Tales of the unexpected with The Boy, my pride and joy.
The biggest sporting discussion to happen this year won't be about Andy Murray winning Wimbledon. No, this year he gets a break, and the nation debates how many gold medals Britain will get in the sporting event of the decade! The Olympics need little introduction to most people, but for children they are an unknown quantity; how do you explain it, especially to a pre-schooler?
Well, introduce them to the concept through this rather nifty new game from Orchard Toys.
I'll make no bones about it, I adore Orchard Toys games, there is not a single one I don't think highly of. We've built up a sizeable collection of different games this year and they are played, and loved, regularly. Our penultimate review as a Toyologist family is for the Orchard Toys Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes game.
Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes is a simple turn-taking game suitable for 3years+. The Boy is two and a half years old and coped with the basic principle of the game with no problem at all.
Of course the best bit about any Orchard Toys game is the popping out of the pieces to start with!
1) There are 32 body parts cards which have to be placed figure side down and coloured circle side up.
2) Assemble the jigged game boards. There are four in total, and they show the eight different body parts that are mentioned in the song.
3) Spin the coloured spinner to land on one of the four colours.
4) Pick up one of the coloured cards matching that colour.
5) If you haven't got that body part card, lay it down on your board. If you have, return it to the pile, and miss your turn.
6) The winner is the person who has all the body parts covered first.
Afterwards, the winner must sing the song of the game:
The rules supplied by Orchard Toys suggest additional rules which can make this more challenging for older children. In addition there are also four 'wild' cards which show all body parts on the card. When these are picked up then they can cover any body part on your board. I didn't use these because I felt the concept was too hard for him to understand at the moment.
One of the best things about Orchard Toys games are the educational guides that are on the back of each box. This is no exception:
The pieces are, as always, sturdy and attractive, and the spinner moves easily (always a bonus). As with many Orchard Toys games, the rules are adaptable for the needs of the child. It's a fun game which can be played in a short amount of time or in more detail. This is a complete and utter winner with us!
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We were sent this for the purpose of the review. Our opinion is honest and unbiased. Oh and I had to bribe The Boy with chocolate to sing the song for the video.
I have been so fortunate this year to have reviewed a variety of toys and puzzles for Orchard Toys, some directly and some through the Toyology scheme. I am a massive fan of their quality and beautifully illustrated products, and The Boy adores them, begging to play their games at any opportunity.
I've recently been sent one of their most popular games to review, and I am lucky enough to be able to offer Shopping List as a blogoversary competition prize:
But the ever generous Orchard Toys have not only offered the original Shopping List game, but also the booster packs: clothes and fruit & veg!
To be in with a chance of winning this must-have blogoversary prize, simply fill in the Rafflecopter form below:
I've got some recommendations for you. Hope you don't mind? I will try not to overwhelm you with daily posts, but there are some products that I'd like to share, starting here today with my recommendations for presents under £15 for Pre-Schoolers.
These personalised flashcards are an absolutely gorgeous way to communicate with your toddler or baby. They are incredibly easy to make on the Who Loves Me site: simply upload a photo, input a name, choose a symbol (from one of forty+) to go on the back and type a sentence about that person. We've had these made for The Boy with me and hubby, and both sets of grandparents included, as well as my sister's children. I'm intending to supplement these with pictures of his other cousins and aunts and uncles.
Not only do they help your little one to remember who people are, but they can be used to help language development and, for the more curious amongst us, creating a little family tree. Made from thick card, with a very deep finish to the colour; these are long-lasting and excellent quality.
Price at £1.99 a card, £11.99 for 8, £17.99 for 16
These fantastic tangrams are very sturdy and made from thick cardboard (75% recycled materials). They are an ideal toy to help develop awareness of shapes and colour, promote problem-solving and logical thinking, with the aim being to use them to create a variety of different picture. Think fuzzy felts but on a bigger scale and less likely to get broken.
A pre-cursor to mathematical development and spatial awareness, these are a cracking addition which I know that The Boy is going to adore playing with!
Priced at £2.25
Obviously, I've blanked out The Boy's name with baubles!
