Tales of the unexpected with The Boy, my pride and joy.
On The Farm is a make and play jigsaw puzzle which can be used as a playmat to explore the environment of a farm. Using the trademark beautiful illustrations, synonymous with Orchard Toys, the large jigsaw puzzle explores many different aspects of farm life including crop growing and keeping livestock.
At the same time that Mr. TBaM and I were sent some new bedding to keep us nestled in our slumber, The Fine Bedding Company also sent some for The Boy so he wouldn't feel left out!
I was sent the above Hotel Chocolate Easter egg to try out. Part of the 'Beastie' range that they have introduced this year, the 'Zebra Beastie Egg' is one of the better value eggs from the collection this year. Priced at £15.00 it comes beautifully wrapped in a stand and cellophane with six mini eggs in both salted caramel and praline flavours.
The salted caramel truffles are one of my favourite things from the Hotel Chocolat range, and I was really pleased to see them included in this Easter egg. There are three of these smooth chocolates, and three of the praline flavoured mini eggs, which Mr. TBaM was only too happy to taste-test and declared them delicious.
The egg itself is made of thick milk chocolate , thicker than conventional Easter eggs, and this certainly helps to justify the pricetag of £15.00. I would like to point out that the 'Beastie Eggs' are aimed at children, and I do honestly feel that it's at least double the amount I would consider spending on a young child's egg. However, it would be an idea teenager's egg, especially with the zebra print made with an all-natural cocoa butter transfer, and I feel that £15.00 on a luxury egg for an appreciative teenager is a justifiable cost.
I was sent this product for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.
"Constantly in search of the holy grail – sleep"
That's a description of me from my twitter bio, and two years after writing those fateful words they remain just as true.
Now don't get me wrong, I am far from incapable of falling, or staying, asleep. In fact, I'm naturally gifted at making myself go to sleep in most sedentary situations; on a train, on the sofa, in the car (not driving!), on the beach, you get the picture. Therefore the problem doesn't really lie in not being able to sleep, it's more about staying asleep once I've drifted off on that cloud.
Someone is determined to prevent me from having a full night's sleep. And he's about three and a half foot tall.
Although, to be fair to him he is not the only reason that I don't sleep as well as I used to; I also get incredibly hot in bed, very easily. We tend to counter this by having the window open throughout the year, and even in the depths of Winter use only a 7.5tog duvet. Still this doesn't always help.
Silentnight has carried out research which shows that 75% of adults are not getting a good night's sleep. I would hazard a guess that probably 60% of that group of people are parents and therefore have a small human interrupting their REM cycle on their behalf, but that does leave a whole group of people who sleep badly 'naturally'.
With the issue of my body temperature in mind, Silent Night sent me a 'Chillow Plus' to try out and to share my conclusions after a week.
The Chillow is a clever, albeit slightly bizarre concept. The pad measure slightly smaller than an average pillow and is designed to be slipped inside a pillowcase over the top of a conventional pillow, the Chillow Plus has velcro pads inside to hold it in place and prevent slippage during the night. Inside the plastic outer casing (the 'Hydro-soothe' membrane) is a Soothsoft® pad which uses 'specialised materials, fluids and laws of thermodynamics that creates a dry, powerless, thermo-regulating and memory foam effect'. It's basically a squidgy foam pad, but a bit more complicated.
To activate the cooling aspect of the Chillow you need to add 4 pints of warm tap water through the valve, reseal it and leave it to soak up the water and do its stuff for four hours. Once this has happened, then you need to remove the seal and roll it back up to push out any excess air. The Chillow is then ready for use. It works by absorbing body heat continually and then discharging the absorbed heat back to the surrounding environment. Strangely (and unlike a gel pack which needs refridgerating) it almost always feels cool as the user's body is is always warmer than the Chillow.
I've used the Chillow now for a week and has been extremely useful in cooling me down in a variety of situations, not just my head, and not just as night. I had a horrendous headache this morning and a lie down on the chillow for ten minutes really helped alleviate the pressure and fogginess. While the Chillow has been useful at night to lay my head on, it's actually been my feet that have benefitted most as they do tend to be excrutiatingly hot and painful at bedtime.
I only wish that I had owned this cooling pad during the last trimester of my pregnancy with The Boy when I suffered horrendously with Polymorphic Eruption of Pregnancy. I spent the final two months of pregnancy in absolute agony and crying; I was exhausted from a complete lack of sleep. At night, I had to sleep under a single sheet with ice packs against the part of my body that was in contact with the mattress because the increased heat made the rash worse. These ice-packs were exchanged ever hour or so for another one straight from the freezer. Only when I was freezing cold could I sleep. Having a Chillow would have seriously enabled my ability to sleep.
