Sylvanian Families Candy Wagon Product Review

We are already big, huge, ginormous fans of Sylvanian Families.

My daughter started collecting them aged 4, with Beechwood Hall.  She's now approaching aged 10 and they are still a firm favourite.  My 8 year old son enjoys playing with them too, and they create whole worlds together with shops, tree houses, the hospital, camper van - this list goes on and on.  So we were delighted to be asked to review the Sylvanian Families Candy Wagon -

My daughter swiftly went to work setting it all up.  The picture above shows the completed set in it's entirety. 

As you would expect, it has all the detail and quality you expect from a Sylvanian Families product.  Gorgeous little boxes of treats, a wagon, a stand, an abundance of vibrant lollipops and adorable little sweet dispensers.  Be warned though, this set is not for the younger Sylvanian fan as there are lots of very tiny pieces, which were a delight for a child my daughter's age.   Her favourite pieces by far were the little treat bags that come with tiny clips and you can fill with the product of your choice (pictured below). She was absolutely enchanted with them.

Once she was set up, lots of her own Sylvanian Families (the set itself does not come with any figures - these are sold separately) wanted to visit.......

She set up her Ice Cream cart, garden swing & items from the Toy Shop & Nursery (all our own, also from the Sylvanian Families range) and it wasn't long before we had a host of Sylvanian families queueing around the block for the Candy Wagon........

It really is a lovely addition to any Sylvanian collection and a perfect gift for any child.  My son, who is 8 years old, wanted to add that he would give it 5 stars out of 5 and that Sylvanian Families are perfect for both boys and girls and are something that the whole family can play with.

Information on all Sylvanian Families products can be found on http://sylvanianfamilies.net/uk/

Letterbox Lab - Product Review

We were very excited when this bevvy of Marvellous Mixtures quite literally came winging it's way through our letterbox recently from Letterbox Labs -

Before we even got started we were in love with the packaging! So neatly put together, gorgeous little corresponding bags and a super full colour instruction booklet to follow & fill in with your results.

Literally everything you need for each experiment is included - from goggles & gloves to every ingredient, even sugar & felt tip pens!  The only thing we ever needed to add was water.

My children, aged 8 and 9, both love science - the more hands on the better!  So this was absolutely perfect for our studies, but my son would have loved it just as much as a birthday present.  Infact he has asked for chemistry sets before and we've always found them disappointing as the instructions are too protracted and they usually rely heavily on you having a lot of the ingredients in your kitchen.  We loved Letterbox Lab because we could get stuck straight in.  There were clear Health & Safety instructions at the start of each experiment but they were concise and easy to follow.

We started off experimenting with Chromatography -

It worked well for us that Letterbox Lab include extra's of everything - so there is enough materials to do most experiments twice or more.

After learning about Incredible Inks through the process of Chromatography, we moved on to making Rainbow Glasses - using diffraction grating.  My daughter decided to use our own felt tip pens to make our rainbow glasses truly look like rainbow glasses!

They were very simple to make  and it was great fun viewing the world through rainbow-tinted spectacles! And learning all about light at the same time.

We then moved on to make Rainbow Spinners, further expanding our learning about inks, light and colours.  We learnt which colours are more dominant and that some colours react entirely differently to how you would expect.

Our favourite experiments were the Liquid Rainbow & the Brilliant Breathless Balloon -

As a parent and Home Educator, I loved how the experiments all build on from one another, they have open questions for your inquisitive young minds and expansion ideas if the concepts have captured their interest.  I also loved the fact you can guide the children but they are able to do all the hands on stuff themselves, which of course they love.

Both of my children loved the booklet and decided they wanted to write up the experiments and record their findings in their own folders.

There really is so much packed in to this clever little box.  It has been so well thought out and executed.  We came back to the box day after day for new activities, it kept us entertained for a long time and we still have our Squirmy Worms to do!

The lovely people at Letterbox Lab have given me a special discount offer for readers of Our Alternative Life.  Simply quote "BloggingMama" on your first subscription and you will receive 15% off.  If you opt to pay monthly you will receive 15% off your first box, if you pay quarterly you will receive 15% off your first three boxes.

Go to:-  www.letterboxlab.com to subscribe.

Smartick Method Maths Program - Product Review

We were recently given the opportunity to try the Smartick Method Maths Program.



This is an online, AI-based adaptive Math program for children ages 4 -14.  The basic premise is that the children do 15 minutes per day, aiming for at least 5 days a week - although they can do all 7 if they're really keen (trust me, they will be!)

The Smartick program is cleverly tailored to each individual's learning.  Starting out, teachers or parents register the number of users for the program.  In our case, this was DD (9) & DS (8). 

There's an initial 'getting to know you' session, set to gauge the ability of the individual child - awesome!  We loved this, as the program was truly tailored to them individually and thus they did not feel competitive with each other to achieve certain 'levels'.  They simply worked through their appropriate program at their level and pace.

Once this initial session is completed, you can start your daily sessions.  Here are some examples from some of our sessions -

Now, my kids love to do anything if it's on the computer.  Happily for me, they actually both really like Maths anyway, so this was an easy sell on my part.  They couldn't wait to get started.

The program is reward based, so it really hooks your little gamers in :-)  From the first session, they are able to create their own Avatar character at the end.  And just like the program itself, they are truly individual. 

Then, session by session, the rewards build.  The more sessions they do (no more that 1 a day, don't worry) they earn stars which then give them access to a village where they can decorate their own room, buy things for it, make friends with other children on Smartick that are linked to their user - so in this case DS & DD.  Once they are friends they can use their stars to 'buy' and send each other gifts. They can even 'buy' dressing up outfits for their Avatar and pets to look after.

After a number of sessions, the children then earn access to various games that they can play at their leisure, after each session.  Here are a couple of examples of DS's favourite ones -

Once the sessions start to build up, the children can also earn diplomas, which are downloadable, printable, personal colour certificates. 

In addition to the actual online program, the administrator (you the parent, or teacher) will receive an Email update each time each child completes a session - detailing the Learning Objectives of each session, what they have been working on and how they did.  You also receive an Email reminder if your child misses a session, but it there is no 'consequence' for missing sessions, so no pressure.

This was of vital importance to us as DS is Autistic and DD Aspergers.  While DD thrives on repetition and routine, DS can become overwhelmed easily if he feels pressured.  Happily, this program adapts to both their learning styles and therefore is truly accessible to all.  DS was able to skip sessions if he needed to and there was no pressure or 'sad faces' or 'where have you been' type memes - he simply logged back on to the next session and picked up where he left off.  This was all very positive.

Likewise, because the program is tailored to the individual child, he didn't feel in competition with his sister if she had 'more stars' as they were both working at their own level, with their own rewards, so neither felt any competition with each other. And they loved the aspect of buying gifts for each other, which was super sweet.

Another feature we liked was that you are able to go back and correct your mistakes at the end, thus learning from them and having that learning reinforced.

From a Home Educators point of view, it was wonderful to have the opportunity to review a product as unique and individual as our children.  There are no targets, the product encourages self-motivation and does not restrict or limit a child to curriculum confines or 'age-appropriate' learning.  The sky's the limit - children are encouraged to engage, enjoy and pursue their learning for it's own reward.

And from a Bloggers point of view, I found the company extremely professional and approachable and easy to work with. They have developed a great product and are justifiably proud of it.

You can watch a Smartick presentation here - Smartick Presentation

Sign up for a FREE 15 day trial period HERE