Being sent to review Build-A-Bear Workshop must be every child's idea of heaven. We've not been before but my 5 year old had heard all about it and was incredibly excited. I'm happy to report it was everything he hoped it would be.

As soon as we walked in and over to the counter we were greeted by a big smile and made really welcome. A lady called Charlotte came to look after us.

We arrived an hour before closing on Valentine's Day, so the Valentine's bears were in short supply, but there were absolutely tons of  other bears to choose from. As well as traditional bears there are My Little Ponies, Spongebob and loads of different animals.




Next stop was to decide what we wanted to put into our bears. Charlotte was really patient and explained everything to the boys very clearly.We went to choose a 'sound' for our bears. Monkey was getting a Star Wars theme tune and there wasn't one to suit Panda so my son recorded his own bear noise.



They both decided they wanted a special heartbeat and a scent in their bears. The heartbeat, like the sound, is a plastic shape a little larger than a tealight, with an enclosed battery. The sound is placed in the hand before stuffing, and the heart goes into the bears chest. The scent is flat and again goes into the chest. We had cotton candy and strawberry and they should smell for a good 6 months.


Before stitching was the important job of putting a soft fabric heart into our bears. The boys had to take a heart and make it special by touching it on their cheeks to make the bears a little cheeky, their hearts to give it love, their heads to make it smart etc. When the hearts were full up with great stuff I had to give them a little kiss before the boys put their heart into their bear and the bears backs were sewn shut.








The detail on the clothes is fantastic. Pockets and zips, turn ups and a hole at the back for the tails! They're beautifully finished and really well made. The little shoes are great and the laces are even discretely sewn on so that they can't be lost. 


Before you can take your bears home they're registered on the computer. When the hearts go in, so does a tag that can be read by a scanner. Your bear is registered to you, so if you lose it and someone hands it in, it should make it's way home again.

I was impressed that Charlotte encouraged the boys to do their own typing - again she was incredibly patient! She also didn't laugh when they chose the names for their animals. We now have a Monkey called Star Wars and a Panda named after it's owner!




Build-A-Bear Workshop is not just buying a bear, it's a whole experience. Your child puts a lot of effort and personalisation into their bear. They make everything how they want it and it's really special to them. We were there for an hour, although it didn't seem like it, and I left with two boys who had been on great trip out and had something fantastic to take home.


I was really incredibly pleasantly surprised by Build-A-Bear. I expected it to be good, it was great. The interaction was fantastic, the staff were lovely, the boys had a great time and adore their bears.

Added together, especially with all the extras, it makes for an expensive package, but the quality throughout is superb, and really you aren't going to get anything like it for the prices you pay anywhere else. Bears actually start at only £9, which I feel is very reasonable. I will more than happily go back and pay around £12 for a little outfit or £5.50 for some pumps for Christmas or a birthday present.

I would advise anyone going to consider the size of animal they choose as some fit different outfits better than others. I'd probably also give my child a maximum budget because it would be incredibly easy to just buy everything as it's so sweet.

 There are loads of  extras you can buy for your bear including playsets, beds, raincoats, and my favourite - a wheelchair. My 5 year old has already asked for a skateboard and helmet for his panda for his birthday.

I think younger children who attend school and nursery really benefit from being encouraged to carry on reading and writing during the holidays because they're at the age where a week off is a very long time and can put them a step back.

We've 4 boys, and we've 3 girls - when they were younger the girls would happily colour and write and draw, whereas the boys think of the whole thing as 'work' and none of them, however different they are, have ever really taken joy from sitting for long with workbooks. It's always a challenge to find things that they're happy to do to keep them on track through the holidays, so here are a few of my ideas.

Printables

Holiday Cottages have a 3 free printable games that you can use to keep the kids entertained whether at home or out and about - Roadside Bingo, a Countryside Treasure Hunt and a Beach Treasure Hunt. You can download them here.

Tiny Me, the people who made our lovely wall stickers, have a great range of free printable activities for any occasion, and can certainly give your children a few hours entertainment making masks and door hangers and all kinds of things. Their printables can be found here. 

