Tidy by Emily Gravett - A Review

Tidy by Emily Gravett- Our Book Review

We have read a few of Emily Gravett's books before and I loved her illustrations on a book we reviewed earlier in the year so were very pleased to be asked to review her new book 'Tidy'.

Pete the badger lives in a forest and likes things neat but in the end Pete takes his need to be tidy a bit too far and it is only after he makes too many changes he realises his forest was actually better the way it was before.

This book has some really lovely illustrations - we especially liked the one of the fox having his fur groomed by badger using a hedgehog! 

It is really well set up for younger children to enjoy the pictures and to try and sound out some of the words, each page is interesting with plenty to look at and it rhymes all the way through which we really liked and Lottie spotted straight away when I read it out loud.

We also liked the front cover which is quite special because it is cut out and it looks like badger is deep in his forest.

This is a really nice story with a good message which I have enjoyed sharing with my sister, I would recommend it for children age 3 upwards. Lottie is planning on taking it to school tomorrow to show her classmates so I am sure they will all enjoy looking at it too.

You can order your own copy here

A Poem by Me!

A Poem by Me!

We have been learning about rivers at school and in writing we were asked to write a poem about them. I really enjoyed doing this so thought I would add it to my blog.

The Journey

I begin in the mountains,high, high above,

Dripping down until I form a stream,

I bubble through moss

And drip down ledges, 

Trickling down the mountain

Rushing into a river, skidding on the bank,

I curve around and around.

Now I am deeper- you can't see my bed,

I softly swirl all around.

My current is less swift,

More soft,

I drop the mud.

You definitely can't see my bed now.

I see hospitals and skyscrappers.

I can feel trains rumbling under me,

The air is polluted.

I need to get out of the city!

Now I am in the marshes,

One step from where I want to be.

I mix with the salt.

I am here.

My trip is over!

by Luke age 8

Epic Imaginary Play with Gigi Big Building Blocks!- Bigjigs Play Patrol

Epic Imaginary Play with Gigi Big Building Blocks!

Bigjigs Play Patrol Our Latest Mission!

We were very excited to arrive home from our holiday to find a new delivery from the lovely people at Bigjigs. We opened the packaging box to discover we had been sent a box... full of boxes! Although not just any old boxes, they were the new Gigi Big Building Blocks to be precise. These are basically flat strong cardboard sheets ready for you to make up in to bricks and then you can just get on and play with them however you like.

The blocks were quite tricky to make up to start with and I needed my Dad to help with this but once they were done Lottie and I couldn't wait to get started.

In the set we were sent they came as a mixture of double and single bricks but can be purchased in several different combinations depending on what you want to use them for - this set of bricks has been perfect for everything we have wanted to use them for so far but we might like to add to them in the future.

Gigi Blocks- ready to be turned into amazing creations

The bricks stack up really well and can be used to make almost anything you can imagine- we have made a boat, a fort, a person and a television which we had great fun doing shows behind as well as lots of walls and mazes. The bricks are great fun in themselves just for building and using your imagination but also awesome because you can actually play inside your creation.

Look who's on Kids TV!

The other nice thing is that because of the cardboard they are made of you could even paint or draw pictures or patterns on them- we haven't done this yet but we definitely want to - maybe once we have build the perfect house we will decorate it! 

Lottie's new friend!

I really liked these blocks and Lottie loved them too- we did have some little arguments about what we wanted to build but we soon started working as a team and really enjoyed sharing ideas together. My Mum liked the blocks to as she said she liked watching us really use our imaginations and loved how much time we spent playing with just this one set - this really was the perfect toy to spend the last few days of the school holiday enjoying and I can see us using them a lot more in the future too.

Our monster!

Our First Mission! -Bigjigs Play Patrol 2016

Our First Mission!- Bigjigs Play Patrol 2016

We are so excited to be part of the Bigjigs Play Patrol and have been waiting anxiously to get started so you can imagine how popular our postman was when he knocked on the door with a special delivery for us!

We loved our Play Patrol T-shirts and tried them on straight away (they fit perfectly- thanks Bigjigs!) and Lottie especially likes walking round with the bag slung over her shoulder. 

I think Sam liked the look of our parcel!

Since we were both very little we have both had several Bigjigs toys which have been very loved. Our favourite is Lottie's puppet theatre which gets played with by every child who comes into our house and has now seen more performances than some real theatres!

We couldn't wait to see what the Bigjigs team were wanting us to try out for our first mission.



Tucked inside the box was a brightly coloured packet of what look liked felt tipped pens, however, on investigation we discovered they were actually solid poster paints. The packaging promised painting in a fun, easy and clean way which sounded like a very good idea to my Mum! We decided to spend the following afternoon testing them out.

The PlayColor One solid poster paints work brilliantly for painting- the finish looks exactly like normal paint but has the advantage of drying really quickly which is great because it means you don't drip paint everywhere and you can paint straight on top without the colours running together. The poster paints come out really nicely on normal paper and have lovely bright, cheerful finishes. I had fun trying the paints on black paper which also worked really well - although the instructions say there is also a metallic set available which would look amazing on black paper if you were looking for something a little different.

The PlayColor One paints arrived just in time as our task for the weekend was to get everything ready for world book day which included decorating vegetables to resemble book character so we thought it would be fun to test them in this way. The paint took to our potatoes well and dried really nicely- although unsurprisingly it did take longer to dry than on paper but this was a great solution for a quick project rather than mixing up paints, making a huge mess and then having to clean pots and wash brushes. We hope you like our veggies!

Once we had done our decorating it was time to tidy up- unlike normal paints there was no washing up, no brushes to dry, just some lids to put back on and some pens to pop in to the box. We didn't even have to get changed! A wetwipe did the job of cleaning the paint off skin perfectly and the tiny bit we did get on the table came off very easily with a quick wipe which pleased Mum no end. 

We really like the PlayColor One solid poster paints. We think these make a really fun much quicker alternative to using paint and would also be great if you were travelling as they are very portable and not at all messy. We will be taking ours on holiday with us and will be using them for our holiday artwork! 

So there you have it, mission one complete. Verdict- an awesome product which we would buy more of AND the bonus of our World Book Day homework being finished too!