I am taking my daughter (8) to San Fransisco (specifically Burlingame)
in April for a week or so. I would be grateful for advice on cool
things to do during our stay. She likes music, clothes,shopping, art
and science. We have the use of a car for a road trip and would love
to visit some natural wonders within say a day or so of the city. Any
ideas?

Hi mattlef:

Thanks for the interesting question. Fortunately, there is a wealth of
kid-friendly activities in the San Francisco area, and a wealth of
great websites that tell you all about them.

The best site that I found was:

About.com - San Francisco for Kids and Parents
URL: http://gocalifornia.about.com/od/casfkids/

The "Visiting San Francisco with Kids" page:

http://gocalifornia.about.com/cs/sanfrancisco/a/kids.htm

covers a lot of what you can do within the city itself. 

The "goCityKids" section 

http://gocalifornia.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=gocalifornia&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gocitykids.com%2F%3Farea%3D199%26x%3D17%26y%3D8

has an excellent ActivityFinder feature that allows you to specify age
ranges and activity types. Choose "Outdoor", "Back to Nature", and
"6-9" to get the following exhaustive and rated list of nature
activities:

http://gocalifornia.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=gocalifornia&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gocitykids.com%2F%3Farea%3D199%26x%3D17%26y%3D8

Choose "Indoor" and "Be Creative" to get a list of art-related
activities and places!

Choose "Thinking and Learning" to follow the science angle.

The "Kid-Friendly Restaurants" page at:

http://gocalifornia.about.com/cs/sanfrancisco/a/kids_rest.htm

is also of help. 

Please explore this website and the information it offers. If you need
further ideas, please let me know what specific areas you need them in
and I'll be happy to look further for you.

Search Strategy (on Google):
* "san francisco" "for kids"

I hope this helps!

websearcher

Many thanks for all your help. I will now spend many happy hours
trawling! If I have any further questions, may I get back to you?
regards Matt

Hello mattlef: 

Thanks for the generous comments and rating. If you need clarification
of this specific answer, please feel free to use the Request Answer
Clarification function in this question.

If you have a new question, or one that is along the same lines but
beyond the scope of this original question, please feel free to post a
new question and ask for me by name within the question.

websearcher