Games and Puzzles

Spending time playing games with your children is an excellent way to bond and make memories as well as reinforce learning about numbers and counting, turn-taking, being a good loser and honing fine motor skills. I very well remember playing Monopoly with my Father when he was off work and hopefully my children will remember playing games with me. 


Some of our most favourite games for younger children are Orchard Toys games, with Round And Round (age 3+) and Counting Caterpillars (age 3+) being great examples. For older children we like Drumond Parks Wordsearch Junior (4+) and The Magic Tooth Fairy Game (5+).

Reading Books Together

There is no better way to get a child interested in reading than to read with them and it doesn't have to be a purely bedtime activity. When your children are driving you bats, fighting or tearing about the house like madmen, 10 minutes quiet reading time can make all the difference. We love the Early Readers from Orion Books because it really is a team effort to read along with my 5 year old, with my 3 year old watching, listening and learning.

Cooking And Baking

All children love baking with adults, and it can be a super simple no bake like our Rocky Road, or something more complex like making their own pizzas for tea. Of course cookies and cakes are always popular too. It's fantastic for learning about all kinds of things - nutrition, science, weights and measurements, colour mixing, different cultures and even history. There are loads of excellent ideas on the Pinterest UK Official Cooking With Kids board.

Museums And Libraries 

 Libraries and most museums are free to visit and they're absolutely crammed full of interesting stuff to stimulate children and adults. They go to huge effort to lay on extra activities during the school holidays. We recently visited the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, who have a week of activities around Spies, Disguise and Ways To Hide - with a special focus on animals role in war time.

Screen Time

Screen time doesn't have to be mindlessly beating up aliens or racing round a track, it can be a fantastic tool for learning and keeping your brain working, and it's a brilliant reward or a break for a child who has been a star.

Heroes Of The City

Books that have accompanying apps. like Heroes Of The City (age 2+) or Robotslayer (age 5+) encourage reading and puzzle solving. Heroes Of The City has free levels and films to watch and The Robotslayer app. is totally free for half term week on IOS - you can download it here.


Online educational products are fun as well as teaching tools and your child will be learning without even realising as they play games and solve puzzles. We're particularly fond of Reading Eggs and there is a code for a free 4 week trial on my review page.

Lego

Build something together. Start a project. Stretch your own and your child's imagination. Build on fine motor skills and design ideas, problem-solving and logic skills. Create something you can be proud of. Playing isn't just for kids, adults need a break too....


Enjoy your break, and enjoy spending quality time with your children....

My 5 year old has an eye test at school today, so at some point I'll get a call from the school nurse to tell me that he's colour blind. I already know, I spotted it when he was very young because I've been here before. My 16 year old son is also colour blind (colour vision deficient).

I have always been around colour blind people. My brother, Grandfather and other male relatives were colour blind. My ex (of 15 years) is also colour blind, and my partner's father. This post hopes to answer some of your questions regarding the most common type of colour deficiency - Red-Green Colour Blindness. An inability to fully see red or green.

I was given the opportunity for 2 people to review The Neighbour's Chef restaurant in Oldham and I really was excited. We never go out, we don't have relatives nearby and there's always someone needs us, or a lift, or something. We could have Valentines a week early.  It's the perfect push we needed to actually take some time as a couple and dare to leave the teens in charge of the little ones. A meal out? Just the two of us? Ohhhh yes.


We booked our meal for 7.00, so by the time we arrived it was already bitterly cold and pitch black. The Neighbour's Chef is housed in a building which obviously used to be a large pub, so it's really spacious and had a good sized car park which is right off the main road and easy to spot. 

The waiter/owner came straight over and he was lovely, really keen and sat us at a nice table. He asked us if we were there through Groupon, so I had to come clean and tell him we were there for a review and bless him, he looked really nervous.


The restaurant was beautifully laid out, very spacious and neat. It was fairly early on a Thursday, so there were only 6 diners including us.

The Neighbour's Chef is so named because they wanted to bring together different foods and flavours from all of their neighbors throughout the world, so the menu features a fantastic array ranging from curries and noodles to risotto, pizza and nachos. Lots of items on the menu can be customised, for example you choose exactly how you want your pizza rather than just selecting from a list of 5.


