Keeping the kids busy over the school holidays can be discouraging and cost parents a lot. But we've found some cheap and cheerful ways to enjoy family time this Easter from free days out to fun-filled theme parks which won't cost you much. We've done the homework so you can get started on having a great time.

    Theme Parks

    Save from 10% to 25% off the price of tickets for Legoland in Windor by booking in advance online. A family of four can save up to £ 45.90 on a one-day ticket, paying £ 137.70.

    Book seven days in advance and save £ 43 off the price of a family of four ticket for Drayton Manor Theme Park. Cali 0844-472-1950 or book online and you'll pay £ 65 on the day.

    You can pick up a family of four ticket for a day at Alton Towers in Staffordshire for £ 43.80 off the day price.

    Save £ 16 off the price for a family trip to The Making of Harry Potter by buying a family ticket (two adults and two children) online. Family of four £ 101, compared to £ 117.

    Activities

    Students looking for a cut-price trip to see the animals can save 15% off the ticket price at Bristol Zoo and pay £ 12.71 rather than the full adult price £ 14.53. Teens should show their identity as students.

    Freebies

    Let your kids discover what it's like to be an animal on the African Plain or in the ocean. Or, they can learn to love leaf beetles or become a scientist for the day at the Natural History Museum in London.

    You may have never heard of Lanthanum, Cerium or Neodymium, but these elements (元素) and others known as “rare earth” play a major role in modern technology. They can actually be found in many places on the earth, but not in quantities that can be mined. Only a few countries — China, America, India, Australia, Brazil and Malaysia have any that can be mined enough to be traded.

Even though some of these elements such as Cerium are as abundant as Copper, they are not found in concentrated amounts on the earth's surface. They are often mixed together with other metals, which makes extraction (提取) of these elements an expensive and an environmentally messy process. It was due to this reason that the term “rare earth” was invented.

    Rare earth metals are used widely in our life. Rechargeable car batteries, computers, iPhones, DVD players, computer monitors, televisions, lighting, lasers, glass polishing, and superconductors all use quantities of rare earth metals. Also, with the advancement in “green” technology like solar panels, these shiny materials are becoming more important than ever. An average electric car uses 10 pounds of Lanthanum for its rechargeable battery!

    America has large deposits (存储量) of rare earths and has one of the first mines. It was openedin Southern California in 1940. The element “Europium” was the first metal to be separated in quantity for use in color televisions. However, in the 1980's and 1990's, as China started producing these elements in Inner Mongolia, the mines in America and elsewhere could not keep pace. The mine in Mountain Pass, California also failed environmental regulations and shut down in 2002.

    Now, recognizing the importance of having more than one supplier of this important resource, other rare earth owning countries like India and Australia are either dusting off their rare earth mines or speeding up their production. It is believed that the debate over rare earths will become louder in the coming months and years.

    Is any economist so dull as to criticize Christmas? At first glance, the holiday season in western economies seems a treat for those concerned with such vagaries(奇思遐想)as GDP growth. After all, everyone is spending; in America, retailers make 25% of their yearly sales and 60% of their profits between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even so, economists find something to worry about in the nature of the purchases being made.

    Much of the holiday spending is on gifts for others. At the simplest level, giving gifts involves the giver thinking of something that the recipient would like--he tries to guess her preferences, as economists say--and then buying the gift and delivering it. Yet this guessing of preferences is not easy; indeed, it is often done badly. Every year, ties go unworn and books unread. And even if a gift is enjoyed, it may not be what the recipient would have bought if they had spent the money themselves.

    Interested in this mismatch between wants and gifts, in 1993 Joel Waldfogel, then an economist at Yale University, sought to estimate the difference in dollar terms. In a study, he asked students two questions at the end of a holiday season: first, estimate the total amount paid(by the givers) for all the holiday gifts you received; second, apart from the sentimental value of the items, if you did not have them, how much would you be willing to pay to get them? His results were gloomy: on average, a gift was valued by the recipient well below the price paid by the giver.

