Homeschoolingmama

We recently purchased the ToucanBox to try, after having read so many 5* reviews. Having had a play, I thought it would be nice to share our experiences and what we think! Toucanbox is an arts and crafts box, aimed at children between the ages of 3-8. The box is carefully designed to provide hours of fun, learning and creativity. What's inside the box? The box generally comes with a ToucanBox magazine, stickers, a sticker wall chart, and two hands on crafts activities.  The magazine provides more ideas and activities for children to do. The magazine that came with our box includes items such as 'how to make your own ice cream', 'build a robot', and 'turn yourself into a toucanoo'. The instructions on making your own ice cream are simple and clear enough for my 7 year old to follow, making it his project (and that is what you like to see). The magazine is further full of activities such as mazes, fill in missing words, game (sequencing game, or ...

We received this brilliant jumbo airport themed colouring poster in return for an honest review Airport themed poster Did you know colouring is a relaxation activity that has been used widely in recent times, for adults as well as children? With that in mind you can imagine how much the children and I had been enjoying colouring!  What makes this poster different? The design is intricate, the illustrations are fabulous, but the added humour makes this poster much more fun! The poster we have is airport themed, so each section shows the different parts of the airport, from arrivals, queues at check-in, waiting areas to the airplanes and passengers. Each of the sections has a story, from taxi accident, sleepy sloths to pilots reading an upside down map (little person is convinced they won't make their desired destination!). The added humour has provided us with lo...

During our home educating journey I made it my aim to share all the great resources we use alongside toys we've found useful and kids enjoy. So, on this list (sharing and caring list!) are bristle blocks. If you haven't come across these, they're soft blocks that easily interlock. The name Bristle comes from their appearance, each block has many bristle like structures, and it is these structures that lock together. As well as the squares, rectangles, there are wheels, triangles, circles, what we call windows (squares without middle section) and 'sticks'. Our set also contains a lovely family with their pet dog, and a few other animals. The blocks are great for all ages and can be used for a variety of games and skills. 3 year old enjoys putting the blocks together and trying to build a large structure, and 7 year old tries to make much more complex structures, such as living room furniture. For younger children, these blocks are great for hand eye coordinati...

BrainBox games have been quite popular, and over the last few years, I seem to be hearing a lot more about them. Therefore, it was definitely time to buy to try! I decided to purchase 'The World' game to begin with.  How does it work? The game consists of 72 cards, 1 rules card, 1 sand timer and 1 die.  'Our original BrainBox, designed for you to play with your family, will help improve observation and memory skills as well as knowledge of the world we live in.' The game we purchased is level 4, which is aimed at 7/8+. Games are available in levels 1,2,3,4,5 and level senior. The game has basic rules, for 1 player, using the timer you look at a card for 10 seconds. Turn the card over and answer the questions. As a solo player it's best to write down the answers. If all answers are correct, you keep the card, and total up how many you have after five or ten minutes. All of the answers are on the picture side of the card, j...

After thoroughly enjoying Bananagram, I was quite happy to read a comment on instagram mentioning a few number games of similar structure.  A read of reviews, views of pictures and a few hours of thinking, Numbalee won, and was swiftly purchased.  Numbalee is a 'fast paced numbers game', minimum number of players is 1 and maximum is 8. The absolute deciding factor for me, was the fact that Numbalee isn't just one game, there are 12 different games that can be played with the provided tiles, die and symbol pieces.  How it works The general rules for the game are quite simple, and these rules apply to a few of the games included (Numbalee, Numbalee solo, Numbalee colour run, Numbalee match). It's nice to see that the person who starts play isn't simply player 1, but referred to as 'Premier'. For Numbalee, the 'premier' is the person who has the highest number tile (all players t...