Being Mrs C

Review: Miffy at School

Compared to many others we were actually quite late to the iPad owning party and it was only at Christmas that I was lucky enough to get my hands on a mini as a gift from Mr C. As a result I've always been rather keen to hang on to it myself rather than let Little Miss C loose on it. Until now. 

She's off to nursery school in September and when we went to look round they pointed out how they have both iPads and laptops for the children to use. We're also travelling abroad next month for a wedding and I'm pretty sure that an iPad will come in very handy for keeping a three year old amused whilst travelling and away. 

Miffy at School Main Menu

It therefore seemed perfect timing when we were asked to review the app Miffy at School which has been released to help celebrate Miffy's 58th birthday next month.

Helping Miffy Follow the Route to School

The app is in three parts. The first is an interactive story book where the story of Miffy at School is read, but interspersed with activities for children. Children can help Miffy find the route to school, practice drawing loops, count on an abacus and move block shapes about to fit on a template. Little Miss C loved the story and joined in the games very enthusiastically. She always understood what she needed to do quite easily and they were all really good at helping develop her fine motor skills as well as teaching her some numbers and getting her ready for handwriting too. It was interesting to see that she always wanted to trace from right to left, rather than left to right, but hopefully the game will help her understand that she need to do it the other way.

Drawing practice

As well as the interactive book there are also three games which children can play: a memory card game where children need to find matching pairs, building with blocks and a "make your own card" game. LMC loved the memory game and the block building, but the make your own card bit made her a bit frustrated.

Making our own card

The idea with it is that you drag shapes on to the drawing surface and then tap on them to colour in the sections. The sight of coloured pencils in the top right hand corner of the screen confused LMC (and me at first) as she thought that you could choose your colour and then draw free-form with your fingers, much as you can in other apps and when you're tracing lines during the interactive story. A bit of a shame that this wasn't the case, but it didn't distract from the rest of the app for long.

The final part of the app allows you to record yourself (or your child) reading the story. With Master C making rather a lot of background noise at the time we didn't fully try this out, but I could see it being really good to record Mr C reading the story before he next goes away so that LMC can still have him reading her a story. 

I'm delighted to have found this app as I hope it will help keep LMC entertained when we travel, as well as being eductaional. And after all, who doesn't love Miffy?

The Miffy at School app is available to download from the iTunes store and costs £2.99.

Disclaimer: We were gifted Miffy at School for the purposes of this review. 

Review: Bigjigs Garden Tools

Within two hours of our first Bigjigs Play Patrol parcel arriving it started raining. Not much of a surprise with this year's weather, but seeing as they sent Little Miss C some garden tools to review it has made reviewing them properly a bit challenging!

I need to start by saying a few words about the Play Patrol scheme though. Not only did Master C enjoy his first testing assignment, but Little Miss C was amazed about the idea of toys being sent to the house by the "train jigsaw people" as she likes to call Bigjigs. And very excited to have a new bag to take to nursery and a "jigsaw T-shirt" to wear.

Once she found the Garden Tools that she had been sent to review inside the backpack she was even more excited. Before I had a moment to see what she'd been sent she'd already run to the back door to get her wellies and was ignoring the threatening dark clouds and out of the door to play in the garden!

The three hand tools in the set are all absolutely adorable. A trowel, small rake and a fork, all with wooden handles and metal heads. The metal parts are in bright primary colours (and nicely rounded for safety too) whilst the handles are different cheerful characters. Along with a smiling face they have ribbed bodies and cute little ears and noses. Even LMC said that they were "too cute for the garden".

Cuteness didn't stop her taking them outside though and very soon she was digging in the flower pots where we've been planting seeds and in her sand table. Their size is perfect for little hands and she had a great time using them until the rain became too much for us both.

We've had hail here today. In May. And the lunchtime weather forecast also suggested that some parts of the country have a real risk of snow tonight. In May. Should the weather improve these Garden Tools will be perfect for doing a spot of gardening with your children and I think they'd make a great gift for any child with a summer birthday. I just hope they don't end up digging in the snow with them!

Disclaimer: We were sent the Garden Tools to review as part of the Bigjigs Play Patrol scheme. You can follow Bigjigs on Twitter and Facebook.