For us this is going to be the perfect Christmas book. The Boy is starting at playgroup after Christmas (eek!) and he adores Peppa and George. What better way of explaining to him what will happen and encouraging a positive attitude to it than getting his favourite porcine to tell him all about it in a personalised Peppa Pig book! Creating the book is easy; simply select the gender, hairstyle, hair colour, eye colour, skin colour and input your child's name, and the rest is done for you. For those children who have already started playgroup and are going onto Nursery, Pre-School or 'proper' school, those options can also be selected. There is also the option to have a message printed on the first page.
I love the story, it really promotes the first trip to playgroup as a positive experience, with your child featuring on every page, being the centre of attention and shown to be really clever. Now, do they do one for mums to help cope with the trauma?
Available from Prezzybox for £14.99
The Boy absolutely adores the ABC song, sings it at least eleventy billion times a day and can recognise the letter in his own name. The next step is to try and encourage letter recognition from different parts of the alphabet. His curiosity has been piqued with the alphabet magnets on the fridge. He asks what the letters are.
The Eric Carle ABC Game involves both upper and lower-case letters of the alphabet. The object of the game is to be the player who collects the most animal cards. The 52 spaces on the board feature all the letters of the alphabet in both upper and lower case. Every time a child lands on a letter space, they have to look at the cards and find the animal who’s name begins with that letter (Big “A” is for Big Ant, little “a” is for little ant). The correct letter is printed on the back of each card to check the answer is correct. By using the spinner and counting up to four spaces, they will also reinforce their counting skills.
This nifty little art set is fun with a difference. Using the ink pads to print the tips of their fingers onto the paper, little ones can then use one of the twelve different stampers to create animals, people, plants, etc. There are coloured pencils included to add more detail to the images. Endless possibilities for pictures and creative play, this is bound to go down a treat with children aged three years and upwards: being allowed to get mucky? Great fun!
Available for £7.95 from Prezzybox
And because you lot know me only too well, this list of recommends would not be complete without a gem from the lovely ToyJeanius!
This beautiful duo-puzzle is perfect for teaching your little-ones how to match up an animal to its habitat. With the trademark vibrant Djeco illustrations, each of the ten puzzles is made up of two pieces; one piece has a picture of the animal and the other has a picture of their usual home. It's made even easier for younger children because the background colour of the matching pieces is the same. Depending upon your little one's stage of development, you can use just a few of the duos or all of them, with small children being able to match the puzzles by colour, learning the names of the animals and their habitats as they do so.
I love Djeco products for the quality and sturdiness, the timeless appeal and the ingenuity of their products. You can get 10% of this product (or any others that you fancy from ToyJeanius) by entering the code 'TheBoyandMe' at the checkout!
Available from ToyJeanius for £6.95
The Boy has recently developed a taste for cars. Cars and jigsaws! As long as he can 'brum' a car along then he's a happy chappy. Give him a 24-piece jigsaw as well and he's in seventh heaven!
Now wouldn't it be good if someone combined the two together?
Well, the genuis that is Orchard Toys have! They've created an extra large floor puzzle in the format of a road jigsaw. Now strictly speaking this is not a typical jigsaw: as there are a great deal of combinations that can be created from the 20 chunky pieces which include corners and junctions, as well as straight roads.
The Boy is obsessed, seriously obsessed, with singing nursery rhymes at the moment. And he does so beautifully, right up until the time that I get the Flipcam or voice recorder on my phone out. Then he clams up and refuses to utter a sound. However, one way to get him singing it to play the 'Nursery Rhymes jigsaw set' with him. When the 'Jack and Jill game' from Orchard Toys was delivered for review in our recent Toyologist box, I saw an opportunity! He knew what the picture on the box was showing straight away and started singing it. Could I get the Flipcam out in time? What do you reckon?
This is a beautifully illustrated and brilliant game designed to encourage your little one's to communicate, share and play together nicely. I'm more and more aware of the need to develop The Boy's socialisation skills over the forthcoming months (Nursery next September, eek!) and so sharing is a target to work on.
