Happy New Year: The Future of Schools – Nice Soft Seats and Robot Teachers?

We wish you a Happy New Year!

rockets

Did you know that 2010 is the international year of the bottom?* Countries all over the world will be thinking of ways to make their posteriors as cozy as possible. This, of course, is not true.

However, we all know it’s not that nice sitting on a hard surface for too long – but for some reason, nearly all the chairs in school are hard, and a little bit uncomfortable.

How can you hope to concentrate properly if you are uncomfortable?

One day there will be robot teachers that can float, and mark 18 practice SAT papers at the same time. These floating robot teachers will go from house to house teaching stuff, and everyone else will be able to stay in their favourite armchair for as long as they like.

Until that happens, we’ve got a solution. How about carrying a little bit of padding around with you? Then, you can use it whenever you have to sit on an uncomfortable chair? Have a look at our Chairpadbag below.

The schoolbag “Chairpadbag” is a new way of staying comfortable in class. It is designed to hook over the back of a school chair, with a special padded flap that folds out over the backrest and seat to make even the hardest seat comfy. It is also expandable, ensuring there is enough room for everything a child might need for school.

• Makes the chair comfortable and keeps the child’s books close by: hook it over the back of your chair and fold out the lid
• Easily expandable bag space with zipper
• Ergonomic strap design
• Reflective strips running down the seams of the bag ensure it stands out on dark nights.
• Grippy rubberised logo stops the padded cushion from slipping around on chairs.
• Smart name tag makes it easy to identify whose bag is whose.
• Magnets sewn inside the padding to make sure the flap folds away easily.
• Dimensions: 30mm x 35mm WxH
• Material: nylon

For more information about the Chairpadbag read our Chairpadbag FAQS.

Happy Year of the Bottom!

Concentration span of a goldfish

Um, what was i saying ..?

The average concentration span of a goldfish is about 1 second – after that, they just forget everything. Most goldfish spend all their time swimming around their bowl, being pleasantly surprised by all the new scenery.

Fortunately, we humans can concentrate for a little bit longer.

Clever fellas with big beards, worked out that your concentration span can be roughly worked out in minutes by adding one minute to the number of years old you are. This means that to get the most out of your brain, you need to work on one thing for a short burst, then have a break (and maybe a biscuit), and then ideally change some aspect of what you’re doing.

Drinking water

As we mentioned, fish aren’t too bright. You never see them talking with the Prime Minister, or trying to calculate how much a black hole weighs. But this is a little bit strange because they are always surrounded by water – and water is fantastically good at helping you to concentrate.

A bunch of Swiss boffins at the World Health Organsation, worked out that if we are 2% dehydrated, our ability to concentrate will fall by 20%. They reckon you should drink about two litres of water a day.

What all this means is that it is terrifically important to keep drinking lots of water if you want to be able to think clearly, or are about to try some quantum physics.

Try our Bottlecoolerpenholder to help you with this :)

ANSWER to last weeks’ Sudoku riddle:

answersiduko

Sudoku riddle

Sudoku Rules

Each Sudoku has a unique solution that can be reached logically without guessing. Enter digits from 1 to 9 into the blank spaces. Every row must contain one of each digit. So must every column, as must every 3×3 square.

Sudoku Tips

* Start with number one and pencil in all options around the grid before moving on to number 2. When worked your way up to number nine, simply go back to the beginning and start with number one again

* Concentrate on the 3×3 mini grids, rather than rows and columns. They give up a lot of clues.

* If you’ve completed seven numbers in a row or column, then obviously the two boxes that are left must be one of the two remaining numbers left over. That row or column often passes through a mini-grid where you also have two options. Frequently, you can deduct exactly where the two leftover numbers go.

Tails I win, heads you lose

Merry Christmas, last chance to buy a Concentrate gift pack

We wish  you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We hope you’ll have a great time :)

nina 6

Last chance to buy one of our beautiful Gift Packs for Christmas to make your kids have more fun at school in the new year:

concentrate gift packconcentrate super gift pack

SUPER GIFT PACK

  • Chairpadbag
  • Lunchbox “Food for Thought” (including 2 pots)
  • Lunchbox Coolerbag (in any of the four colours)
  • Bottlecoolerpenholder (in any matching colour)
  • Voting Ruler
  • Pre-chewed pencils (set of four)

BUY NOW

GIFT PACK

  • Lunchbox “Food for Thought” (including 2 pots)
  • Lunchbox Coolerbag (in any of the four colours)
  • Bottlecoolerpenholder (in any matching colour)
  • Voting Ruler
  • Pre-chewed pencils (set of four)

BUY NOW

Fun websites

Funny Websites

www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/dickndom
CBBC’s Dick and Dom’s homepage – full of funny noises, games and competitions.

www.edwardmonkton.com
A site by the poet and author Edward Monkton with some funny sketches and poems. It might sounds a bit dull, but it’s pretty silly.

www.citv.co.uk
Children’s ITV Homepage has links to all CITV Cartoons and programmes.

Games and Puzzles

www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc
The main Children’s BBC Homepage. A really good website!

www.kidsgames.org
Nice colourful site with games for children up to the age of ten.

Computer Games

www.miniclip.com/Homepage
On-line computer games, mainly in preview form.

www.games2download.com
Loads of downloadable games

www.free-games-net.com
More free downloadable games!

Interesting Stuff

www.show.me.uk
A really good site. Fun, scary, wild, cool, crazy stuff from the UK’s museums and galleries

School related sites that are still fun(!)

www.atschool.co.uk
BETT award winning site for children. Plenty of silly noises, useful info, and fun stuff to enjoy!

