Has anyone thought about how to teach your own kids stuff? I have basically thought that the best way to teach a kid to think is to buy all kinds of jigsaw puzzles, play memory games etc. But I'm sure you could do something even with very small children who aren't capable of doing these things yet. I just don't have any ideas what to do.
My dad used to read to me a few illustrated encyclopedias designed for kids (before I could read myself) that described things like planets, gravity, proportions in space, tectonic plates and volcanoes, weather phenomena etc. and he started doing it when I was only a few years old and I used to love it. There was also this nice series of book written in Swedish that explained how simple machines work and things like levers and propellers. It also explained things like heat, work etc. and was written in such a way that I could understand it to some level as a 4-5 year-old and even apply some of those ideas when playing with Lego technic parts.
I just happened to notice that almost all chemistry sets that I could find online are really watered down and contains almost no interesting chemicals. Does anyone have any idea where you could get some of those things that you could buy at the end of the 80s or are they all banned in the spirit of anti-terrorism? I remember how I used to play with them together with my dad, sometimes producing all kinds of interesting smoke that, to the delight of my mother, colored parts of our kitchen. We also made gunpowder and burned it in our backyard which was really cool. :)
I'm also tempted to think that there should be some books with really easy IQ test type questions (i.e. what's in the missing box) that even a two-year-old could solve. I just haven't really found anything. There seems to be a million "turn your baby into a genius" -type books, but they all seem to be written with the sole intent of making money by exploiting obsessed parents.
I'll have to read this book, because it looks quite promising.
