Review - Science4you science kits for children

If you ask Harry what he wants to be when he grows up, his immediate answer is 'a scientist'. This stems from the fact that whenever he asks me anything complicated I say "ask Daddy, he's the scientist". Not that I'm completely ignorant when it comes to scientific manners, but Ram does at least have a degree in a scientific subject! So the chance to review some simple science kits for children was a great opportunity for Harry to have a go at being a scientist himself. He very much enjoyed getting into character, what with the state of his shirt after school he certainly looks like he's been in the lab all day!

We were sent two kits from the Science4you range. The first kit that we looked at was Science4you Water Science. The recommended age range is children aged 6 and older, Harry is 5 1/2. He is nowhere close to being able to do the experiments by himself, but we had a lot of fun doing them together. Mia was also around while we were working on this kit and she was pretty entertained by a lot of the experiments too, especially those involving bubbles!

The Water Science kit contains materials and instructions to carry out 27 experiments. The kit doesn't contain every single thing that you will need, although most of the materials are easily available from around the house. Some of the experiments can only be done once, and others can be done over and over again. The booklet included with each kit is very comprehensive, with detailed instructions and plenty of additional information to help explain the science behind the experiments.

I think that I was just as surprised as Harry when the first experiment worked! You just need to put some water into the beaker, place a piece of paper over the top and then quickly flip the beaker over. Harry was absolutely fascinated that the water stayed in the beaker when it was upside down, with just a piece of paper holding it in, and we had a lot of fun waving it about, placing it over each other's heads and so on, without spilling any.

Putting cut white flowers into dyed water and watching them change colour is a classic experiment, but we've not tried it before, and the results were pretty impressive. The flowers acquired a blue tinge within minutes, and the next day were beautifully blue. Another experiment that took a few hours to work was the water beads. I've seen these often used in sensory play for little ones but never actually used any myself. The tiny beads absorb water and turn into little jelly balls which are a lot of fun to play with and have been bouncing about the house ever since.

We also did experiments using plastic bottles, tubes, straws, bubbles, syringes and more. I will admit that I couldn't get all of them to work first time, which Harry fortunately accepted because of course I'm not a scientist. The instructions also include the scientific explanations for the experiment, it helps if you understand it a little bit yourself as they are quite complicated and I needed to try and explain it to Harry in a way that he could understand.

The second kit that we looked at was Science4you Slimy Factory Slippery Slugs. This kit has a recommended age range of 8 years and older. This wasn't a problem for us at all as we were doing the experiments together but we did scoot Mia out of the way as the experiments involved quite a bit more concentration, as well as substances that I wouldn't want a younger child to be playing with. Here are the contents of the kit:

Unfortunately there were a couple of bits missing from the kit, but I contacted the company and received replacements within a few days.

The Slimy Factory Slippery Slugs kit lets you carry out 17 experiments. Because this kit is aimed at slightly older children it is a little more complicated. For the first set of experiments you need to make Sodium Alginate and Calcium Chloride solutions. It's pretty basic, and just involves a bit of measuring and adding water, but to little ones it does feel like you are carrying out some real, scientific experiments.

You can use the Sodium Alginate in the diluted Calcium Chloride to make little blobs in a variety of different colours. The solutions keep for a while so you don't need to do it all at once. Harry loved using the pipette to make some fake 'fish eggs' as you can see in the video below. You can use a similar method to create 'worms' and 'tadpoles'.

Another experiment uses 'magic powder' to make your own bouncy ball, which Harry loved doing. Once it's ready you can use it for several other experiments in the kit, for example measuring how far you can bounce the ball, along with instructions on how to create a table for recording results.

Finally an experiment that both children enjoyed was making a jelly seahorse. You just need to mix up the special powder with some hot water, pour it into the mould and leave it for a couple of hours. I must confess that the first time we tried this I read the instructions wrong and added too much water which didn't work, luckily the kit contains enough powder to make two seahorses!

When you remove the seahorse from the mould you have a jelly seahorse which you can keep soft by storing it in a zip lock bag. I made a quick video just to show that Harry did manage to do most of it by himself, under supervision!

Harry didn't get much of the actual scientific explanations involved with these kits, but then I didn't expect that. At his age it's enough to see the sorts of things that you can do, without needing to know all about why. He'll cover these topics at school in a few years, for now it's just about having fun, and he certainly had a lot of that!

These were both great little kits and would make a nice alternative to a toy as a gift. It's nice to buy them with the intention of actually doing them with your child, not just to supervise but also so that you can explain a little bit about what is going on using the instruction book to help.