(That’s it!)

You can now start buying our products on Ebay!

Horray!

We just started to sell our products on Ebay.

It’s actually pretty tricky to get started selling on the ebay site, and it requires lots of positive reviews.

If anyone is thinking of buying some lovely Concentrate goodies A. you’re clearly a marvelous. talented and good looking person, and B. Could you possibly try buying the products from ebay?

If you’ve had a positive experience, it would be EXTREMELY helpful if you could give us a positive review, and we’ll be eternally grateful.

Please by some of our products on Ebay now. Thanks very much!

ebay_Concentrate

Christmas Gift Packs from Concentrate

Our Gift Packs make the ideal Christmas presents, says Santa Claus. They make school a bit more fun in the new year :)

Buy one of our gift packs:

concentrate gift packconcentrate super gift pack

SUPER GIFT PACK

  • Chairpadbag
  • Lunchbox “Food for Thought” (including 2 pots)
  • Lunchbox Coolerbag (in any of the four colours)
  • Bottlecoolerpenholder (in any matching colour)
  • Voting Ruler
  • Pre-chewed pencils (set of four)

BUY NOW

GIFT PACK

  • Lunchbox “Food for Thought” (including 2 pots)
  • Lunchbox Coolerbag (in any of the four colours)
  • Bottlecoolerpenholder (in any matching colour)
  • Voting Ruler
  • Pre-chewed pencils (set of four)

BUY NOW

How can we help our brain to learn best? Latest advice

scheduling

How can we help our brain to learn best? Neuroscientists’ findings are revealing new data. For instance, that education doesn’t begin in school and the parents should “be used as intelligent tools to work with their kids” (specialist Michael Posner).

So, if we never stop learning, both in and outside the school, why not try the latest advices?

If you learn a foreign language, German specialists recommend repeating the vocabulary while making gestures and movements matched to meaning- some fun way to make associations and remember new words.

Timetabling of exercise sessions is also important for our brain, which reacts better to a learning task after having 30 minutes of aerobic endurance exercise. That brings us to physical education: start the school day with it, it is proven to improve the ability to focus.

Also, drinking water in class may improve performance because it creates small interruptions that help focus afterwards.

nina 1

Good news is that we don’t need to make huge changes to our learning style, just to avoid the misconceptions that stand in the way of our education.

For instance, the idea that “we only use 10% of the brain anyway” it’s not an excuse, especially as it was proven to be false.

Latest studies say that music doesn’t make us smarter by itself, but it’s beneficial to learn and play a musical instrument.

There is small evidence that we have different kinds of intelligence: verbal, mathematical, practical etc- so let’s use what we really have to the maximum.

Know It All – Water Facts

concentrate watering can

Water, your body and fruit

Two thirds of the human body is water.

A chicken is about three-quarters water, and a pineapple is about four-fifths water.

You could survive for about a month without food, but only 5 to 7 days without water. And you can survive a lifetime without eating a pineapple, but they are very tasty.

It takes 50 glasses of water to grow enough oranges to make one glass of orange juice.

How to Drink

Gulping down huge mouthfuls of water when you are really thirsty is not the most thirst-quenching technique. It is best to drink small sips at regular intervals. A glass of water every two hours, even if you are not particularly thirsty, is good for you!

It’s good to drink at least three 500ml bottles of water a day. It’s even better if it’s in a Bottlecoolerpenholder.

Water actually cools down your brain, which is useful for when you have to think really hard.

Where does water come from?

On the earth we have about 39 million cubic kilometers of fresh water (about 29 millions exists in the form of ice).

Every day, about 1500 cubic kilometers of water evaporates into the air and later falls down to earth as rain or snow.

When dinosaurs wandered the earth, roaring and eating each other, there was exactly the same amount of water around as there is today. In fact there is the same amount of water on Earth today as there was 3 billion years ago.

Bottlecoolerpenholder: Our solution to help you drink more water

The bottlecoolerpenholder is a new way of remembering to guzzle lots of lovely water! Drinking water helps you to think clearly, and keeps you healthy, so it’s really important to drink enough of it. The bottlecoolerpenholder prompts you to have a bottle of water in front of you at your desk. It is made from thermally insulating neoprene and is a wet-suit style jacket for bottles that will keep water cool, as well as store pens and pencils needed during the day. It is stretchy enough to fit over all standard 500ml water bottles.

concentrate bottlecooler blue concentrate bottlecooler red concentrate bottlecooler pink concentrate bottlecooler camo

• Aids concentration since 2% dehydration leads to a 20% drop in concentration*
• Keeps water and stationery together on desk : acts as a reminder to drink regularly
• Holds pens and pencils needed in lessons
• Helps encourage reuse of waterbottles
• Thermally insulating neoprene keeps the water cool
• Name tag on the inside of the handle
• Dimensions: approximately 20mm x 10mm HxW
• Capacity: 500ml bottles
• Material: neoprene (the same material used to make wetsuits)
• Available in: blue, red, pink, camouflage

Random facts

Ants never sleep.

If you farted constantly for 6 years and 9 months, the gas you produced would have the equivalent amount of energy as an atomic bomb.

ANSWER to last weeks’ riddle ”What letter comes next?‘: F – They are the first letters of the days of the week :)

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Hello... and welcome to Concentrate's blog. This is where we'll keep you up to date with the lates news, and post up anything interesting we see. Lovely!

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