    In addition, recipients may not know their own preferences very well. Some of the best gifts, after all, are unexpected items that you would never have thought of buying, but which turn out to be especially well picked. And preferences can change. So by giving a jazz CD, for example, the giver may be encouraging the recipient to enjoy something that was ignored before. This, a desire to build skills, is possibly the hope held by many parents who ignore their children's desires for video games and buy them books instead.

    Finally, there are items that a recipient would like to receive but not purchase. If someone else buys them, however, they can be enjoyed guilt-free. This might explain the volume of chocolate that changes over the holidays. Thus, the lesson for gift-givers is that you should try hard to guess the preference of each person on your list and then choose a gift that will have high sentimental value.

Dear Daisy,

    Phew! I'm so glad the day is over. I'm really tired, but my first day at school went well.

    First of all, we met outside the school building. I was very nervous because my primary school only had 300 pupils but in the middle school there are about 1300. What a difference! The older pupils are really big. I felt so small waiting there in front of the school.

    The head teacher came out and told us to go into the school hall. Then he called our names out to tell us which class we were in. My class teacher is called Mrs. Black. She took us to our classroom. It's on the 5th floor. We aren't allowed to use the lift! I couldn't believe it.

    We spent all morning with Mrs. Black looking at our timetables. Everyone in the school had a different timetable. I'm worried that I'll forget my timetable and go to the wrong room.

    Lunchtime was OK. I had salad, fish and fruit, which was quite good, and then I went to play football with some of the other boys. They were all friendly and I don't think it will take me long to make friends.

    After lunch we started lessons. I had maths and then history, where we started to learn about ancient Greece. That looked interesting. 1 have to do some homework tonight to find out how the ancient Greek people lived, so I'm going to do an Internet search and look it up in the library.

    So far so good. I am quite looking forward to tomorrow, even though I've got science. I hate science!

Yours,

Jason

    Why does time seem to fly by faster as we get old? You've got your aging brain to blame. This is likely due largely to the physical changes of our nerves and neurons (神经元). New research suggests 'rapid fire' abilities of the young brain allow us to process more information during youth, causing the days to seem longer earlier in life. However, as we get old, researchers say the older brain takes more time to process information.

    The new finding put forward by a Duke University researcher was published in a paper in the journal European Review this week According to Adrian Bejan, the J. A Jones Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Duke, the physical changes of our nerves and neurons play, a major role in our perception (知觉) of time as we get old. Over the years these structures become more complex and eventually begin to degrade.

    "Little babies, for example, move their eyes much more often than adults because they're processing images at a faster rate," Beian says, For older people, this means fewer images are being processed in the same amount of time, causing experiences to seem as though they're happening more quickly.

    Doing business nowadays without a cellphone? Living a very private life? I can't imagine it anymore.

    Journalist Chris Stokel-Walker explained it very well: For the average working person, there's no greater feeling than powering down your computer and kissing goodbye to your work emails for the day. If we're lucky enough to disconnect from the job on evenings and weekends, we're overjoyed to leave work emails and the stress that comes with it in the office.

    But experts say we're increasingly failing to do so, instead bringing the burden home with us and dealing with emails during our free time. Unsurprisingly, this routine has some serious consequences.

    Working abnormal or long hours has long been linked with depression(抑郁症), anxiety and even heart disease. In addition, the importance of weekend recovery has also been linked with weekly job performance and personal initiative(主动性). And further research showed psychological detachment(脱离) during off-work time reduced emotional exhaustion caused by high job demands and helped people stay engaged.

    So, if we know all this, it begs the question: Why are we still letting work bother our precious weekend? According to Cary Cooper, professor of Organizational School, the recent trend even spills into the way we access our work communications and projects.

    Today, says Cooper, work emails are just a tap of a smartphone away. "You don't carry your laptop around when you're out to dinner, but you do carry your mobile phone," he says. "The smartphone does not make up for what is lost." So delete your work email account from your inbox(收件箱), and leave the worries until Monday.