We received these two kits to review.

Crafting for Christmas 2014 with Baker Ross

I'm a part of the Baker Ross Bloggers Network, and from time to time I'm lucky enough to receive a big box of craft supplies to enjoy with the children. The latest box we received was filled with things to get us crafting for Christmas. It may still seem early, but as we are going away before Christmas this year I very much enjoyed the opportunity to make a head start on some of our Christmas cards and gifts!

We started by making some Christmas cards. We used a pack of six Hanging Stocking Card Blanks. The pack comes with envelopes and silver cord which you thread through the top of the cards so that they can also be used as ornaments. We decorated them with Glitter Bow Stickers and Self-Adhesive Pom Poms. I'm not usually very keen on crafting with pom poms, as I find them difficult to keep stuck in place with glue. This pack comes with a small double-sided sticker for each pom pom, which was great for keeping them stuck firmly in place.

Both children loved doing this, Harry used the pom poms to make Christmas designs on the stocking and Mia loved using the bits and pieces to decorate, trying to copy Harry by placing the pom poms neatly in lines. We finished them off with some glitter glue.

Then the children decorated some Ceramic House Tealight Holders using some Glitter Porcelain and Glass Paint Pens. The paint pens are brilliant, they produce a really bright, vibrant colour and it's easy to control how the paint is applied. I kept them away from Mia as I was worried about them staining the table, but they washed off fine. The house tealight holders are really sweet and they both had a lot of fun decorating them (Mia just used felt tip pens and they also worked well). You can use a normal tealight inside, or we received some LED Tealights which are great for little ones, they even flicker realistically and the children loved them. The tealight holders will make a lovely gift.

Finally we made some little Christmas gift boxes using a Christmas Gift Box Kit. Each box kit is individually packaged and contains a sturdy cardboard box and decorations. The set contains everything that you need to make a Father Christmas, a reindeer and a snowman gift box. The boxes are a nice size for sweets or you could fill with shredded paper for a smaller gift like jewellery. We had a lot of fun making these, and I love how the children have gave them such expressive little faces!

Christmas craft kits like these are great to have around the house in the run up to Christmas if you need a seasonal activity to keep the children occupied, with a satisfying finished product.

I received these products as a member of the Baker Ross Bloggers Network.

The last year with a pre-schooler

Last week we waved Harry off into Year One, and my final year at home with a pre-schooler began. I can't believe that in a few weeks we'll be filling in an application form for little Mia to start school.

She's been going to nursery two mornings a week for a year now, and from this term it will be free as it's all covered by the government free childcare scheme which is excellent. This time last year I'd assumed that we'd put her in for an extra session from September in preparation for starting school, but now that the time has come we've decided not to as I want the extra time with her. It's a private nursery, so she does long sessions anyway which include her lunch and are almost as long as a school day. She also has the experience of seeing Harry go out to school and doing the school run everyday, so I hope that she'll find the transition pretty easy.

I remember before Harry started school thinking that I really must make the most of the time, and I think that we did. We had a lot of fun crafting and learning at home, and we've always been a family to enjoy day trips and outings. Mia is quite different to Harry, she's less inclined to sit down and concentrate on something. I'm often to be found sitting at the table doing Hama beads with Harry while she jumps about behind us on the sofa. I feel that she's not quite in the same place academically as Harry was at this age. It's not her fault at all, I'm afraid it's second child syndrome! So there are a few things that I want to work on with her, like learning how to recognise and write her name, and practising colours and shapes, while of course still doing lots of fun things like sensory play and crafting.

I've not really thought about what I'll do when Mia does start school next year. Obviously getting a job would be a good idea, although I don't know what sort of job I could do that would fit nicely into school hours and/or be paid enough to cover any extra childcare costs. After being out of work for nearly two years I feel completely out of touch with the kind of work that I used to do. I'd love to be able to make something of my new found interest and skills in blogging and social media, but there's a lot of work that needs to be put in to get myself out there.

I'm feeling that I should come up with some kind of bucket list of things to do before Mia starts school, but I don't want to be left feeling inadequate if we don't manage to do them all! So I'll see how we go, and make the most of this time!

Ladybird Tuesday - Stamp Collecting

I think that most people collected stamps as children, I know that I dallied with the hobby although I didn't get very far, I do still have my album though! The Ladybird book Stamp Collecting is from Series 633 - Hobbies. I do love this series although I don't own many from it, I did look at Tricks and Magic a few weeks ago. Stamp Collecting was published in 1969 and is one of the earliest books in the series.

