Frosty Friends (Review)

by 4 Comments

Last week we went to see my brother and his family in Oxfordshire. They are über healthy and I watched my brother make a smoothie. 'Not particularly impressive,' you're thinking, right? However, I've never made one before for no other reason than I don't know how.

Only now I do and we're going through bananas and strawberries at the rate of knots!

That night when I got home from my brother's, I saw an e-mail asking me if I'd like to review a lollipop maker. They looked cool and funny so I said 'yes' and they arrived earlier this week. I mean who could resist making a lolly that looks like this:

homemade lollipops

We decided to use the smoothie recipe that we've perfected to test out these shaped rubber moulds. The eyes are actually part of the lolly stick and are a really 'cool' addition to the whole concept. Making them was incredibly simple and only took a few hours to freeze. They peeled out of the mould easily, hadn't spilled all over the feezer and tasted delicious. The best bit is that the mould is dishwasher proof!

lollipop maker

The Frosty Friends lolly mould is available for £7.98 from JustMustard.com.

I was sent this product for the purpose of this review. My opinion is honest and unbiased.

Jelly Jamm (Review)

by 1 Comment

Jelly Jamm Rocks is a new show  which started on Channel 5’s Milkshake! children's segment last week (Wednesday 15th August). Airing at 6.35am, it's aimed at 4-7 year olds and focuses on the comedy antics of the inhabitants of the musical planet Jammbo. The animated episodes explore creativity, music, fun and friendship, identifying some keep aspects of how to be kind to friends and family, and how to make others happy.

The main characters are Bello, Rita, Goomo, Mina and Ongo who have many adventures on their musical and magical planet. From organising a surprise party for the Queen to trying out a bathtub which flies to music, Bello and his friends embark on a series of adventures to discover their inner “Jelly”: the lifeforce of fun and creativity.

We've watched one of the episodes called 'Inner Space' and it was bright, colourful and well animated. It actually reminded me a little of The Magic Roundabout in the antics and movement of the characters.

Jelly Jamm airs every day on Milkshake! at 6.35am.

Viewers can discover more musical adventures at www.jellyjamm.com

Review: Triqo

by 4 Comments

With our decision about The Boy's pre-school provision firmly in place, it's now at the forefront of my mind that I need to make sure his language and mathematical development is up to spec for when he starts Reception class in a year's time. Keeping him in private nursery for just a few sessions a week will ensure he is having the social development along with helping him to learn the routine of sitting down and listening, but I can't guarantee that he will receive the same input as he would in a state nursery (where I know the assessments that take place).

The Boy is good at his shapes, he knows the basics of square, rectangle, circle and triangle and has done for quite some time. Thanks to a few iPad apps he's also able to identify diamonds, semi-circles, crescents, hexagon, pentagon and surprisingly an octagon. It might seem excessive but he can recognise them easily and why not teach him the right names for a shape?

And so it was with that in mind that I was happy to receive the Triqo system for him to try out.

Triqo is a collection of fifty plastic shapes which click together. They come in either a triangle or square form which when combined can create a range of other shapes, and the ten different colours are bright and cheerful. Made of a strong and flexible plastic with a tab on each of the sides; these tabs fold and have two poppers on them which click together with one of the other shapes to build up into a three-dimensional shape.

20120821-002447.jpg

The Boy found it easy enough to click two pieces together (although quite some pressure is needed initially) but did struggle when trying to join them in anything other than a straight line. That ball of triangular pieces in the photo is my handiwork, not his.

However, we played with them for forty-five minutes this morning and he has come back to them several times throughout the day. When Mr. TBaM came in from work he rushed out to show him his cube and 'boicud'. His father looked at him blankly and he tried again, "Cuboid daddy!" So after just one session playing together he's learnt that a cube has square sides and a cuboid is made up of squares and rectangles.

Triqo are made in the Netherlands, and these Scandinavian and Germanic countries get it completely right when it comes to pre-school education. With most children not starting school until the age of six or seven years, they're focus is on learning through play. So of course aside from the educational and mathematical development opportunities, they're great fun for the imagination: houses, pyramids, space rockets, boats!

The Triqo starter pack is available for the very reasonable price of £14.99 from all good toy stores or visit Ark DIY Products.

I was sent this product for the purpose of this review. My opinion is honest and unbiased.

