I thought I would post about something light, but fun, today. Recently, in Parade Magazine, there has been a new feature by Ken Jennings, the Jeopardy champion. It’s a puzzle called “Kennections“, and it is pretty challenging. “Kennections” gives you 5 trivia questions. To solve the puzzle, you must answer the trivia questions and figure out what the answers all have in common. If you don’t receive Parade Magazine, you can go to “Kennections” online for the latest puzzle, as well as the archives.
The puzzles are probably too hard for elementary students, but older kids might enjoy doing some research to find the solutions. Another fun idea is to have kids create their own puzzles using this framework. The “Kennections” site is asking for people to submit their own, but it does require an e-mail address. I think it would be fun just to do within the classroom, or to exchange puzzles with pen pals or e-pals. This would be a great challenge, particularly for the higher level students in your class.
I love Ken Jennings and never missed any of the Jeopardy shows he was on. I learned from the Christmas movie “Borrowed Hearts” that Santa Claus’s reindeer that we all say “Donner” is actually “Donder”!(With a “d” instead of two “n’s”!After two of the characters in the movie “Borrowed Hearts” argued the name, I looked it up and sure enough it was Donder.
Thank you for affirming that. It’s not hard to remember if you know Donder and Blitzen are German for Thunder and Lightning.