The book begins with an interesting history on the history of stamps, and some fascinating facts. For example, because England was the first country in the world to use stamps, there was no need to put the name of the issuing country on it. The omission of the name of the country has remained a feature of the stamps of Great Britain ever since (or at least until this book was published, that information may be out of date now!).

The book continues by introducing early postage stamps from both Great Britain and the other countries that began to use their own stamps, beginning with Brazil and parts of Switzerland. As more and more countries started to produce stamps, they became more interesting and became illustrations of things like historical events, famous people and industrial or agricultural products. The book takes a look at stamps which fall into different categories, for example ships, animals, music and paintings. It's a nice introduction to collecting stamps based around particular themes. 

I'm guessing that stamp collecting is still a popular hobby today, although perhaps not as popular as it once was. I'm pretty sure that most schools don't have a stamp club today like they did in 1969, although I expect you could find one around locally. I really liked this book, it inspired me to get my old album out again!

If you love Ladybird books, do pop over and visit Ladybird Tuesday, where Being Mrs C is assembling a really comprehensive catalogue of Ladybird books and reviews.

Below you can find links to all my Ladybird Tuesday book posts.

Snow White and Rose Red
Hansel and Gretel
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
The Three Little Pigs
The Old Woman and her Pig
Little Red Riding Hood
The Ugly Duckling
The Railway Children
A Little Princess
A First book of Aesop's Fables

A Ladybird Book about Knitting
More Things to Make - For Special Occasions
Easy to Make Puppets
Learning to Sew
Stamp Collecting
Tricks and Magic

Prehistoric Animals and Fossils
Dinosaurs
Stone Age Man in Britain
Great Civilisations - Crete
Charles Dickens
Nelson
Lives of the Great Composers Book 1
Lives of the Great Composers Book 2
The Story of Music

Plants and How They Grow
The Ladybird Book of the Night Sky
Sea and Air Mammals
The Farm

The Story of Nuclear Power
The Motor Car
How it Works - The Computer
How it Works - The Rocket
The Story of Ships
The Postman and the Postal Service
People at Work - The Nurse

Understanding Numbers
Talkabout Clothes
Going to School
Teaching Reading

Stories of Special Days and Customs
Christmas Customs

Girls and Boys - A Ladybird Book of Childhood

Review - Hafoty Farm Cottages in Snowdonia

We've recently returned from a lovely summer holiday in Wales. We stayed for the week at Hafoty Farm Cottages near Caernarfon in Snowdonia, and we stayed in Ysbugor cottage.

I must admit that the main reason we booked this holiday was down to price. Ram found the cottages flagged up on a bargain forum that he frequents, and we thought that their prices represented excellent value for the end of August in the school holidays - we paid £440 for a week in a six bed cottage. We could have paid just £325 for a four bed cottage, but as our children are such poor sleepers I'm afraid that we opted to pay the extra so that they could have separate bedrooms!

There are six cottages, and although close together and all occupied when we stayed, we heard nothing from any of the other visitors (I hope that they would say the same about us!) and it was quiet and peaceful. Each cottage has its own parking space at the front and private patio at the back, with views across Caernarfon and the coast. There is a communal laundry room (£3 per load) and drying room. The cottages also have excellent fibre speed wi-fi!

Ysgubor cottage is arranged over two floors. On the ground floor is the entrance hall, bathroom and two twin bedrooms. On the first floor is the kitchen, dining and living area and the double bedroom with en-suite. The cottage was lovely and clean, with everything that we needed. The cottages were easy to find and in a great location for nearby attractions and access to Caernarfon.

These are my photos of the cottage, but you can find much better ones on the Hafoty Facebook page, where there is an album for each cottage.

This is the view from the top windows at the back of the cottage. Beautiful! We also saw some lovely sunsets as the sun came down over the sea.

We visited lots of places in the local area, but we also explored close by with a short walk down the Slate Trail which runs along the back of the cottages. We didn't get that far, but it was interesting to see the old station platform at Rhostryfan just down the road.

We found plenty to do in the local area. Below are links to detailed posts that I have written about places to visit nearby that we enjoyed as a family:

Caernarfon Castle
Greenwood Forest Park
Sygun Copper Mine, Llanberis Lake Railway and the National Slate Museum
Llechwedd Slate Caverns

My husband and son also enjoyed the Electric Mountain tour while I spent the morning in the soft play there with my daughter who was too young for the tour. We really liked Abersoch with a big sandy beach, and we took a fairly short, pushchair friendly walk to Aber Falls which are beautiful.

