Teachers, Even Superhero Teachers Can’t Do It All!

We all believe in the power of teachers, both positive and negative, on their students. I do think that teachers make a difference – but I cannot put all of my faith in these “superstar teachers” to reform the education system the way that is truly needed, or be the sole reason for my child’s performance this new school year and here’s why:

1.    Limited superhero teachers for the growing number of kids and schools.
The schools that desperately need some sort of superstar superheroes are often unable to pay them and cannot attract the skills into the areas they are needed most to make the change. If with some stroke of luck they do find this superhuman, they do not last and school cannot retain quality, teachers.

2.    Superhero Teachers can fix most problems, but poverty is not one. Location! Location!! Location!!!.

Schools located in poverty and less access to basic amenities, have higher percentages of students living in poverty and have fewer resources available for teaching. They often have a persistent achievement gap and cannot afford superhero teachers to help bridge this cycle, cache 22 situation.

3.    Teachers are normally only temporary fixtures at a school.
All good things must come to an end and superhero teachers are no exception. Teachers good or bad come and go, moving from school to school or on to different careers. As with all things in life they will be at various stages of their teaching career (early years of teaching or nearing retirement) and that do have an influence either directly or indirectly on student’s performance.

4.    First teachers; should not be last teachers; parents need to become more involved.

 Parents are key to supporting, if not inspiring, life-long learning. When parents get involved with their children’s education, they tend to succeed academically and perform better on exams. Conversely, children, whose families are not as involved in their school experiences, are often unable to compete academically with peers.

Superhero teacher or not, I think it is unfair to blame teachers solely for the performance of their students. I agree they play a critical role in shaping the young minds in their classrooms and should they be held accountable for that  O yes! But so as long as some children are routinely assigned the least-prepared teachers, attend schools in disrepair, make do with outdated technology and instructional materials, and have limited access to a broad and rich curriculum, our nation is still at risk.

However, it seems to me that the root of issues in classrooms that tend to cause the most problems for students failure (like poverty and ill-equipped or uninvolved parents) should be the target of any true reform.
Teachers cannot do this alone, there is a lot all parties involved (Government, Parents, School educators/ owner, teachers) can do to help eradicate the profound inequities among schools and students and to fulfill our great country deep need for reform. Are you working at this for this new school year?

Leaving you with this question? I TEACH SO WHAT’S YOUR SUPERPOWER?

Have a Happy new school year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Puzzlextra’s Maths Lessons & it’s All Fun and Games

It’s All Fun and Games at our Maths Lessons   

This blog will introduce Five Games for teaching Math Facts to kids while having fun.

Practice is not what you do when you are good, it’s what makes you good, so Practice! Practice! Practice!

That’s how most students learn their addition facts or times tables.

At our Puzzle challenge club, we teach maths as part of our curriculum and it’s OK to lighten up and add some fun to math-facts learning. 

As phonics and learning the alphabets are fundamental to the ability to read, so knowing math facts is the foundation to future math learning.

The basic for maths are addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts. Accuracy and speed are the goals. Work sheets and timed tests and games are all okay and abound in many schools and parents table but what of games! Yes! Games — are often the tools.

This week, PUZZLEXTRA LIMITED – an edutainment company working in Nigeria, with an aim to develop critical thinking skills and cognitive abilities in school learners of all ages, offers you…

FIVE GAMES TO ENGAGE STUDENTS AS THEY LEARN MATH FACTS

Math Dice
This fun math Dice reinforces math facts in a very visual way.  Also have variants – Power dice and Junior for the younger kids

Conceptual Bingo
Adapt the BINGO game to reinforce multiplication table skills. Addresses various maths section – factorization, multiplication, additions 

                                          

                                                             

Equate
This fast-paced team board game, is a fun way to practice math facts. Also have variants – Junior for younger kids

Zingo 1-2-3
This fun math game reinforces math facts in a very visual way ideal for younger kids.

Prime Pack

Adapt a traditional card game to practice math facts. Factors, division and multiplication.

                                                                  

Games –card games, and computer games — actively engage students as they reduce stress and make learning fun

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

 Our products are available on Jumai and key retail stores.

You can also follow us on Twitter or like us on FB

Mail: service@puzzlextra.com

Telephone: 08033149298/08071501361/+447840026549/08063386464

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Nigeria’s first 21 Schools adopting 21st Century Learning

Puzzlextra Limited is thrilled to announce our first 21 Exemplar 21st Century Learning Schools in Nigeria.

