Hey tcdk.
It looks like you learned a lot! I'd still like to see some of your out takes so that we can have visual examples of why you say 1/100 is too slow, or why SR should be turned off.
I believe you when you say 3 1/2 year olds have short attention spans. I brought my son to a drag race event and he got bored after 45 minutes of seeing similar cars going by. The only thing that kept his attention were the jet cars. They only appeared for 10 minutes. Long enough to leave a lasting impression for both of us. Wish I had an SLR back then though
You've started a good thread. Hmm. What did I learn yesterday?
1. Babysitting 3 kids that are totally different ages (10, 8 and 4) can be potentially very difficult unless you have something that they can all do while keeping them in the same room
Bringing them to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at the Cinema helps a lot!
2. Camera related: Stick to the basics I learned years ago. One of them being, "Prefocus my manual focus lens before shooting." Kids can be very quick. If you don't have your lens' range preset you get a lot of missed opportunities.
3. Keep some of my outtakes so that I can post examples too! (I delete mine in the camera right away, whoops!)