If you are holidaying in the area then I'd definitely recommend Hafoty Farm Cottages!

Harry moves into Year One

In the blink of an eye, Harry's reception year was over, and this year he started in Year One.

It's a bit of a change for Harry because the classes have all been mixed up. His school goes from three Reception classes to two Year One classes, with one mixed class taking the oldest children in the year. He only has six or seven children from his old class in the new class, and we had no input, it was all decided by the school. Luckily he will be with some of his good friends, and they will still be mixing at play times. The change doesn't seem to be bothering him at all.

Like all little ones at school he is now entitled to a free school lunch, and even though he is a pretty fussy eater we are going to give it a go. It's the only thing that he seemed to be worried about so I've tried not to make a big thing of it - if the worst comes to the worst he won't eat it and I'll make him a snack when he gets home. He'll still get a cooked dinner in the evening with the family. I'm hoping that it might encourage him to try a few different things.

He also returns to school as a glasses wearer - over the summer I took him for an eye test and he is ever so slightly short-sighted. I've sent him in with his new Lego glasses (NHS glasses have really come on since I was little!) and instructions to wear them when using the white board.

Harry was definitely ready to go back to school and I'll be glad to have the routine back. I thought it would be nice for him to start contributing to the blog a little bit, so I asked him to tell me how he felt about going into Year One.

This is what he said:

"(There will be...) less play time and more learning time. I am excited about starting Year One because I like learning and I want to be a scientist when I grow up. I'm a bit nervous of having a new teacher. I'm going to make some new friends."

Llechwedd Slate Caverns, Snowdonia

The final attraction that we visited on our holiday in Snowdonia was the Llechwedd Slate Caverns in the heart of Snowdonia.

We were lucky because we only had to wait for a few minutes at the ticket desk and then managed to get straight onto the next tour. The tours run every 15 minutes, but you might need to wait for the next tour with spaces. Although you can book tickets online in advance to save waiting at the ticket desk, you can't choose a specific tour. So if you are visiting when it's likely to be busy (for example in the school holidays on a rainy day!) then it's worth arriving early as I can see that you might end up with a wait!

We donned the obligatory hard hats and boarded the train down into the mine for the Victorian Mine Tour.

The train into the mine is the steepest cable railway in Britain. Harry was a bit apprehensive as it's quite a small train and as you go down the lighting is quite dim, but it's not a long journey and he was fine. 

At the bottom, the guide gives you a brief introduction to the mine, and then you move through a series of caverns with a short stop at each for an audio and visual presentation that focuses on the mine as it was worked in Victorian times. This part of the tour tells the story of Sion Dolgarregddu, a twelve year old boy who has just begun working in the mine digging slate with his father.

Although a focus of the tour is the hardships faced by the miners, some of the caverns are breathtakingly beautiful. There is a lovely walk alongside an underground lake which was like something from a fairytale, and at many stops lights and music are used to highlight the impressive caverns cut from the rocks. I tried to take some photographs but I'm afraid they don't really show off how lovely the caverns looked.

The tour guide also demonstrated to us the tools that the Victorian miners used. It really was shockingly difficult, slow and dangerous work, and for minimal pay.

The temperature in the mine remains constant throughout the year, and I was interested to see some racks which are used for storing cheddar cheese underground to mature for three months. The cheese is on sale in Sainsbury's, so I'll be looking out for it now!

The tour lasted about an hour, and after the tour we were treated to a slate splitting demonstration above ground in the workshop. Harry was very lucky, and was chosen to help the demonstrator. He was so interested, and absolutely thrilled to be able to take home the piece of slate that he had helped to split! You can buy a piece of slate from the mine to take home for £1, as well as all sorts of slate souvenirs like coasters, wine racks, or personalised nameplates for your home.

There are 61 steps to descend on the tour and 70 steps to ascend. They are well lit and wide, and we didn't have any problems. Inside the mine it is quite cold and damp, so make sure to dress warmly. There are points on the tour where the lights are dimmed and very briefly turned out, and a few narrow tunnels to walk through, but the caverns underground are fairly spacious. 

We were provided with complimentary tickets to the Llechwedd Slate Caverns in exchange for this review. An adult ticket to the Victorian Mine Tour is currently £14.95, and a child ticket is £9.95. Children under 3 are free and there is a 10% discount if you book four or more tickets including at least one adult ticket.