Review and Competition - Red Ted Art: The Book

I know I'm not the only person who let out a small squeal of delight when I heard that there was going to be a book version of Red Ted Art. Maggy Woodley's popular children's craft blog, Red Ted Art, has won awards and for many parents it is the first place they go when they are looking for craft projects to do with their children. Maggy's projects have also appeared elsewhere, both online and in print, and for her readers it seemed natural that the next step would be a book and finally the waiting is over.

The subtitle of Red Ted Art the book is Cute and Easy Crafts for Kids and this really does sum up the book perfectly. Not only are all the projects easy to do with your children - thanks to the clear concise instructions - but when you look through the book the photography is so stunning and the end results so adorable that you'll struggle to decide what to make first.

In Maggy's true style she tries to use as many recycled and natural materials as possible in her projects. There's a whole section of projects using toilet roll tubes and another on stones. If I had to find one "complaint" it would be that we can't do all the nut projects, in particular the peanut finger puppets, due to a peanut allergy in the family. A big shame as they're super cute, but I can't exactly blame Maggy for that one!

We decided to start Little Miss C off with one of the simpler projects in the book - apple and potato prints. I'm quite ashamed to say that we've not done printing like this before. I've no idea why not as it's incredibly simple and she really enjoyed doing it, but then sometime you just need someone to suggest something obvious and simple for you to actually do it.

We started off just making patterns with half an apple and some paint and LMC thought that it was great fun to use an apple like this. She's not a huge fruit and veg fan at all when it comes to eating them, so I'm particulary keen to make sure that she doesn't shun all fruit all the time.

After printing with the apple we moved on to the potato and this is where one of Maggy's genius ideas comes into play. A quick bit of work with a kitchen knife (not something LMC's read for yet) and rather than the usual square or star we had what LMC described as a "potato waffle" shape. The versatility of this shape is that you can use it either horizontally to make a red London bus, or vertically to make a city skyline. Combine the two and you can make a lovely London picture.

My art work is no where near the quility of Maggy's but you can see how easy it is to do.

I am just completely in love with this book and have already been recommending it to so many people. I've heard of one other mum who has bought a copy for her children's school and I'm actually considering doing the same for Little Miss C's nursery. It would also make a lovely present for a child, or their parents.

Win a copy of Red Ted Art: Cute and Easy Crafts for Kids

If you want to get your hands on a copy of the book then look no further. I have one copy to give away to a lucky reader. All you need to do to enter is to leave a comment on this blog post telling me what your favourite recycled craft material is. Fill in the Rafflecopter widget below and cross your fingers. Extra entries are available if you follow BeingMrsC on twitter, or like my Facebook page. Full T&Cs are linked below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Edited to say that this giveaway is now closed. I'm delighted to say that the winner is Karen Howe.

Disclaimer: I bought my own copy of Red Ted Art and have also purchased the second copy which I am offering as a competition prize.

 

Princess Evie's Ponies: Confetti the Magic Wedding Pony

Simon and Schuster have sent me several Princess Evie books to review in the past and I have to admit that as I've not really liked the look of them much before (too much pink for my liking) I've not sat down and read them properly with Little Miss C and not reviewed them on here. This week Confetti the Magic Wedding Pony arrived and Little Miss C pounced on it as soon as she saw it. It seems she's got a bit of a pony obsession that I hadn't even realised - sorry! 

In each of the books (eight in total now) Princess Evie goes off on an adventure with one of her magical ponies. In this book she is taken to a castle ready to be bridesmaid at a wedding and Confetti is given the job of pulling the bridal carriage. When a pet dragon(!) goes missing with the wedding rings Princess Evie and her backpack of useful things comes to the rescue.

Despite my views, LMC absolutely loved this book. The pop-up version of Confetti at the back of the book is a lovely touch and allowed her to act out her own stories with it once we'd finished reading the book. The fact that I was instantly able to pull out a couple more books in the series gave me mummy bonus points, but I do feel rather bad about my own prejudices against girly books like this.

Disclaimer: Simon and Schuster sent me a copy of Princess Evie's Ponies: Confetti the Magic Wedding Pony for the purposes of this review.

Ping and Pong Are Best Friends (mostly) - Tim Hopgood

Who can resist a couple of penguins called Ping and Pong? Not me that's for sure!

Basically, Ping and Pong are friends, best friends, but whenever Ping tries his hand at something he finds that Pong can already do it, but a million times better. Haven't we all had a friend like that? The question though is whether or not it is worth losing friends over.