I was especially delighted to see that the menu online is only 2/3 of the actual menu, there was an entire extra page - including a big veggie section!

It's instantly clear that the prices are really incredibly reasonable - the Neighbour's Chef Poppadum Platter at £2.25 is cheaper than it would cost me to buy 4 poppadums from my local take away, and the quality is great.


The onion chutney was incredibly fresh, I'd believe it was cut especially for us. When I make it at home it isn't that fresh when we get to eat it. There were 2 varieties of poppadum too - which is a first.

We also ordered a mixed vegetarian starter with onion bhaji's, pakora and samosas. Again it was really incredibly fresh and beautifully cooked, crispy and not at all greasy. When we'd finished there wasn't so much as a smear of oil on the plate.


Everything is freshly prepared by the in-house chefs and all of the meals are chosen for flavour, not fads or fancy names.

For main course I had the Chef's Special Vegetable Dum Pukht Biryani (at only £5.99) and my partner had Chicken Thai Green Curry. Again they were lovely - more lovely than my photography which was suffering slightly from the 2 pints of Cobra and the fact I actually had relaxed.


The Kulcha vegetable stuffed naan bread was gorgeous. I took about 20 photo's of it for some reason....and insisted on taking home what I couldn't finish....


Neither of us managed to finish our meals, and the waiter/owner was more than happy to 'doggy bag' it for us to take home - I did only take the remaining naan bread though.


Tragic as it was, we were not able to fit in a dessert, although I have a feeling I would have enjoyed anything from the menu...


Before we left, a quick visit to the loo and it was exactly as I expected. No frills but spotlessly clean.

The Neighbour's Chef is an independent restaurant run by a keen team who want you to enjoy your meal. They're very proud of their service - after we had eaten the waiter couldn't wait to bring out some amazing little tablets that turned into full sized hand cloths when he poured warm water on them.


We were asked throughout if everything was okay, but we were left alone to enjoy our meal, there was exactly the right amount of interaction.

A man who has every right to be proud of his business

I'll be honest, their website is full of spelling mistakes and 1/3 of the menu isn't even shown, but I'm not bothered because I'm not there to see how great a website they have - I'm there for the food and the experience. If they pumped all their money into website design then they could end up all hot air and no product.

I like to be able to support independent products and services, and I would definitely recommend The Neighbour's Chef to anyone. We've promised to return with our troop of children and we definitely will because the prices are excellent, the food is delicious and the staff are absolutely lovely. It's a place I would feel incredibly comfortable taking our children and I could be certain they'd ALL find something they loved on the menu. We might even go back again on our own.....

The Neighbours Chef regularly hosts special nights -
On Valentine's Day they have a Dance Performance and 3 course meal plus wine for £35 per person
On 23rd Feb they have a comedy night with Daliso Chaponda and Tony Vino and 3 course meal for £27.99 per person

Reef 2 - High Tide is the long awaited sequel to the 2006 film Reef, an animated tale of couragous little fish Pi, who is battling to save his reef from the evil shark Troy.

Due to be released on February 17th,  Reef 2 - High Tide sees Troy return with his shark friends and Pi once again has to try to save the reef. Anna from In The Playroom was lucky enough to take her family to the cinema to see the preview showing and her review can be found here.


Pi is grown up now and has his own family to protect, his wife Cordelia and his son Junior, so he decides to train his friends in the martial art of fu-fish. As is often the case everything doesn't quite go to plan....
Below is a printable activity sheet that you can right click and save and print off - other sheets are available on other blogs listed at the bottom of the page...



UK entries only please. The competition will end at midnight Sunday 2nd March 2014 when the Rafflecopter form will close. The first question is mandatory and an answer should be given as a comment on this post. Extra entries can be gained by completing more tasks as shown on the Rafflecopter form.

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More printable activity sheets can be found by clicking the following links....

Mama Mummy Mum
Mummy Of Two

We've got 5 big kids aged from 14 to 20, two of whom are starting College this September and going through the interview stage. My eldest has already been through College and done the whole University application thing, plus on numerous occasions written his CV for part-time job applications.

