Good news!  J had her first success with the KenKen puzzle I talked about in my last entry.  It did take a few tries and correcting some errors, but she did it.  She was really excited about getting it right, which was fun to see.  This was an easy puzzle, that only used numbers 1 through 5.  As the puzzles increase in the amount of numbers they use, the difficulty seems to increase.  We're going to try another one tomorrow.

I never expected to recommend a TV show as a part of our educational finds this summer, but I'm learning that education can happen in some unexpected places.  J has learned a few things, reviewed a few science concepts, and had many laughs while watching "Mythbusters" on Discovery Channel.  http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/mythbusters/  I wish this show had been around when I was in middle school!  The folks on the show test myths and scenarios you see on TV and movies to see if they actually work in real life.  Yes, they generally are exploding some object in at least one segment of the show, but that's part of the fun.  By the way, viewers are always warned to never try the experiments at home.  There was one exception to that rule--they tried to separate 2 phone books that had their pages interlaced (but not glued or taped in any way).  There are more examples of the phone book experiments on their website you can check out.  It's pretty amazing, and really fun. 

Safety is always considered--that's where their crash test dummy named "Buster" comes in.  The poor thing has been dropped, exploded, set on fire, shot, you name it.  In one episode, they had to actually create a new dummy because the old one was just worn out.  

I know that the experiments shown aren't really practical in any sense (mostly), but I think it is good to have some proof for kids that stuff shown in the movies and TV is not real, even if you say this all the time.  They also explain each experiement, what they are doing and why, and why the myth is busted or confirmed.  One word of warning--some of the experiements have to do with alcohol consumption, so you may need to prescreen the shows or material on the website for age appropriatness. 

So, educational moments can come from some unlikely places.  But anything that can get my kid interested in science and experiements and make it fun and entertaining has my vote.  More cooking to come in the next installment!