Give Your Kid a Pocketknife
I really like the concept of the Tinkering School in California. It was started by Gever Tulley, who was driven by a worry he had about parents who seemed to be restricting their children's ability to learn simply because of the culture of fear we live in. Tulley fought against this and created a lab to bring his theory in to the world of children. It's open to children 7 to 17yrs every summer. Here's his TED talk of a few years back that explains his concept.