The Summer Of Sport Just Got Spooky (Review)

by 1 Comment

You would have to be a deep sea diver or an ostrich to not know that this Summer is a massive one for sports in the UK: Andy Murray in the Wimbledon finals started it off and it finishes in a few weeks time with the conclusion of the games which shall not be mentioned. (It's a bit like Voldemort you see, I'm frightened of the coloured rings coming and striking me down!)

The Boy has really got into the swing of things and we had another mini sporting event earlier today, courtesy of Warner Brothers who sent us a sports day package to celebrate the release of Scooby Doo'sAll Star Laff-A-Lympics.

We had great fun racing each other in the running race, and the sack race was something never encountered before as we both almost fell over. The beanbag championship was a far more sedate affair and The Boy just beat me to it!

Scooby Doo's All Star Laff-A-Lympics is a great DVD to continue the sporting enthusiasm this Summer, as Scooby-Doo and friends go to compete in the World Invitational Games. However in typical Scooby fashion a statue comes to life and threatens to spoil the fun and games until all is settled in a typically deductive manner. The reason this is labelled as All-Star is that Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble make a special appearance in it. It's a cracking DVD and great fun. The Boy doesn't particularly like spooky, but I've watched this with his older cousin who adored it.

I was sent this product for the purpose of this post. All opinions are honest and unbiased.

LolliBop 2012

by 2 Comments

We were lucky enough to be invited to LolliBop 2012 at Regent's Park, London last weekend and happily went along on Saturday, the second day of the weekend long event. It was a beautifully hot and sunny day, perfect for lots of little ones to enjoy all the fun and games that had been created for them.

LolliBop 2012

The festival was held in a corner of the very large Regent's Park and was perfectly cordoned off keeping the children safe and secure. There were a huge range of activities for the children for all different ages (listed here) and there was definitely something for everyone from the under four year olds section through to the Halfords' race course (which got booked up well in advance!).

For such a large section of park, there was unfortunately not much natural shade, however the organisers had done an excellent job of creating several areas to provide an escape from the blistering heat; in the picture above you can see the coloured banners which were one of the areas. I'm grateful that they had also created a bloggers' lounge which was under the shade of some trees giving us an opportunity to cool off. (I later discovered that there was another section of the park which had a few trees and provided a relaxing area, but it wasn't obvious on the map or when walking around).

The refreshments were very good and it was nice to see a good range of family foods and drinks from Pizza Express, pie stalls, burgers and milkshake stands. The Oreo cookie milkshake was to die for! Unfortunately while the queues for these weren't long in length, they were in time, so next time I'll be taking a picnic. The toilets were portaloos and the least said about them the better. I'd envisaged the portacabin style facilities which I've seen at other children's events, where a sink with running water and soap are available.

These were some of our highlights of the day:

20120819-233400.jpg

  • Top left: Alex and Katy from CBeebies perform the I Can Cook song
  • Top right: watching Mister Maker in the LolliPalladium tent
  • Bottom right: being a shopkeeper in John Lewis Lane
  • Bottom right: creating a sandart picture with ScratchPatch

It's only when I look at the official higlights of the weekend that I realise how much else we missed, despite being there for most of the day. I can't wait to go again next year, when I definitely will not be wearing black!

We were provided with free tickets for the purpose of this review. My opinion is honest and unbiased.

Pointless: The Board Game (Review)

by 11 Comments

Pointless is the hugely popular BBC show which sees four couples pit themselves against each other to score as low as they possibly can when answering questions. The lowest score wins. The aim is obviously to be as pointless as possible. Think Family Fortunes, but in reverse.

The Pointless board game by University Games mirrors the programme and is for two-four players or teams, ages ten years+. Now people who read my reviews normally know that I look at the age guide and say, "Meh." and ignore it. However, with this game I actually think it's pretty accurate as it requires a fair amount of general knowledge which most children under the age of ten years do not have. Of course there are exceptions to every rule and if your child likes to stay abreast of trivia and the news then they'd probably be able to play this. (I'm specifically thinking of Kate's son from The Five F's.)