Whenever they ask for help I'm a bit stuck. I know what I would expect to see, but putting it all down on paper in a neat order is a really quite scary task. It's definitely not on a par with helping our 5 year old with his homework.

Our kids are quite lucky because in a previous life I used to interview candidates, and my partner used to work at a job club, but there's plenty we don't know (or have forgotten), and advising your own children about how to behave at interview, or why they should say they can play the piano on a College application is met with the same sort of reaction as when you ask them to do the dishes.

There are loads of resources out there to help, and vInspired has just released a Job Jumpstarter Pack which aims to cover most of the information anyone could possibly need.

"vInspired is a charity that helps young people discover the value of volunteering - for themselves and for others".

I started volunteering when I was 16 and had lots of spare time. I used to look after an elderly lady who was scared to be home alone at night, I took a lady who lived in a residential home to adult education classes and I spent an evening a week at the local Mind social club. All of these voluntary jobs were roles that were giving something extra. No-one would be paid to do these jobs, they just wouldn't have happened without volunteers.

Volunteering is something that gave me a real head start when I started work. I already had more confidence and understood something of how it feels to be a worker. I had references and experience. I had already proven myself reliable and hard working, able to use my initiative and work as part of a team. I had tons of stuff to write on a CV.

I don't believe in taking people's jobs, or young people being taken advantage of, but I firmly believe that volunteering is valuable thing for everyone, which is why I'm more than happy to do this post for vInspired.

They've asked me to promote their  Job Jumpstarter Pack which has CV templates, an interview checklist and sample questions, tips on filling out application forms, advice about how to make yourself stand out and something I think is very important for young people now - being aware of your internet footprint. Everyone now has information, comments, photos on Facebook and other places, and your potential employer may well look at that. What does your internet presence say about you?

Heroes Of The City is a new children's programme that's creating quite a stir. Created in Sweden, it features a group of 3D-animated vehicles who travel around doing heroic deeds and rescuing the everyday folk who live in their town.

There are an array of products to support the DVD series, including die cast vehicles, books and a Movie app. and we were sent a selection to have a look at, including Heroes Of The City DVD Volume 1.


The DVD contains 5 episodes and they're all nice stories about being helpful and sensible. The characters are familiar looking and friendly and will appeal to younger children. My 3 year old especially enjoyed this.

The cars are metal die cast on a plastic chassis and my son loves the fact that he can look for them in the book and see them on the DVD.

The book is A4 size and excellent quality. The story is easy to follow, with some unfamiliar new words and ways of saying things, which I always think is a great thing. A child's vocabulary doesn't have to be 'babyish'.


We were also given free access to test out the Movie app. The app. has a free selection of a game, a movie and a music video, so you can try before you buy, and then the additional games and content are bought individually, so you don't have to pay for parts that your child won't use, but I think in total if you bought everything it only adds up to around £10.

All together the app. includes 9 games (a jigsaw, matching game, firefighting game and loads of others) and features over 6 hours of movies - enough to keep any child occupied! It is best suited for children aged around 2-6 as it deals with very basic play and would lack challenge for an older child.


My son is nearly 4 and during a very long and tedious hospital visit last week we were able to really try it out.  We didn't go online when we were in the hospital, so we focussed on the games. My son really enjoyed them, he found a lot of reward from completing the challenges and moving up the levels. He tried most of the games and he actually enjoyed the matching game most of all.

Cooking for 7 or 8 every night can be hard work, so I very much look forward to take away night. When hungryhouse offered to provide us with a Chinese New Year Celebration evening I wasn't going to turn that down!

We couldn't take part actually on Chinese New Year because 3 of our family would be out, so we decided to celebrate the following Saturday when everyone would be there. We're used to that, we have Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve every year.

Our celebration wasn't only about food - we were also sent a party pack and vouchers to cover entertainment.

We all like movies, but couldn't agree. We could only think of Kung Fu Panda and Mah Jong to 'play'. The big kids didn't want Kung Fu Panda and Mah Jong is beyond the little children. Someone mentioned Sushi and everyone got excited. Now, clearly Sushi is Japanese, but they all wanted it to be part of our day, so I let it pass on the grounds that it would be a properly fun thing to try and there are still parts of Japan following the Chinese calendar, so in Okinawa for example, Chinese New Year is celebrated rather than 1st Jan (tenuous I know).