Thumbs up for the device which cools me down and allows me to sleep? Definitely!
I was sent this product for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.
As a teacher, I'm only too aware of the need to develop problem-solving and thinking skills in children. It may seem unbelievable to some, but there's been a recent wave in education in the last few years where it has become apparent that too many years of 'chalk and talk' has created a generation of young adults who (apparently) can't process the important facts and have difficulty identifying the ways to solve problems.
And to be perfectly honest, it's not nonsense. Children have to be given opportunities to discover; just the same as they have to see play modelled in order to recreate it themselves, they need to be shown how to break a problem down into manageable steps and then piece it back together bit by bit to create a workable solution. In schools we have various ways to do this, identifying that Thinking Skills are a part of the Key Skills Framework and building techniques into lessons, as well as brain gym and creative thinking exercises where possible.
I happen to think that igniting that questioning process and stoking the embers is a really important part of pre-school development as well, and just the same as parents provide opportunities for developing reading, writing or 'rithmetic, then they should as well for thinking.
I've been sent a copy of the above book to review and have found it really interesting. The author, Robert Fisher, taught for over twenty years in schools in the UK, Africa and Hong Kong, and as a professor at Brunel University, there's a fairly good chance that he's going to be an excellent person to compile a book like this.
'Brain Games for Your Child' provides over two hundred games to help children build their thinking, number, language and social skills. There are games that focus on music and art, treasure hunts, card games, word and number battles that are games to be played by all the family. With a range of old favourites as well as new games, what is common to all the games is interaction with other people, enabling children to develop and enhance their communication skills, gaining a response to their queries and providing them with the opportunity to process what they've learnt with support.
I thought it would be a good idea if I mentioned a few of the games suitable for 3-6 year olds, although there are sections on 0-3 years, 6-9 years, and the older child. The section starts by reminding parents of the six things for a growing brain to function well: good food, drink, oxygen, physical exercise, rest and stimulus. In fact, each section of a different age starts with tips and information on that age phase, for example; 'try to use interesting and descriptive adjectives when you tell a story…'. Each activity listed also identifies the key skills enhanced through the game.
There are so many more ideas in this book including story telling ideas, rhyming games, memory games, drawing ideas, deduction games and so many more. I'm not going to list them all because then there'd be no point in reviewing and promoting it! Some of the ideas in the book are common sense, but sometimes we need them pointing out to us as parents to be reminded of them; something can seem obvious and non beneficial to us, but then we're not pre-schoolers are we? However, there is a wealth of activities in Brain Games For Your Child that aren't obvious and are really good ideas, using everyday household objects.
'Brain Games For Your Child' is available from Amazon for the bargain price of £9.60 (RRP £15.00) in paperback or £9.12 on Kindle.
I would recommend investing in this book because it's become a little bit of a Bible for activities in our house, and will last for years! On the Amazon page, there is a 'click to look inside' option to help persuade you of its worth.
I was sent a copy of this book for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.
Last year we started going away for weekends or short breaks a fair amount with The Boy. Most of the time we stayed in a Premier Inn where the quality is guaranteed and consistent; the beds are always of a certain firmness, the duvets are warm, the pillows are plentiful and varying in thickness.
However, there were occasions when we stayed in non Premier Inn accommodation and then the one thing that is guaranteed to give me a good night's sleep was inconsistent; pillows. I'm a bit fussy with my pillows, I like two, one of which must be hard-ish and thin and one which must be fluffy. In getting one of both types then I can usually get them the right way around somehow to suit my head that night! What I can't bear is one pillow that's too flat, or two really fluffy pillows where I end up feeling smothered. I'm getting fussy in my old age.
A few weeks ago, I was sent a soft pillow made with 3 fold wool made by Devon Duvets. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I read that it was a small travelling blanket that folds up into a pillow, something not soft and fluffy though.
Inside the box was a thick fluffy pillow encased in 100% cotton which was soft and comforting to lay on. It's a standard size pillow (measuring approximately 48 x 74cm) which means it could comfortably be used on a bed normally. The Boy was very intrigued to discover the fold of fabric and quickly undid it to discover a duvet style blanket (approximately 74cm by 130cm). Obviously this is not big enough for an adult to sleep under, but would be perfect to use in the back of a car to keep passengers warm, or on a single bed for a child.
