Edutraining Exertainment

So the Queen told me about this rather odd word combination and said I should try to use it on here, and well, it really doesn't make any sense out of context, so it's easier to just tell what this rather weird combo is. The idea behind "Edutraining Exertainment" is that kids just don't get out as much as they used to. Children's exercise consisted of playing outside, riding their bikes, and generally getting into as much mischief as possible. The computer age has produced a variety of entertainment that serves to keep people inside rather than out, so this combined with the overabundance of processed food has created a generation of people that tend to be a little heavier than their ancestors.

To combat the dumbing down problem that a diet of games and movies can create, there are a variety of games and movies that provide some educational value. I guess you can call this "edutainment." Some Saturday morning cartoons boast that they "e/i" or educate and inform. Leapfrog is big on the edutainment factor in that just about all of their stuff is educational. Sassy Pants got a Leapster as well as a Tag reader, and it allows her to play and learn at the same time. A big recent item in this category a couple years ago was called the V*Smile, which was a 32-bit game system with educational games. It's still around, but they've made some subsequent improvements to it.

But what about the title of this post? What is edutraining exertainment? That would be something that allows you learn something while exercising at the same time. These toys are much fewer and further between, but not uncommon. In fact, I've always said that when you play the drums in Rock Band, you actually learn the necessary coordination to play the real drum set. My playing improved after playing Rock Band. If you crank the level to expert, I dare you to not break a sweat in thirty minutes of constant play. 

For the kids, though, there was a bike that came out that hooked into your TV as a game controller with its own game. I never played it, but the point is that the child rides the bike as they play the game and learn something as they go along. Hence, edutraining exertainment.

It's goofy, sure, but that's what we've come to when it comes to entertaining kids. They don't climb trees anymore (well, actually, mine do), but we've figured out a way to plop them in front of another video game to work out. Nice.