We bought all the goodies we needed and had lots of fun through the day.


Making Chinese dragons and playing with the fans....


Decorating Treasure Boxes.....

 
And filling them with real treasure....


 .....and everyone had a go at making sushi!


We made cakes which we coloured red and finished off  with special Chinese Year Of The Horse cake toppers.




Then it was time to order....and it went a bit wrong. We started trying to order at 5.10pm and the hungryhouse website broke...


And then it really broke....


And at 6.30pm I had to give in. I fed us with something quick from the freezer.

I live with an I.T. guy, I know it's a nightmare when the website breaks, in fact my partner had spent most of Saturday at work instead of at home because HIS website had broken. We have a lot of sympathy for situations like this, and a quick look at the Facebook or Twitter feeds and it was very clear that this isn't something that we could see has ever happened before. 

On Sunday people had to go out at 6pm, but luckily hungryhouse listed a Chinese take away that opened at 4.30pm. The website was fixed, I was able to pre-order our meal early in the day and at 4.35pm I got an email to say my order had been received and would be with us at 5.20pm.

At exactly 5.20pm....


It went down a treat and was a lovely meal....hurrah!



After dinner, dessert - Fortune Cookies for everyone!


We were given £25 towards our food. We only had one suitable Chinese take away, it was a little expensive for meals, cheaper for sides, so the bill came to £50.50 for 8 of us, which is standard with all our teenagers and everyone wanting something different!


Bad points
50p surcharge for Credit/Debit cards
If the website breaks then it all goes wrong.
You have to trust that they've actually got your order, it feels strange not talking to someone live.
Your favourite take away might not be listed


Good points
Pre-ordering for a specific time
Paying by card, you don't need to have cash in the house
You can see everything really easily, what's included with your dish, what you need to add on
You can leave specific instructions - eg. Vegetarian, no tomatoes etc
Nothing should be missed off, you check your order
Everything is written down
The hungryhouse website will split your order if there are a group ordering together, so that you only pay your own bill but all the food comes together. I think this is brilliant and I'd have used it many times.
You might discover a real gem that you'd never have tried.
You can leave instructions if your house is awkward to find, and the take away can refer back to them instead of trying to remember what you said!
You can compare location, menu, reviews, prices and opening hours really quickly.
There isn't a fight over who rings up!

I will definitely use the hungryhouse website again because it is so easy and simple. The second time everything worked perfectly, I ordered in 5 minutes and it was lovely to be able to add notes to the order, and not be flustered on the phone trying to remember to mention someone doesn't want carrots....*sigh*

Most suited to youngsters aged around 7-12, Hero is a sweet tale with a focus on courage and helpfulness. With nearly 300 pages this is a proper book for a fairly confident reader, but the language used and format are nice and gentle, so it's not beyond most 8 year olds who enjoy reading.


Although you'd perhaps make the initial assumption that a book about a dog would be more girlish, this book doesn't favour either boys or girls in my opinion. It's an emotional story which will bring a lump to the throat of most readers, but the lead role is a boy named Leo.

Hero has lots of interesting characters who are introduced quite slowly into the story - boys, girls, adults and canine. It also features interesting topics that encourage the reader to find out more and explore a bit - Jupiter, Roman Centurians, even baking. It doesn't condescend, but it doesn't stretch too far. I've read some to my 5 1/2 year old, and I've paused and explained at times, but he's not given up, he's learnt.


Sarah Lean is also contributing to this year's World Book Day on 6th March, with a release called Jack Pepper, which is available to buy for £1 or with your World Book Day token from school. Jack Pepper is a prequel to Hero, a little add-on story which fits into the series nicely, but can also be read on it's own.

Hero is released on February 27th 2014, with a recommended retail price of £6.99 and is currently available to pre-order on Amazon for £5.80.

HarperCollins have kindly offered a copy of Hero as a prize for one of my readers. Entry is by rafflecopter below.  The first entry is mandatory and the answer needs to be posted as a comment on this page, and you can earn additional entries by completing extra tasks. UK entries only please.

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