Contents:

  • 4 pencils
  • answer sheets pad
  • 338 questions
  • 9 head-head tokens
  • 27 trophy tokens
  • 3 question card holders
  • 1 scoreboard playing board
  • 8 playing pieces (2 each of 4 different colours)
  • rules of play & quick-start instructions

Before playing this, I would recommend finding an episode of the game to watch as it really helps to understand the format. It takes a little working out and I'm a visual learner so needed to see it in action.

As stated the aim of the game is to be as pointless as possible. I'll use the example question that I saw earlier on the television show: "Name a Richard Gere movie." Obvious answers are 'Pretty Woman' and 'An Officer and a Gentleman' but they were quite high scoring answers so the contestants needed to try and come up with the more obscure answers. There are four rounds played throughout: round one, round two, head-to-head and end game. On each round a question is asked from the relevant pile of question cards which also contain all the possible answers and their scores (based on the 100 people surveyed).

I won't go into the ins and outs of each round, but they are cleverly different and challenging each time. A card is chosen from the pile and placed into the relevant special wallet designed to hide the answers. Players write their answers down on the answer sheet, then reveal them as per the instructions. The answers are revealed and scores calculated. The lowest scoring person receives a 'pointless' token. These are important because in the final round the person with the fewest tokens is eliminated. This seems to be irrelevant when only playing with two players.

Mr. TheBoyandMe and I have spent an enjoyable hour playing this, it was challenging and fun. It was also obvious that while it's possible to play it with only two players, it's not quite as much fun as it would be with teams or three or four players. We enjoyed the range of questions (we need to brush up on world geography) and trying to be as devious as possible. We quickly abandoned using the board to chart our scores as it did actually seem pretty pointless itself (pardon the pun) when you're making a note of the scores on your answer sheet.

This is a fun game to be played across generations, I can't wait to take it down to play with my in-laws when we go and see them in September, my mother-in-law will love it. I would back up the age guide on the game, it's a complicated way of playing it and the questions are quite tricky at times.

A thumbs up from this family, a good game for Christmas! However you don't need to bother using the board and this actually makes it a good travel game for holidays.

Pointless is available to buy through Amazon here.

I was sent this game for the purpose of this review. My opinion is honest and unbiased.

Pirate Story Books

by 2 Comments

As part of our focus on pirate crafts and activities, I have invested in a couple of story books to help stimulate The Boy's imagination and explain the concept to him. It's a tricky thing to teach your three year old son about when you're desperately trying to keep him away from violence. There are a few really cool books by Jonny Duddle, like The Pirates Next Door, but he's not the type of boy to appreciate the bone-crunching humour in it.

"The Night Pirates"

The shadows around Tom's window are keeping him awake, and it soon transpires that they belong to a crew of girl pirates and their captain who need to borrow the front of Tom's house. The concept of an adventure on a pirate ship is far more exciting than bed and so he sets sail with the girl captain to a treasure island.

Simple, exciting with just the right measure of butterfly-inducing adventure, this beautifully illustrated tale of friendly pirates is by Peter Harris and Deborah Allwright.

"Peppa Pig: Pirate Island"

Absolutely no book anthology of The Boys would be complete without the porcine pair gracing it. This soundbook is really fun and follows the adventures of Peppa and George, along with their friends, as they accompany Grandpa Pig and Granny Pig on a boat trip to Pirate Island. They find a variety of natural and manmade treasure, before having an adventure of their own due to Grandpa Pig.

The Boy adores this book and we have to read it every day. A must for any Peppa fans.

"Pirate Pete"

Pirate Pete is quite a cheeky pirate and steals a treasure map from the Queen while she is asleep. Trying to race ahead of her fleet to take the treasure before she can get there, he soon becomes distracted by the potential of more gold in other places. Will he make it to the treasure before the Queen? Will he be taught a valuable lesson?

I actually bought this on Kindle to use on the iPad when out and about. A slightly more detailed story book it's a lovely, moralistic story with colourful illustrations throughout.

"Pirates!" Activity & Sticker Book

This is a fantastic full colour activity book with over thirty activities and puzzles in it, ranging from dot-dot to cookery activities, mask making, stickers, spot the difference to making a hinged puppet. It's certainly got plenty of ideas to keep all the jolly pirates happy during the Summer holidays. It's part of a four pack set (including knights, dragons and dinosaurs) from Igloo Books.*

I was sent the item marked * to feature on this blog. All other books I bought myself and all my recommendations are based on my honest opinion.