I'm not going to spoil the ending, but I have to say that it's wonderful to see a children's book addressing both the good and bad things about friendships as it's something that is so important to children. Little Miss C really enjoyed reading this and the illustrations are brightly coloured to hold her attention and very cute.

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of Ping and Pong are Best Friends (mostly) by publishers Simon and Schuster for the purposes of this review.

Review: Plenty Super Strong

I have to admit that when I received an email asking me to review Plenty Super Strong my first thought was "what on earth is there to say about kitchen roll?" But this particular PR had written a lovely personalised email so I took the time to read it again properly and agreed to go ahead. I sent over my postal address and didn't think much more of it. When a delivery man knocked on the door a couple of days later and handed over a large heavy parcel I was a bit puzzled.

When I unwrapped it and found all this I was both delighted (after all there were Yorkshire tea bags AND chocolate in there) and still puzzled. I then found a letter from "Juan Sheet" of the Plenty TV adverts fame and things became a little clearer. 

The special thing about Plenty Super Strong is that it is designed to give the cleaning power of a cloth in a paper towel. The "specially bonded structure" means that it doesn't fall to pieces when it becomes wet or when you try to scrub with it. To prove just how strong it is Juan wanted me to do one simple test with it - slip it through the handles of the shopping bag that they'd sent me (complete with all the shopping you see above) and try to lift it up. I was sceptical. After all a carton of apple juice and things like sugar, pasta sauce and washing up liquid aren't exactly light. But then seeing as Juan was asking I thought I ought to give it a go and I got Mr C to video the results. For completeness and as a control (ever the scientist!) I also tried it with a sheet of the supermarket own brand kitchen roll that we usually use. 

I was truly amazed! The Plenty Super Strong does feel very different to other paper towels that I have used in the past as it has much more of a "quality" feel to it - thicker and more textured. In terms of using it for the sort of jobs that I usually use paper towels for I was really impressed. Firstly I often give LMC a piece of kitchen roll whilst she's eating her breakfast so that she can use it to mop up any milk that she spills from her cereal as she goes along. If she's having a particularly messy breakfast it will often be in shreds by the end, but the Plenty Super Strong was still complete and I could then also use it to wipe up the rest of her table once she'd finished. Normally I'd have to go and fetch another cloth to do this.

Master C is experimenting with having water in a sippy cup at mealtimes, but his lack of coordination and desire to just bang it against his high chair tray means that there's quite a bit of mopping up to do at the end of the meal. Again the Plenty Super Strong managed all this and still had the capacity to be used to wipe up some water that had spilled on to the floor too.

We often use a piece of paper towel when cleaning windows, but sometimes you're rubbing so hard (especially to remove sticky finger prints) that it disintergrates. Once again the Plenty Super Strong worked wonders. Fully intact, no annoying little bits stuck to the window and I had to use less than I would normally do.

There is no doubt that there is a hygine benefit in using new paper towels when cleaning up around small children compared to one cloth which will breed germs when left by the kitchen sink, but there is also an obvious environmental impact in doing so and I asked the PR that I dealt with about this. At present I put all used kitchen roll that has not had contact with any cleaning chemicals into my "green composting" which is the food, cardboard and garden waste that the local council here in St Albans take away to compost in a heated environment. Plenty Super Strong is biodegradable and and will compost in this way. They don't recommend it for home composting as the lower temperatures in a traditional garden compost heap would mean that it takes a while to break down. Again you must make sure that if you've used any chemical cleaning products on it you don't then put it in any compost bin.

I'm actually really really impressed at Plenty Super Strong and even more amazed at just how much I found to say in reviewing it! I had always previously just though that kitchen roll was kitchen roll and that there was no real difference between brands. As a result I always just bough the supermarket own brand and didn't think any more about it. They say seeing is believing and that couldn't be more true here. If the shopping bag strength test doesn't demonstrate that then I really don't know what will.

Disclaimer: I was sent a packet of Plenty Super Strong for the purposes of this review and also the bag of shopping that you see in the photograph to allow me to carry out the shopping bag strength test. Despite there being chocolate in the shopping bag I can promise you that this review was not swayed by it and everything I have written is 100% honest!

Review: Bigjigs Farm House Sorter

We are absolutely thrilled to be in the final 12 bloggers being considered for the role of Bigjigs Play Patrol Agents. For the final stage of the process we were sent a Bigjigs Farm House Sorter to review and we've spent the last week putting it through its paces.