We advocate for 21st century readiness for every student, just under a year of introducing this learning style in Nigeria, we are proud to name our first 21 schools in 4 major towns in Nigeria.

Skills

Puzzlextra have collaborated with these schools and have established a working relations with either one or a combination of our products and services listed below

1.       Puzzle challenge club (PCC)
2.       A puzzle challenge  workshop  (PCW)
3.       21st Century Teachers training
4.       Core curriculum Events– week  (Science, maths, literacy etc)
5.        Extra-Curricular or Library update

We have chosen our first 21 just to coincide with our 21st century learning platform and we will be celebrating all schools which sign up in groups of 21 as we continue to grow and works in more schools across the country.

At these schools, we work with both Staff and students’ to transfer their learning and improve their academic performance by incorporating our skills for life curriculum. This curriculum has 6 main areas, 4 out of these areas are not delivered in today’s school environment but are required in today’s employers’ market. These areas are:

Logic, Strategy, Team building, Maths, Literacy & Critical Thinking

21st Century

The 21 exemplars schools represent a wide range of learning environments, instructional frameworks and school cultures, reflecting the diverse settings in which the Puzzlextra can contribute to both updating teachers teaching skills & student success. In no particular order below is a list of schools we currently collaborate with:

 Kaduna

 1.            PANAF Schools

2.            Hakda International School

Lagos

1.            Abiola International school

2.            Childville School

3.            Amville School

 Enugu

1.            Solid Base

2.            Prime Academy

3.            Good Hope Stars School

4.            Evergreen Montessori

5.            Early Dew Montessori

 Abuja

1.            Esteem int’l school

2.            Baliz trust school

3.            Redeemer Teap

4.            Famaks school

5.            Abigail school

6.            Lightway Academy

7.            Florence Ake-Akodu

8.            Rightway Academy

9.            Queen Esther school

10.          Covenant Foundation

11.          American International School

We are thrilled to share what’s working in education through the stories of these tremendous schools, these exemplars show how dedicated, accomplished educators and school’s administrators and leaders are creating 21st century learning environments to prepare their students for college, career and life success.

We hope that interested teachers and school leaders will find ideas and inspiration for helping students build 21st century skills through our 21st Century learning platforms, products and services.

Puzzlextra wants to extend this good work and we are always looking to partner with schools to ensure no African child is left behind.

About Puzzlextra Limited

We are an edutainment company working with an aim to develop critical thinking skills and cognitive abilities in school learners of all ages.

Our aim is to work with the educational/academic institutions to create platforms where children can learn and be challenged differently but in an overall relaxed, stimulating and engaging way. We believe we are the first company in Nigeria to offer coordinated support to the basic educational journeys of our children by helping them to achieve their potential through play – using educational puzzles, strategy games and unique learning resources.

While leading private schools are in partnership with us and adopting this approach to learning, Puzzlextra advocates for local, state and federal schools to join in and support this approach in every school, where we use our unique range of educational puzzles, board games and resources.

We invite and work with schools and educational institutions across the country to create platforms that support the educational journey of the African student through curriculum based coordinated and competitive fun-filled activities.

We are open to sponsors both private and government initiatives, as our products and services will fit company’s corporate social responsibilities (CSR) criteria. Last year, we partnered with LEPA Africa on their creativity secession and also participated in COWBELL summer holiday program in the East.

“We believe that education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school, every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it”. – William Haley

School administrators, we know you are providing excellent service to your kids but let’s challenge you and your staff to think about what and how we think and s-t-r-e-t-c-h to new ways of knowing,  For further details or enquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us,

You can also follow us on Twitter or like us on our Face book page

Mail: service@puzzlextra.com

Telephone: 08033149298/08071501361/+447840026549/08063386464

 

BRAIN ACTIVE GAMES – HAPPY CUBES

Puzzlextra Limited, an edutainment company is proud to introduce this brain worthy product to the Nigerian Market.

Wow where has January gone? Welcome to a new month and another new product, we hope you have being exercising your brains and most especially we hope you have enjoyed products we have highlighted do far:

This week we will be showcasing HAPPY CUBE products to the Nigerian brain industry; our question to you is “How Flexible is your brain?”

Our product of choice for discussion is Happy Cube 3D puzzle.

