Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

Some things I enjoyed as a girl:

Target practice, berry picking, helping my father do woodworking projects, learning to shoot a bow, playing assistant in the kitchen to my sister's baking, collecting vegetables from the garden for dinner, trips to the library with my mother and sister where I would lay on the floor and read Dr. Seuss while my sister worked on stuff for her high school newspaper, putting together imaginary travel wardrobes for my dolls, trying every 'girly' craft I was aware of -- sewing, crochet, etc -- though none of that ever resulted in a finished project otlr really stuck.

As an adult, my sons have helped widen my horizons by telling me stuff like "This 4x game (Master of Magic) is just like your favorite, SimCity" and walking me through how to play it primarily as a city/civilization building game.

If you can find some sweet spot of that sort, I think it would be wonderful. I have read that one of the strongest predictors of career success in women is a good relationship to her father.

Enjoy.

I just built a rudimentary table with my young kid to keep him off the computer for a while.

Start making a list of things. It doesn’t have to be definitive, just a way to start the conversation.

Once you have a long enough list, pull up a calendar and pick dates for doing these things. Keep options open (e.g. don’t buy tickets to that concert too early) because you will have to adjust the plan.

Then hang the list and the calendar and review/revisit maybe once per week. Add/remove activities from the list, plan them on the calendar. Encourage her to decorate or personalise the plan.

This serves multiple purposes. It involves her in the decision making. Teaches how to organise time and how to plan. Anticipation should build up naturally. She will like a plan that she has done personally (IKEA effect)

Have fun together! This opportunity to spend time with her will be increasingly rare, treasure it

I have had much fun with my daughters at that age (and younger, and older) with Arduino kits from Ali Express. Just a few dollars' worth of parts were some of the best spent money I've ever spent.

I would do the programming, and the girls would help assemble the parts. But they would be with me and see the programming process. Soldering lead free is difficult, in the end some things I soldered myself with lead. And one of the girls is interested in the programming in the end.

Lots of good suggestions in this thread here, I'd just like to add - see what she's interested in, from a topic point of view. A lot of the suggested things here are science based. Is that what she likes? Maybe history? Museums and exhibits may be much more appreciated and exiting than science kits. Or perhaps biology? Bug collecting? A basic microscope kit might be better.

It need not be educational in the traditional sense at all either. You could go on hikes, teach about camping/wilderness survival, knot tying/scouts activity stuff. It could even be handyman things if those are of interest to her (I know they would have been of interest to 11yo me) - basics of tools and tool safety (assuming you know it yourself, or perhaps a local course for kids if available). There are more "practical"/lifesaving options too like knowing how to change a tire, or how do perform CPR/Heimlich maneuver.

Additional on a tangential note there are lots of excellent books, but in particular I highly recommend the x Book series by DK (not just for kids but also for adults) (https://www.dk.com/ca/promotion/big-ideas-series/). Encyclopedias are also great, the more pictures the funner they are for some.