The set contains:
* four double-sided boards,
* four different coloured character pieces and stands,
* a spinner
* a numbered die
* a coloured die
Each board has a coloured stone at the beginning of the path up the hill, this matches up with the colour of your Jack and Jill. The player boards are double-sided for differentiatied playing. One side has coloured spots on each stone in the path; the other side has a plain stone path. The spinner has six sections on it; three wells and three spilt buckets. It is worth noting that the wells sections are bigger than the spilt buckets, which means the chance of having to 'move back' a space is lower than moving forward. Always a good thing with little ones who want to be the winner!
Players roll the colour-spot die, move their Jack and Jill card to that matching stone on the path and then spin the spinner. If the arrow stops on a well, then the player stays on that stone; if it lands on a spilled bucket then they must move back to the beginning. Play then moves to the next player who repeats the process. Obviously, the first person to reach the top of the hill, and the well, wins.
In the counting game, the numbered die is used. The only difference between the coloured game and the numbered game is the obvious one: move the number of places shown on the die, not to that colour. This variant of the game is designed for older children than three who have a better understanding of counting.
We have just used the colour game so far as The Boy is too young to try the counting game, additionally we've not used the spinner with him because he didn't understand why he had to go back to the beginning once he'd started to move up the path. However, this is one of the things that I love about Orchard Toys; the games are adaptable to the needs of your child. Technically this game is for three years and older, but The Boy is two and he is capable of playing it and enjoying it.
I tested the two 'proper' levels out on my five year old nephew and eight year old niece, and they both understood them and thoroughly enjoyed them.
This game is brilliant fun and of course, encourages your little one's development in various ways:
Do you know what Mr. TheBoyandMe and I have always wondered though about that rhyme?
Who on Earth builds a well at the top of a hill?
The 'Jack and Jill' game is available in-store at Toys R Us. For more reviews, please click the banner below.
I am a massive fan of Orchard Toys; I think that they are one of the best toy companies around with fun, bright, attractive and educational games and puzzles for little ones. I've often seen their games in the nursery and infant departments in school, and the children are always having fun with them. I covetted them for many years before having The Boy, and since having him I have been desperate to get to the stage where he can play with them. Now he is, and we're so lucky because in last month's parcel from Toys R Us there was another Orchard Toys game to review.
Alphabet Lotto is one of their excellent bingo style games but this is one has a differentiated twist to it with four different ways to play. In the sturdy box are five lotto boards, each one a different colour, and double-sided with six spaces. One side has pictures with the object's name written underneath (the letter or phoneme is highlighted more prominently) while the other side has the corresponding letters. This piqued my teacher interest straight away, how very clever of them to have written the word underneath, but highlighting the first letter/phoneme is really genius and allows for a lot of expansion and teaching through this game.
The third and fourth ways of playing this lotto game come through the lotto cards. There are two sets: one of letters and one of pictures, each have thirty cards in the set. Yes I know there are 26 letters in the alphabet but I did mention phonemes didn't I? They have chosen four of the most common ones and have cards for 'th', 'sh', 'wh' and 'ch'. The lotto cards are not double-sided, I don't know if that was a conscious decision or not, it might have helped to connect the sound with the image more easily, but on the other hand it provides another use for them as the children can then match the sound up with the pictures which creates a fifth game! I've put the letter cards in a plastic wallet out of the way for the moment, because obviously at two years old The Boy is too young to use them.
We don't play lotto yet in a conventional way yet, he's just that bit too young to understand about taking turns although we will soon be working on it with him and this is an excellent way to promote it. Instead, he helps mummy and daddy to find the (face-up) cards on their boards. This is an excellent way to help develop his matching skills (pre-maths skills) and the recognition of images is so important (pre-reading skills). He loves it and finds it great fun!
I would thoroughly recommend Alphabet Lotto for any child who is approaching nursery or reception to help develop their understanding of letters and sounds. I would also thoroughly recommend this for anyone who just wants to have fun with their child!
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I am a massive fan of Orchard Toys and have been lucky enough to review several of their products, as well as buying them or having them passed down to me. The Boy has learnt how to do 24 piece jigsaws because of their progressive jigsaws (like the Nursery Rhymes jigsaw), and as well as being bright and attractive, they are robust, made from FSC cardboard and are British made.