This is an international award winning ingenious product which is suitable for all ages.  It is a 2-D and 3-D foam puzzle which happened to be our bestselling classic amongst educational puzzles at the Lagos Trade Fair and also a favourite with the kids at our Puzzle Challenge Club which are held at various schools across the country. This simplistic concept is the driving force behind its popularity.

How flexible is your brain?

So what is this simple concept you ask? The concept is with 6 puzzle parts, you first build a perfect cube (3-D) and then you fit the pieces back into the frame (2-D). Easier said than done; you can also go the extra mile where multiple puzzles can be joined together to form new multi- dimensional shapes.

Recommended Age: The manufacturer suggests ages 3 and up, and we couldn’t agree more.

Brain Active Games – Who is this for you ask?

It is ideal for family (Home), Corporate, Schools (motivate your pupils with the Happy Cube puzzles) ideal for events, have products that fits into party bags for Birthday parties, Game nights

Students at our Puzzle Challenge day (see pictures below) were very eager to put these soft and colourful pieces together and in doing that it has fostered team building and enhanced their creativity skills while having fun.

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Skills set: 

I know you’ve heard this some many times now but we must stress that with all of our products we have gone through a rigorous selection process to ensure that we offer our customers products that meets the 3E’s Criteria– Educational, Entertaining and Exciting  of product selection.

The Happy Cube family is an excellent educational and IQ building game from which you can choose from various levels of difficulties of different versions of this product.

First range is the Happy Cube Family – Made up of

 Little Genius/Happy Cube/ Profi Cube/ Marble Cube

Happy Cube Family

For Corporate Challenge or gifts  

Try our Happy Cube Acrylic© is a high-graded design gift to puzzle fans and it comes as a transparent version. We also can do Corporate branding 

Happy Cube

Other Products within the range:

No matter your age, having a go will help develop and enhance the following skills sets: Hand and eye co- ordination, Logical, problem solving, strategy, Visual thinking & Team Work

What’s in the Pack ?

There are four graded packs of six cubes to choose from. The Happy Cube is the original cubes, which are nicely challenging. However there are other the Happy Cube XL with a challenge box, the planet, also we have key chains which are featherweight and ideal for party bags. Valentine coming give our puzzling flowers bouquet.

Ready, Set, Play!

This product promises hours and hours of fun as each set comes with six coloured puzzles, flat-packed and your challenge will be to turn these flat pack into six cubes. Once they have been made the cube, the next stage is to fit them all back into their flat packs, which is easier said than done!

Ready to increase the level of difficulty: you can go on to build multiple shapes out of pieces from each cube.

Home play- Happy customer

Sisi flexing her brain not muscles

Hope you buy it! It’s a great educational and family friendly game.

Where to Buy in Nigeria:

Lagos: Jumia Online retailers, Mega Plaza, The Hub, Ebeanor

East: Eastern Supermarket, Living Source Supermarket, Pentagon

North: Glory Plaza Abuja and Kaduna

Check out our website www.puzzlextra.com, we are also on Twitter and Facebook; you can always emails us at service@puzzlextra.com.

BRAIN WORTHY GAMES – Quoridor

Puzzlextra Limited, an edutainment company is proud to introduce this brain worthy product to the Nigerian Market.

Welcome to the first board game review, we hope you have been exercising your brains and have enjoyed our products highlights:

This week is all about showcasing one of our board game products ranges for the African brain industry.

Our product of choice is Quoridor, is an elegant game that it can be easily played. It is a clever game of strategy, logic, planning and adaptive, it is an educational game that will sharpen your 21^st century thinking skills whilst having fun doing it.

This is a MENSA award winning product and perfect fits for all ages, as young as 5+

Board Games – Who is this for you ask?

It is ideal for

• Corporate  – The strategic thinking, planning and problem solving skills needed to master Quoridor are enough to make corporate takeover geniuses salivating
• Home – HomeSchooling
• Schools – Inter-house sport events, Interschool competition and could be an new twist
• Family events (Game nights, Gatherings)

 

There are various international study that confirms and shows brain games have lasting benefits – start playing today, Our Students at our Puzzle Challenge day has discovered, that this game offers room for very deep strategy, yet fun strategic discoveries are accessible even at beginner levels. No two games are alike as each game takes on its own personality, as new strategies constantly evolve.