Like the majority of Bigjigs toys, the Farm House Sorter is made of wood and is a house shape with two removable roof tiles and a convenient carrying handle. Along all four sides of the house are cut-outs for the eight animals (horse, cow, chicken, sheep, duck, pig, cat and goose) and tree shapes that it comes with.

The first thing that strikes you with the Farm House Sorter is the lovely build quality that I've now come to expect with Bigjigs and their wooden toys. It all just feels really good in your hand and the animal shapes are very tactile - I've seen Little Miss C running her hands around the shape of the animals several times since it arrived. The paint work is bright in colour and very accurately done. The animals have been dropped onto our wooden floor several times already and still look as good as new and that's because it's been designed to be really played with rather than just looking good.

This is the first time that I've seen a shape sorter with the shape cut-outs on the sides rather than the top surface and to be totally honest I'm not sure how well this worked. LMC initially tried to put the animals in the holes, but then got frustrated that they didn't stay there, as she wanted to see the farm house with all the animals in position. When the sorter is on the floor or on her play table she's normally coming at it from above and therefore just takes off the roof sections and reaches in for the shapes. In this plan view she doesn't really see the cut-outs and since that first day she hasn't really used it as a shape sorter at all.

That doesn't mean that she hasn't played with the sorter though - far from it. Hours have been spent playing with the animal (and tree) shapes separately and the farm house has been carried all around our house with a variety of different toys inside it. It's a nice size for small hands to hold and, despite being made of wood, not too heavy for her to carry around.

All the shapes can easily be used independently from the farm house, with the exception of the tree. The others all stand up nicely on their own, but the base of the tree is slightly rounded meaning that it doesn't easily stand up. As a result LMC has used it on its side as a bush instead - rather an innovative solution I thought. The animals have also been integrated with her Bigjigs train set to help swell the ranks of track-side accessories.

The reverse side of all the shapes have the names of what they are printed on them. These worked really well with LMC's current obsession with letters and words and we've managed to come up with loads of different games based around these. I like the fact that they've used a lower case font for all the letters as this fits in well with the way in which children learn lower case letters before upper case ones.

In the week that we've had the Farm House Sorter here both children have fallen in love with it. It may not be being used as a shape sorter, but the fantastic thing about Bigjigs toys is how they can be used in so many different ways for educated play. In just seven days we've managed to come up with eight different ways in which to play with the Farm House - how many more can you come up with?

 

Disclaimer: We were sent the Bigjigs Farm House Sorter to review as the final part of our Play Patrol application. You can read Little Miss C's application letter to work for Bigjigs here. Now that bids are being invited to run the East Coast Mainline too she's keen to help Bigjigs out with their application!

Learning letters

Just over a month ago I wrote about how Little Miss C has started to show a real interest in letters and numbers and how we're trying to encourage her and help her to learn what the individual letters are. In this last month she's come on in leaps and bounds and now recognises several letters and can also say what letters certain words start with.

Whilst at nursery they use Jolly Phonics to teach children to read, but at home we're currently trying to do things much more organically - whilst also trying to keep track of what works and captures her interest and what doesn't. We have plenty of resources that we're trying to use depending on the situation and LMC's mood and enthusiasm at the time.

In the bath we have some foam letters that we have been using for some time now. At first they were just something to play with physically, but now we encourage her to find specific letters and help her to spell out words that interest her on the side of the bath. We find it a great opportunity to work with her as she always seems to be interested at this time of day and whilst in the bath she's also has less toys around her than in the middle of the day so it seems to hold her attention better. (Maybe this should be a lesson to us about just how many toys she has available to her during the day?)

We also have a set of magnetic letters that she likes to use either on the fridge or on her magnetic easel. Again we encourage her to find specific letters and also help her to spell out words that interest her - mainly her own name and the names of objects around us. She sometimes likes us to write letters for her, either on paper or on her chalk-board, but she doesn't yet have much enthusiasm for writing them herself. She enjoys drawing, but we suspect she is left-handed and at times she prefers to hold a pencil or crayon with her fist clenched around it rather than the "tripod-hold" that they try to encourage as part of the EYFS.