They are currently running a competition to win one of their most popular products, the beautiful Teddy Bears' Picnic jigsaw. This 15-piece jigsaw is a really lovely example of their work and they are running three classes of the competition: 3 and under; 4 to 5 years and electronically coloured (in a paint programme) 4-5 years.
If you pop over to the product page, you'll find a colouring page which you can print off for your children to colour in. Alternatively there is an electronic image that your little ones can colour in and send back to them.
For more detailed information about the competition, click here.
Closing date is August 31st 2011, so you have plenty of time.
I cannot even begin to convey how big a fan I am of Orchard Toys. The British brand produces some of the best games and toys around on the market, and that's both mummy-voice and teacher-voice speaking there.
We were recently sent Nursery Rhyme: Four in a Box jigsaws to review, which came at the right time because The Boy has become very interested in puzzles lately.
The images used on the puzzles are: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star; Humpty Dumpty; Jack and Jill; and Hey, Diddle, Diddle. Which is, quite frankly, ever so convenient as these are his favourite rhymes at the moment! If you are unsure of the words (I'm certainly not, that much I can assure you) then they are written on the back.
I’ve recently been sent the game ‘Red Dog, Blue Dog’ by Orchard Toys to review with The Boy. The game is a first colour match lotto aimed at 2-4 players and children from 2-5 years and priced at £9.25.
When he first saw the box, The Boy was extremely excited and eager to ‘ope’-n it up, he then spent ten – fifteen minutes examining the four different lotto boards, identifying the pictures on them, and then popping out the lotto cards from the punched-out templates. He took a shine straight away to the card with the blue spider on it, and spent much of the remaining morning carrying it around clutched in his hand!
We’ve brought the game away with us on our mini-holiday as I decided that far from the madding crowd would be a good place to help us concentrate and test the game out. The players comprised of mummy, daddy and The Boy, with Oliver Monkey refereeing to ensure fair play.
We haven’t played the game strictly according to the rules as the game is aimed at 2-5 years and The Boy is only 21 months; he doesn’t completely understand the concept of taking turns. However, this shows the adaptability of the game.
We started by sorting the cards into colours, he was able to help us do this quite easily and it was quite reassuring that he could do this as he hasn’t always put the right name to a colour, but in doing this he showed us that he was aware that they were separate and that he could sort. I chose to do this because there are six different coloured objects on each board, but there are not six colours of each object (as there are only four boards).
Next we took it in turns to choose an object from the board for him to find; I am extremely pleased that whether we were asking him to find a blue spider or a red spider, he was able to identify the colours. So even though he can’t remember the names at the time, he does know what the colours are. Playing this game will help consolidate his knowledge of colours. He thoroughly enjoyed finding the game, and I could see his eyes flitting between the cards as he was trying to identify the card he needed.
My husband and I were discussing other uses of the game afterwards, and I suggested that we could use the cards to play ‘Pairs’ or as a colour sorting game. As both a parent, qualified nursery nurse and primary school teacher, I think that this is an extremely adaptable and suitable game for toddlers and infants. A feature that I like on the box is the Orchard Toys’ Educational Guide, which suggests:
I would agree with those educational outcomes but also feel that it will help to develop children’s pre-mathematical and reading skills (identification of shapes and colours, plus the objects’ names are written on the cards).
Definitely a winner in this household!
Tidying up is part of the game!
To be in with a chance to win your own copy of 'Red Dog, Blue Dog' either follow Orchard Toys on twitter (@OrchardToys) or 'Like' their Facebook page
Extra entries are available through:
– tweeting the following: I want to win an @OrchardToys 'Red Dog, Blue Dog' with @TheBoyandMe https://www.theboyandme.co.uk/?p=1197
– following me on twitter (@TheBoyandMe)
– subscribing to my blog.
Don’t forget to tell me what you’ve done, or you’ll only receive one entry!
Competition ends Thursday 31st March 2011 at 8pm.
Open to UK residents only.
Winners will need to reply to my notification e-mail by 8pm on Saturday 2nd April 2011, or I will draw another winner.
The winner of the competition is Jenny Paulin. Congratulations Jenny, a new baby last night and now an Orchard Toys game for new baby's older brother to play with!
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While I received this game free of charge to provide an honest review, I have not been offered any other reward for my opinion.