Making a move

Schools – Students can use this product during school indoor recess time and will enjoy the different level of challenges.

It will add a new dimension to spelling and in addition to finding the words, which improve spelling and language skills, players also have to make sure the pieces match.

Skills set: 

All our products have gone through a rigours selection process to ensure that we offer our customers products that meets the 3E’s Criteria– Educational, Entertaining and Exciting.

Quoridor is an excellent educational game from which you learn the following skills: Strategy, Planning, problem solving, strategy formations, & Team Work

What’s in the box?

The game consists of

A Game Board: This is a beautiful crafted wooden board of 81 square spaces (9×9).

Pieces: Prawn (4 different colour); Fences-like pieces, 6(Junior)/8. Pieces de out of Coated and Sturdy cardboard and have different levels, Original, junior and advance tiles.

It comes in Classic Game, Travel (mini) and Kids versions

 

Ready, Set, Play!

The whole game takes five, maybe ten minute to set up, easy to teach and easy to learn. Each player (either 2 or 4), for 2 player set up you get 11 pieces: 1 pawn plus 10 fences.

The objective of the game is to move your pawn one space at a time to the other side of the board.

At the start of the game, the pawns start out in the centre   of the board rather than on the opposite ends

The Winner is the first to reach the other side wins, by applying forward thinking and lots of planning.

Sound simple! But you and your opponent(s) have walls that can be placed. Each turn poses a question: do you move your pawn or do you place a wall to block your opponent’s moves.

On your turn you can either move your pawn one square horizontally or vertically, or you can add a wall. These two choices seem remarkably familiar, elegantly embodying a fundamental political dynamic: to advance our own cause, or to prevent the opposition from advancing

The only caveat is that you must always leave a way through and not completely surround your opponent.

Every game of Quoridor invites you to come up with new ways to play, every time.

Hope you buy this lovely product ! It’s a great educational and family friendly game.

Where to Buy in Nigeria:

Lagos: Mega Plaza, The Hub, Prince Ebeano Supermarket 

East: Eastern Supermarket, Living Source Supermarket, Pentagon

North: Glory Plaza Abuja and Kaduna

Check out our website www.puzzlextra.com, we are also on Twitter and Facebook; you can always emails us at service@puzzlextra.com.

BRAIN WORTHY GAMES – Pathword

Happy New Year All.

Welcome to the first week of the first month of a new year! 2014 is a year of great things, we hope in 2013 you enjoyed our products highlights: BANANAGRAM, EQUATE, RUSH HOUR & RUSH HOUR JUNIOR

This week is all about showcasing one of our bestselling products that enhances core curricula subject English in the African brain industry; our product of choice is the Pathword.  An original idea, if you like Scrabble and Word Search, you will love this game!

Literacy and Fun

Literacy and Fun

This is an educational game that will sharpen your literacy skills whilst having fun doing it. This product offers a fabulous linguistic challenge for friends and family friends.

This is a highly recommended international award winning game and a perfect fits for all ages, there are junior tiles caters for ages 5+ too.

Who is this for you ask?

It is ideal for

• Home – Home Schooling
• Children with Special Need
• Schools – Inter-house sport events, Interschool competition and could be an new twist
• Corporate organisation
• Family events- (Game nights, Gatherings)
• English or Literacy competition:  Spelling B, Literacy Challenges, Debating week, Scrabble event/competitions.

Students at our Puzzle Challenge day (see pictures below) have discovered that it all starts off as an easy peazy, lemon squeeze challenge and do incredibly well and then SLAM, it really became a challenge.

  Looking for clues

Schools – Students can use this product during school indoor recess time and will enjoy the different level of challenges.

It will add a new dimension to spelling and in addition to finding the words, which improve spelling and language skills, players also have to make sure the pieces match.

Skills set: 

All our products have gone through a rigours selection process to ensure that we offer our customers products that meets the 3E’s Criteria– Educational, Entertaining and Exciting.

Pathword is an excellent educational game from which you learn the following skills: Literacy , Verbal reasoning, thinking skills, Tile placement, learn success &failure, problem solving, strategy formations, communication, & Team Work

What’s in the box?

 

The game consists of

A Game Grid This is a plastic storage container that doubles as a word-search grid

Puzzle Pieces: Coloured Tetris-like pieces, 6(Junior)/8. Pieces de out of Coated and Sturdy cardboard and have different levels, Original, junior and advance tiles.

