital shots of your kids acting out a story, load them onto your Mac and into iPhoto, then launch iMovie HD and start a new project. Click Photos, then uncheck the Ken Burns Effect and slide the hare-and-tortoise slider (clip duration) all the way to the left so the duration field reads 0:03. Select Last Roll from the pop-up menu above the photo browser to display your images, press Command-A to select all, and then drag your pics into the timeline. Click the Play button to see a rough cut of your animation in action.
2. Build Your Own Animal Menagerie
More of a collection of printable graphics than a software app, FORM Wild ($24 each or $100 for all 5 sets, www.formwild.com) lets you and your kids print and create multidimensional animal figures. Once they're printed, cut out, and pieced together, your kids can establish their own personal zoo.
3. Mess Around with Photoshop Filters
If you've ever wasted an hour here and there applying crazy filters and effects to your photos in Adobe Photoshop ($649, www.adobe.com), there's a good chance the activity will provide just as much entertainment for your kids. Just show them where the Filter menu is in Photoshop, open a few images, and let them have at it. Try loading a variety of conversion Actions too. (In the Actions palette, click the tiny right-facing arrow and select Load Actions.) Check out a host of free actions at www.atncentral.com. You'll find free and commercial filters at www.photoshop-filters.com.
4. Goof Off with Photo Booth
There are enough wacky effects in Photo Booth - which requires an iSight camera or other webcam - to amuse kids of all ages (including adults). With Photo Booth open and the camera on, just click the 1 or the 2 button next to Effects and select the one you want before snapping a photo.
Goofing around with Photo Booth's funky filters can fill a few minutes to a few hours, depending on your kids' attention span.
5. Design Your Family Website
iWeb has some frustrating limits for Web pros, but it works well for the rest of us. You can keep your family's site away from the ogling masses by requiring a password: Select your site in iWeb's Site Organize, open the Site Inspector, and click the Password tab. Check the Make My Published Site Private tab and enter a username and password.
sitebilgi
March 01, 2010 at 10:00am
tsk ler thank you (:
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basoyna
February 11, 2010 at 12:20pm
Also this is the same Baxter corp that was a U.S. based pharmaceutical company that just weeks ago was involved in a scandal involving vaccines tainted with deadly avian flu virus has been chosen to head up efforts to produce a vaccine for the Mexican swine flu that has seemingly migrated into the U.S. and Europe.
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Wholesalers
September 26, 2010 at 10:23pm
You are absoluterly right it helps you to develop the interest in the children so that they can learn while they think that they are playing, and also very helpful to judge the abiluities of the studenst so that you can know where you should workout on the speciefic child. Regards,David Patterson http://www.wholesalepages.co.uk
Mike R.
June 28, 2007 at 12:32pm
What a great article. As a parent, I'm sometimes hard-pressed to find good Mac software for my 5 and 8 year olds. These are very good reviews of what's out there.