One of the popular Montessori methods used to teach children letters and numbers is to get a child to trace the shape of a letter with their finger, either using a textured outline of the figure, or using a figure cut-out in a piece of card. Last year I made a set of fabric numbers to be used in exactly this way. She's not yet that interested in using these and I'm actually wondering if for some reason she doesn't yet recognise them as figures, but more just decorative shapes that have been hanging in our hall for a while. Maybe it's time to try again with them.

I have discovered a few books that make use of the same principle and LMC does enjoy tracing these with her finger, but I've realised that she often tries to do so with her right hand. If she is left-handed I'm not sure if I should be encouraging her to trace with her left hand or not. Does tracing the shape with one hand mean that a certain side of your brain is used to do so? If so does this help the child learn and remember better? And should a child be encouraged to trace with the same hand regardless of whether they're left or right handed? I think I ought to do some more reading up on this!

Disclaimer: The book in the picture is First ABC that we were sent to review by Little Tiger Press. A full review of that and Count 123 will follow soon.

Review: Ravensburger Crime Scene Investigation Set

When I was a child I had two favourite books. One was a children's guide to being a spy and the second which was a guide to being a detective. Full of tips and techniques, these two books pretty much summed up what my career aspirations were when I was about 8 and to be honest I'd be pretty happy with either of those jobs now too. If someone had handed me this Ravensburger CSI set (part of their Science X range) then I think I would have probably exploded with excitement. As it is even as an adult it is pretty fantastic.

Developed by Mark Benecke, a German crime biologist and specialist in foresnsic entomology, the CSI kit really is packed full of activities that children can undertake to help them understand how crime scientist really work in the field and how they go about trying to solve crimes. The kit itself includes several things to help you in your quest (safety glasses, tweezers, tape measure, evidence bags etc) but in my mind the most valuable thing in there is the book which explains all about crime scene investigation and sets out the 12 activities for children to undertake.

For each activity there are very clear steps as to what to do and also why you are doing it. There are "tips from the pro" and also statements from Mark Benecke himself about certain things. I actually found his description of why he developed the crime scene card that is included in the kit fascinating. As a means of understanding the scale and colour of something that is photographed at a crime scene it is excellent.

The activities range from simple ones of collecting evidence and taking fingerprints right through to taking an impression of a footprint. The most far fetched has to be determining the time of the crime which involves leaving a tin of cat or dog food out in different weather conditions and monitoring flies and their larvae on the food over time. Pretty gruesome stuff but also very realistic. Possibliy not an experiment for the feint hearted though!

I thought this kit was absolutely fantastic and an excellent way of introducing a child to crime scene investigation and the role of science in doing so. If the accomanying instruction books in the other kits in the range are as good then they would make excellent resources for any child with an interest in science. As someone with a degree in electronics and a strong interest in how we teach science and engineering to children, I'm particularly keen to get my hands on the Electronics and Circuitry set to give it a good road test. Is it too soon to write a birthday wish list?

Disclaimer: I was sent a Ravensburger Science X Crime Scene Investigation kit to review.

Monkey Nut - Simon Rickerty

Sending a book called Monkey Nut to a household where someone has a peanut allergy probably isn't the best way to get a good review of something, but then Simon and Schuster weren't to know that.

Unfortunately though this book just didn't quite work for us, even putting all allergies to one side. In this book these two "thing" fight over a single monkey nut before an elephant comes along, breaks it in two, eats then nut and gives them half a shell each to play with. Now the first problem we had was the two "things", one red and one blue. I had absolutely no idea what they were supposed to be and nor it seems did Little Miss C. She asked if they were spiders, but then they didn't have the correct number of legs. A third black one joins the other two, but I was still no wiser as to what there were supposed to be and yet LMC kept asking on every page.

My second problem was with the nut subject. I like the idea of the "things" using their imagination for it to be lots of different things and the conclusion where they were able to share it, but I found myself having to explain to LMC that the nut shell could break and the elephant would just eat the nut inside it. Parents are actively discourage from giving children of her age nuts to eat as they could be a choking hazard so she really struggled to relate to the subject matter.

We originally tried reading this as a bedtime story, but there isn't really a "story" running through the book and hence it wasn't really suited to that time of day. It fared a bit better when we sat down on the sofa with it in the middle of the day, but it just didn't really have a satisfying ending if you know what I mean.

A shame as we enjoyed Simon Rickerty's The Yoga Ogre when we reviewed that last year. It just goes to show that not all books suit everybody.

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of Monkey Nut to review by Simon and Schuster.