Puzzle Book: A Spiral-bound Booklet with 40 Challenges – Beginner to Expert

Storage Bag: To store away puzzle pieces

Ready, Set, Play!

Gameplay and setup is very easy (and one can also easily modify rules for simpler play).

The game begins; choose a Challenge Card, each card tells you what pieces you will need to finish the puzzle, then select the indicated pieces.

To play, you cover the words with the appropriate shape.

You win if you cover the entire grid. Words can be either backwards or forwards, but not scrambled

Super simple in concept, and beautifully designed levels make this game irresistible! If you’re into word games, the spatial challenges will give you a run for your money. Builds vocabulary as occasionally, there are words used within the game that might be a bit obscure for some. A dictionary is important as occasionally, this question comes up during a game…. “Is that a word

According to R. Kimmerer: “With words at your disposal, you can see more clearly. Finding the words is another step in learning to see.”

Hope you buy it! It’s a great educational and family friendly game.

Where to Buy in Nigeria:

Lagos: Mega Plaza, The Hub, Ebeanor

East: Eastern Supermarket, Living Source Supermarket, Pentagon

North: Glory Plaza Abuja and Kaduna

Check out our website www.puzzlextra.com, we are also on Twitter and Facebook; you can always emails us at service@puzzlextra.com.

BRAIN WORTHY GAMES – Equate Game

BRAIN WORTHY GAMES – Equate Game 

Puzzlextra Limited, an edutainment company is proud to introduce this brain worthy product to the Nigerian Market.

Welcome to the first week of the last month of the year we hope you have been exercising your brains and have enjoyed our products highlight: BANANAGRAM, RUSH HOUR & RUSH HOUR JUNIOR

This week is all about showcasing one of our bestselling products that enhances core curricula subject Math in the African brain industry; our product of choice is the Equate Game.  An original idea, if you like Scrabble and math, you will love this game!

Equate game

This is an educational game that will sharpen your math skills whilst having fun doing it. A great product, that promised to offer good and fun times with family and friends, it is a family oriented with an educational aspect to the game. This is a highly recommended international award winning game and a perfect fits for all ages, there are junior tiles caters for ages 5+ too.

Who is this for you ask?

It is ideal for Home, schools, corporate organisation, family events, gatherings, inter-house sport events, game nights,  School Maths Challenges, Maths week, Interschool competition and could be an added twist in any Scrabble event/competitions.

As maths is not a game that is liked by kids generally, most parents look for ways to supplement their kid’s education and maths experiences. This product will introduce the fun side of maths and will make kids approach and think about math differently.

When playing this board game it gives the child the much needed maths practice and other ways of brushing up their math’s skills outside the usual homework, and it’s definitely fun for the whole family.

Teachers – Are you looking for ways to enhance your maths experience amongst your students? Equate Game without a doubt, offers plenty of opportunities for critical thinking, planning, review of basic math (addition, subtraction), practice in grade-level or difficult math (multiplication, division, strings of operations).

It could also act as an ice breaker for introducing a new maths topic, it’s also ideal in the introduction of challenging concepts like equivalent fractions, multiplying/dividing fractions, etc.

Skills set: 

All our products have gone through a rigours selection process to ensure that we offer our customers products that meets the 3E’s Criteria– Educational, Entertaining and Exciting.

Equate Game is an excellent educational game from which you learn the following skills: Maths, Numerical reasoning, thinking skills, Tile placement, learn success & failure, problem solving, strategy formations and communication

It is a game for co-operative play, where all players can work together trying to use up all of the tiles filling the board out and you have less of head scratching actions by players and enhanced discussions and team work. During the co-operational type of play, players who are more advanced in math get to explain their equations to the younger ones, and everyone learns.

On the other hand, it could also be competitively amongst several players taking turns and keeping scores, a lot of head scratching actions occurs here !!!!.

Equate Game requires you to think – trying to figure not just the answers but what mathematical equation to use next.  The challenge is creating an equation out of what’s available – just like coming up with word possibilities in Scrabble.

This product is a hit and one of the most famous at our Puzzle Challenge day events and in our Puzzle challenge clubs. Look at students trying their hands on the game, learning and having fun with Maths – Can you believe these two words can be put in the same sentence?

 

What’s in the box?

The game consists of

 

A Game Board as shown in the picture. This is hard cardboard like a scrabble board.