The wool used as the filling is not bleached or chemically treated during any stage of its processing. The aspect of this pillow that I find comforting (apart from it's softness) is the hygiene; the natural properties of wool resist dust mites, making these pillows suitable for allergy sufferers. This is also good to know as I could easily use it as The Boy's main pillow on away trips, meaning he has a consistent pillow to sleep on with no dust mites. And it's easily cleaned using a machine wash on a wool settting.
Ever the eco-warrior, I also find it reassuring that Devon Duvets wool pillows are sustainable products; the sheep is reared solely for its wool and returns to the pasture after shearing.
At £69.00 it's not a cheap option for a pillow in comparison to the average polyester filled alternatives. However, it's not comparable because of the filling, and because of its dual use.
I was sent this product for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.
Scooby Doo is one of those timeless characters that reaches across to both children and parents alike with his madcap capers and craaaaazy, cunning, conundrums!
Scooby Doo: Mask of the Blue Falcon is a brand new adventure for 2013 and tells of the goings-on at the 'Mega Mondo Pop Cartoon-a-Con with celebrated comic book characters headlining at the convention. However, all goes dramatically wrong (in pure Scooby fashion) when Mr. Hyde unleashes monster bats, howling hounds and sinister slime upon all the revellers. It's time for Fred, Daphne and Velma to help out Scooby and Shaggy to tap into their inner superhero to prevent the convention from being a wash-out.
Included in this disc are bonus vintage cartoons (Comic Book Caper, Reflections in a Ghoulish Eye and The Scooby Coupe), alongside the opportunity to stream and download the movie onto computers, tablet computers and smartphones using Ultraviolet technology. Ultraviolet is such a clever piece of technology and makes it perfect for out and about entertainment by being able to download it onto a mobile device.
Scooby Doo: Mask of the Blue Falcon is available from Amazon priced at £9.99.
I was sent a copy of this disc for the purpose of this post.
Imagine the combination:
'Reach for the Stars' + 'Justin Fletcher' = ?
To me that equals one of the best things I've heard in an awfully long time!
There is something so intrinsically right about Justin Fletcher and the way he makes children and adults smile, that listening to his CDs has the same effect. And while the songs are certainly not the latest Goyte chart-topper, they do introduce children to a diverse range of different musical genres and classic songs in a non-patronising manner.
The Boy has passed the stage of listening to nursery rhymes and wants to listen to music, but finding suitable music is hard as so much of what is in the charts has unsuitable lyrics or themes for children. Justin Fletcher has taken a great selection of older and well-known songs and covered them in a child-friendly manner to suit the 21st century. The 'Best Of Friends' CD includes:
along with the title track ('Best of Friends') and many others.
Justin will ber performing the title track on his new Justin's House tour this Easter, and I'm very excited as we're going to be seeing this in Cardiff (thanks to securing tickets months ago!). I just know that The Boy is going to love it.
The 'Justin Fletcher: The Best Of Friends' CD is available to buy from Amazon, iTunes and all good retailers. For more information on the CD, please visit Justin's Facebook page.
However, I'm lucky enough to be able to offer a copy of this CD to one lucky reader. Please fill in the Rafflecopter form below for a chance to win.
I was sent a copy of this CD for the purpose of this review. My opinions are honest and unbiased.
The Boy is getting to the point where he comfortable completes 35+ piece jigsaws, using the image to help him identify the correct pieces. He's got the tricks of finding the edges and corners first, then working out the different sections of colour, quite practised and enjoys piecing jigsaw puzzles together.
We were recently sent the new Orchard Toys Big Police Car jigsaw to review, and although it has fewer pieces than he's used to (30 pieces) it actually offered him quite a large challenge due to the nature of the design.
The Boy was recently sent a top to review from Polarn O. Pyret, the children's clothing store which has fun and bright clothing designed for play at the heart of its philosophy.
He was sent an alphabet sports top for children aged 2-6 years, which is available in both red and navy blue. It's a fun top with capital letters of the alphabet dotted all over it and interspersed with pictures of sports equipment and cute animals.
I really like the double cuff sleeves which are of a good length that means they can be folded back without showing the hem underneath. It's also a thick cotton which is warm and retains the shape well once washed. The colour is vibrant and the design fun for young children, especially as I do get fed up of seeing mini adult clothing for children, and The Boy likes the pattern on the top. He also likes how soft it is, and is more than happy to wear this as often as he can.
At £16.50, the top is a few pounds more than can be found in other high street stores, but I think it's worth it because of the child-friendly design, quality of the fabric and print and that it can be washed at higher temperatures to get rid of stains, without it losing its shape.
I was sent this product for the purpose of the review. My opinion is honest and unbiased.