ToyJeanius: DJeco Piratrix Treasure Hunt

by 1 Comment

The Boy has recently started to show an interest in pirates. I'll admit to having withheld the swashbuckling realm from him before as I'm trying to keep him steered away from the 'treasure' chests of violence and theft for as long as is feasible. However, I fear that ship is sailing and so were dipping our toes in the waters to find out about pirate ships and treasure maps. Definitely no swords involved!

A while ago I was sent a fantastic pirate game by DJeco that is based around the world of treasure maps. The Piratrix Treasure Hunt is a simple retro style game aimed at 2-8 children aged 4+ but The Boy had no problem with it. The pack says that the game can take 15 minutes but that can be altered depending upon the complexity of play.

The idea of the game is to hide all 24 laminated images of treasure, chests and keys around the house. The first player to find one of each is the winner. The best part about this set is that because they are printed plastic, they are suitable for use outdoors in the garden or on the beach.

20120730-000137.jpg

I taped some string onto some of the pieces so that I could hang them rather than keeping them all flat, it makes it easier for younger children to find them. Older children could create a treasure map to find the pieces, but that's a tricky concept for younger children as they can't relate the symbols to real life objects. I hid the pieces in (fairly obvious) places in the garden, and it took us a little over seven minutes for all three of us to each find a key, a chest and a treasure. Again, it could be adapted for older childrenthat you have to find them in a specific order; chest, then key to open it, and then the treasure.

Djeco Piratrix

Aside from being fun, it's a good game to help develop logical thinking, problem solving (especially if used alongside a map) and develop visual awareness. This is such an easy game that it would be ideal  for a pirate birthday party, especially as there are eight of each playing piece.

The DJeco Piratrix Treasure Hunt is available from ToyJeanius for £4.95, which is an excellent price for a durable, quick, portable and fun game.

Readers of TheBoyandMe can get 10% off by using 'TheBoyandMe' at checkout (available on anything ordered from the site!)

I was sent this product for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.

Monsters and Pigs (Review)

by 6 Comments

There are two characters that The Boy loves more than any others at the moment: The Gruffalo and George Pig. Therefore when I was asked by Jokers Masquerade, if I'd like to review some fancy dress costumes for him, I chose them without a second's thought!

The first thing that I need to point out is the sheer quality of this official costume: the fur is thick and doesn't pull out, the colours and attention to detail are spot on, the seams are well constructed. The size is 3-5 years and as The Boy is very tall for his age (95th percentile) he found it very comfortable with quite a bit of growing space in it. The Gruffalo costume is available for the currently reduced price of £23.99.

The second costume we were sent was a George Pig costume. I was concerned before it arrived because I've tried tabard style costumes before and they are snug to say the least. In fact I squeezed my poor one year old boy into a Very Hungry Caterpillar costume for his birthday and had to yank his arms through, and that was sized three years. So when this costume arrived (aged 3-5 years) I was really pleasantly surprised by the sizing: roomy and well constructed with a velcro fastening to halfway down the stomach. At £14.99, it's very reasonably priced.

It's roomy and there's plenty of headspace in the hood section, you'll have to excuse the fact that my son is honking George's nose, he was obsessed with it! I was really impressed with the quality of this official costume again, it's spot on for pirate George!

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and read The Gruffalo and The Pirate Island for the eleventy billionth time!

I was sent these products for the purpose of this review. My opinion is honest and unbiased.

Create-A-World ABC Set (Review)

by Leave a Comment

The Boy is becoming incredibly interested in letters and words, he tries to follow our reading with his fingers, although obviously the pointing is quite random as he can't read yet. He's beginning to ask what signs say and finding letters around and about. When we were asked to review the ABC add-on kit for the Create-A-World that we'd previously reviewed, I was more than happy to accept in order to give The Boy some challenge and help him have something concrete to work with.

The kit comes in its own zippy fabric bag with a fuzzy felt style mat to lay the letters down on. This in itself means that you don't have to have the main Create-A-World set to use it. We've shown how it works on this video.

The ABC kit retails at £19.95 from Whitestep directly. I think it's a very good set to help your children develop their understanding of the alphabet, letters and phonics. And fun ways to teach children phonics is always welcome in this house!

I was sent this product for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...