The tiles: Made out of Coated and Sturdy cardboard and have different levels, Original, junior and advance tiles.

The tile holders: This has a two-tier design, which is great for planning out possible equations

Ready, Set, Play!

Gameplay and setup is very easy (and one can also easily modify rules for simpler play). Players do not have to be good at math, as learning occurs through play.

The game begins by each player drawing 9 tiles, which can include whole numbers, fractions, and the equations tiles : addition/subtraction/multiplication/division tiles.

You have to make an equation that makes sense, like “3 x 3 = 9 “. if you’ve got 2 “4” tiles, a “x” (multiplication) tile, a “1”, and a “6”. Each move you can use an equals tile for free.

According to G. Cantor“In mathematics the art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it”,Too often kids wants to arrive at an answer. What of the equations? This game makes player explore their knowledge of math a little deeper.

It works as a great educational gift/ present suitable for birthdaChristmas even Christmass celebrations

Hope you buy it! It’s a great educational and family friendly game.

Where to Buy in Nigeria:

Lagos: Mega Plaza, The Hub, Ebeanor

East: Eastern Supermarket, Living Source Supermarket, Pentagon

North: Glory Plaza Abuja and Kaduna

Check out our website www.puzzlextra.com, we are also on Twitter and Facebook; you can always emails us at service@puzzlextra.com

Nigeria Nuggets for Home 2 Skool (H2S) Connections:

The Home 2 Skool (H2S) Connections: We know education continues in and out of school, we understand the importance of home support or home schooling and this crucial for a successful educational and developmental experience for our kids.

We should not leave educating our kids to our teachers alone, as a #teacher opens the door, but you must enter by yourself, C. June because you can take the horse to the river but you can not force it to drink. What are we as parents/guardians doing to ensure that our kids are well prepared to take in the required learning! at school or in the world.

Puzzlextra explores the future of learning in all its dimensions, covering creativity and 21st century skills, technology and innovations in education through play. Our aim for this blog is to give a Home to school support and encouragement via our Home 2 Skool (H2S) Connections nuggets. Hope you enjoy the little nuggets.

H2S Connection: Parents you can reinforce ‘school skills’ through play at home by spending time each day to create a learning experience with a game, puzzle, book or journal, this can help prep the mind for academic work. There are new games in the Nigerian market that fits all ages, so the game can be played by several generations and all ages, none is left out.

Playing games & puzzles do not only provide a platform for learning but a good family gathering that will be remembered for a long time. It is not just the gathering for an owanbe/Party that is a family gathering but the good old days of siblings playing together – are the first taste of team building or competitive play and even problem solving abilities are most likely developed through our childhood play. 

Parents, there seems to be time spent on doing every thing else than spending some quality time with the kids in this fast paced world of us. Some of our games takes 10 minutes to play and 5 mins to calm down the excitement during the set up time. Can you spare 10 minutes – get off that phone or just delay that call, switch off the TV just for 10 mins and have fun with your family.

Parents/Guardian: Do you only evaluate your child’s school’s skill when the result’s are in? or when there is a major milestone – JAMB, GSCE or Primary school leaving?. Do not leave this evaluation to a critical time as a lot of time might have been lost by then.

Also do not leave the preparation of your child’s mind to to the  mercies of Househelp or Lesson Teachers or Private tutors, as they do it at a cost or for a business needs. Luckily for parents and guardians, we don’t need to do much in order to help nurture our children’s school’s skills. We just need to provide time and space for our kids to play make-believe, with our range of selected award winning products of games and puzzles you do not have to search so high depending on what you want to encourage we have games that fits various categories.

 

For timeless games, puzzles and brain teasers that foster play and help build school’s skills, give us a call today 2348033149298/08071501361/08063386464| or send us an email on service@puzzlextra.com and talk with one of our experts there will be able to tailor ideas specifically for your child’s age and interests. We can also give you ideas of family game nights that can be bring another angle of excitements to family gatherings.

BRAIN WORTHY GAMES – Game Rush Hour & Rush Hour Junior

Puzzlextra Limited, an edutainment company is proud to introduce this brain worthy product to the Nigerian Market.

Another week has come upon us so quickly, hope you enjoyed our product highlight of last week BANANAGRAM

This week is all about our new entry in the African brain industry, our product of choice is RUSH HOUR

Rush Hour

AND RUSH HOUR JUNIOR.

