Arithmecode Puzzles (free math supplement from the newspaper)

If you get a Canadian newspaper, it may run Dave Mitchell's weekly Arithmecode puzzle.  Here's a sample.  The answer is always a five-letter word, and you have to work through the clues in order to figure out all five of the letters.

If you don't, check out his website:  you can buy the puzzles in booklet form, and they come in different levels (junior etc.).

Our local paper has been running Arithmecode for years, and I used to give the weekly pages to The Apprentice, as a supplement to her regular math work.  When she was too young to understand some of the clues (things involving percentages and so on), I'd work those parts with her and then have her do the parts she knew how to do. 

Recently I've started doing the same with Crayons.  I work it with her, showing her what the more advanced clues mean (what is 200% of something?).  Sometimes I even let her use a calculator--because punching in a series of decimal numbers accurately is a skill in itself.  She usually figures out the word by about the fourth letter.

I figure that the puzzle's there for the doing, and we're already paying for the paper--might as well get all we can out of it.

P.S.  Recently our newspaper has also been running the serial stories available through BreakfastSerials.com.  They've done Linda Sue Park's A Long Walk to Water and are now running Keep Your Eye on Amanda, about raccoons.