Rush Hour Junior

This is such an original idea, very well thought out and would suit just about anyone. It’s a shame our Nigerian market had missed out good years for not knowing or having this product all these while.

We all know learning can be done anytime and every time, so it’s good to know this is not a puzzle for kids alone but a perfect fits for all ages

Rush Hour/Rush Hour junior is a simple, great, little mind game that the entire family can enjoy; there are not that many games out there that caters for all age group. Ages from 7 years up to 75 years can play this and with the junior set that age limit has just been lowered to suit 4+.

This puzzle has been used very successfully with Dyslexic children who can learn in a fun, non-threatening way. It is an excellent alternative to screen based games especially when good old NEPA strikes and there are no computer or screen to watch.

It is ideal to keep restless kids occupied during a blackout, in the car, or in a restaurant.

This game is fun and gets your mind going. It is a 1 player game, and is very satisfying when you complete one of the levels.

Rush Hour is easy to take with you, and it’s a good old fashioned puzzle that does not require batteries and there are no annoying beeping noises to be heard.

Who is this for you ask?

It is ideal for schools, corporate organisation, family events, gatherings, inter-house sport events, game nights and home. It can be played by individual pupils or competitively against the clock!

This product is a hit and most famous at our Puzzle Challenge day events.

Rush Hour @ PCD Lagos

Trying to extract one small red car from an every increasingly gird locked car park is a very simple but amazingly frustrating – brings a whole new meaning to road rage!!

Skills set: 

Rush Hr @ PCD in Lagos

All our products have gone through a selection process to ensure that we offer our customers products that meets the 3E’s  Criteria– Educational, Entertaining and Exciting.

Rush hour is an excellent educational game for children, working out the strategy of getting the red car out of the grid by moving other cars really gets them thinking. It is also a logic game that can be played by anyone and any age group.

Using powers of logic, can you extricate the red car from the gridlock?  That is the aim of the puzzle.

It is a puzzle for one player or competitively several players taking turns. It has a simple but engaging game play and in theory it’s for one person to play at a time but we quite often find that one person will play and several more will get involved leading to co-operative puzzle solving and much discussion and scratching of heads.

Communication skills are also developed and sometime not always team building but these are secondary skills sets that occur when the person standing around cannot wait their turn. Lol!!!

Rush Hour real requires you to think – trying to figure out how to work out the puzzle. It’s great fun but also can get quite frustrating as you wonder how a few pieces of plastic can have you so stumped!

This game really makes you think, we would recommend this excellent product when you want to enhance both logic and concentration skills.

What’s in the box?

The game consists of

A plastic box (the size of a desk calculator), with a 6×6 grid on it. There is a drawer holding the puzzle cards.

42 game cards, each bearing a puzzle, starting at the very easy end of the scale and going up to the level of “expert

As the name of the game would suggest a number of vehicles (4 trucks and 12 cars), that fit onto the grid and is the pieces you play with.

Ready, Set, Play!

Rush Hour @ PCD- East

Easy to set up with varying levels of ability suits everyone , the basic idea is to use one of the cards to set up a traffic jam of trucks and cars, these being variously 2 or 3 squares long of the grid, and then to free the red car and let it “drive” out of the gap in the grid.

The cards show in pictorial form how to lay out the cars and lorries horizontally and vertically. To make it easy the pieces are all totally different colours. Once you have the game set up you move the vehicles forward and backwards, but in no other direction, as much as you want until you find the sequence to free the red car.

It is something that older siblings can help set up and then enjoy playing as well as the younger ones. The older siblings can get quite competitive and then try to figure out which game card will cause the most difficulty.

A card can take about seconds or up to several hours to solve, it depends on the complexity of the card and the skill of the player.

Give up! Not advised there are solutions printed on the back if the jam becomes too much for you to handle, first stop and try again.

The set is pretty well made and well worth the purchase price in my opinion, Quality made game for all ages. Not a cheap game but worth the money, when you get all the skills sets attached to it.

It is so tactile and for screen lovers the game is available on i-Pad also but somehow in 2-D, though it is to all intents and purposes identical, is much less involving than having to physically push real pieces around a board.

Ideal for presents both Birthday and with Christmas fast approaching, it is great stocking filler for kids as you will offer something different and educational

Hope you buy it, it’s a great game, have fun.

Check out our website www.puzzlextra.com, we are also on Twitter and Facebook, you can always emails us at service@puzzlextra.com.

See our recent Blog on Partners site as well. http://www.thinkfun.com/smartplayblog/?p=3427

Nigerian Brainworthy Products

Welcome to PUZZLEXTRA blog

WHO WE ARE:  Puzzlextra is an educational resources and edutainment company involved in the production, promotion, distribution and sales of educational resources.

We are an edutainment and learning Resource Company with the aim to support the educational journey of the African student with products that develop smart thinking.

This African brain blog has been set up to discuss our products, the impact we hope to have in the education sector and everything else in between. We hope to summarize the skills learnt by kids during our Puzzle Challenge day held in schools in Nigeria

We know that kids learn best while having fun as it excite their mind but also ignites the brains. Our educational products are new to the Nigerian market hence alien to our homes and schools.

Armed with these facts, we’ve decided to give a summary of some of our award winning international products, so that when next you go out looking for gifts or games in the shops you can look out for these products!

This blog will also highlight how this fits into our daily lives and environments and improves our quality of life; in this blog we will be highlighting the various benefits of how our products/ services will be a great investment in all categories listed below:

School; Home; Fitness & Well Being; Family Time; Corporate & Occasions

 

Our first product we will be highlighting is the BANANAGRAMS

 

Banangrams

BANANAGRAMS– Is fun, simple, educational and also a compact game, it is everything a game should be!

This product teaches language skills, literacy, memory, co-ordination and even listening skills as there are various words to listen out to

Other skills set are built whilst playing the game and this includes concentration, hand and eye coordination.

This also offers delightful family time and use of brain muscles.

One of the beauties of the game of Bananagrams is the simplicity and elegance of the rules

All tiles are emptied and turned over, as soon as all the players have drawn their required number of letters/titles, one of the players will say “Split!”

This is the signal for the players to begin flipping letters and creating words. I won’ spill all the beans (aha!!!) J!!! so you can get your own today and see what other rules apply.

PS: One tip though its rules are a lot less complicated than Scrabble.

Bananagram is a fast game as no player gets bored waiting for their turn and everyone is constantly building and changing their crosswords. It gets much faster and more exciting as the game progresses.

It is also a game of strategy – As each player builds their own crossword in a race against each other, you need to plan and have good foresight as just when you think you are in the lead, your next letter ruins all your plans and before you know it, your opponent has stormed into the lead L!! – am sure no one wants to be in this situation lol, you will find out it brings out the competitive nature of human beingsJ .

It is a recommended game for Educators and can be used in schools to introduce new words or enhance spelling words in a different and fun activity; it is suitable for literacy week/day in school. This product will assist in the preparation of kids for spelling competitions like spelling Bee.

The product ensures kids learn and use words learnt in a fun way, in doing this they build up their vocabulary bank. It is also a fantastic training tool for the firms and corporate bodies.

Pictures of some our kids playing the game at our popular Puzzle Challenge Day (PCD)

Puzzle Challenge Day

PCD @ Banangrams

Kids at our PCD

This game is stored in a banana shaped pouch; it is portable and easy to carry around, which means can be played anywhere and anytime. It is suitable for both young and old and fits all age ranges and abilities, so no one is left out.

Family time together could be dull and with everyone having a busy working schedule, we need something that can include all generation and this product is perfect as it can be played by 3 generations of any family. It is simple, easy to play and there are no silly or complicated rules.

Great as a birthday or Christmas present to any age group –old or young, Can be included in Kids’ birthday party bag and also souvenir at social events (staff meetings and training sessions).

This game helps work out the brain; it teaches spelling and also players learn how crossword works, but this game also is ideal for brain fitness or work out to prevent or improve medical conditions like Alzheimer and dementia.

It is a game kids enjoy & want to play again & again, which has to be a good sign for learning through play.

In summary BANANAGRAMS is an ideal family friendly product that offers fun & games for the whole family. It also meets our 3 E Standards: Educational, Entertaining and Exciting.

Literally…what more could you want? Buy yours today!!!  BANANAGRAMS is a great investment – for a school, family and corporate entity.

Try it out today, buy/order yours today from service@puzzlextra.com

For more information check us out on www.puzzlextra.com. We are active on social media websites, so do show your likes on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/puzzlextra or follow us as we chip & tweet on twitter.