Have you seen my Triop World review? Well here is your chance to win this educational kit from My Living world. The Triop world kit contains everything you need to learn about these fascinating creatures, and the boy has enjoyed trying to spot these almost microscopic creatures.
Enter below on my Gleam app, and don’t forget to leave a blog post comment on my review HERE.
It is mandatory to leave a comment in the post comment section answering the question specified. Other tasks completed will gain additional entries. The winner will be checked to make sure they have both left a comment and completed the task for the winning entry.
Winner will be drawn randomly after the competition closes at 23:59 on Sunday 10th July
The winner will be sent an e-mail to the e-mail address left at time of entry. The winner will need to reply to the e-mail within 7 days of the notification. Every effort will be made to contact the winner, but if no response is made within the 7 days a new winner will be chosen.
The prize details are stated at the top of the giveaway, and may be subject to change if they become unavailable.
The prize will be posted by the promoter, unfortunately I cannot be held responsible or replace missing parcels. Please contact me if there is a problem.
Please allow 28 days from notification for your prize to be sent out.
Camel Up is another award-winning game distributed by Esdevium, suitable for ages 8+, 2-8 players and RRP £24.99. This is a fun betting game for all the family, and has already become a family favourite.
The box contains a board, rules, 5 coloured camel counters and matching dice. 40 race betting cards, 8 desert tiles, 15 leg betting cards, 5 pyramid tiles and a selection of coins and notes. There is a small amount of construction needed for the pyramid which is used to shake the race dice, but this is easy and takes no time to make. I love that with Camel up they have thought about how you store the pieces and the box comes with zip lock bags for the smaller pieces for after you have opened packets of cards.
Camel up is a game that is fun to set up, the board has a town for the betting part of the game and a track for racing the camels. The set up for the game takes a while to work out, and I have taken to reading through game instructions a day before embarking on a new game. This way it saves the frustration of the boy wanting to play straight away. We were very soon getting stuck into learning how to play camel up, and working out our strategy’s. Once you have laid out all the pyramid, and betting tiles. Given each player a starting kitty of 3 Egyptian pounds, 5 betting cards and a desert tile it is time to set up the camels.
We love the pyramid dice shaker and you store the coloured dice inside for the game, but first shake all the dice to find out where the camels are going to start. The fun part of the game is stacking the camels. If a camel lands on another he goes at the top, and becomes a unit meaning that he moves with the camel below. The object of the game is to bet on the winning camel and make as much money as you can. This sounds simple but there is plenty to think of, and once we had tried the game a few times found that you had to take a few risks in how you bet.
On each turn of Camel up you have four options, first to take a betting tile on which coloured camel you think might win the leg. Betting on the overall winner. You could place your desert tile on the board or move it to help boost a camel to the winning line or stop him in his tracks. Or your other option is to take a pyramid tile and shake and release a dice from the pyramid. The rules are far more comprehensive and once you have played the game through are easier to understand. Camel up is basically played in sections legs with each player taking turns until the last dice is released. The bets are all paid out, and moneys won and lost. We found each game was made up of about 4 or five legs and took about half an hour to play.
The game ends when the first camel crosses the finish line. The game stops monies are paid and the overall winners and looser are paid out. This we found was where it was worth taking an early risk on which coloured camel might make it to the finish line. Camel Up is a great family game and one that we have played with granny too. We found the boy doesn’t like to take risks and Dad dragon does! This means that out of the last 4 games we played Dad has lost quite badly including going into minus coins! The boy likes Camel up, working out how staking the camels and moving them and which ones still have to move in relation to the coloured dice. At first glance Camel up may seem a little straightforward or even dull, but we can see why it already has won awards, and has become an evening favourite.
If you would like to play Camel up with your family this summer then have a look at my affiliate link below visit the Esdevium website for stockists or enter my gleam giveaway using the app below.
Disclaimer we were sent this game in return for an honest review.
Terms & Conditions:
The giveaway is open to the UK only
It is mandatory to leave a comment in the post comment section answering the question specified. Other tasks completed will gain additional entries. The winner will be checked to make sure they have both left a comment and completed the task for the winning entry.
Winner will be drawn randomly after the competition closes at 23:59 on Monday 4th July
The winner will be sent an e-mail to the e-mail address left at time of entry. The winner will need to reply to the e-mail within 7 days of the notification. Every effort will be made to contact the winner, but if no response is made within the 7 days a new winner will be chosen.
The prize details are stated at the top of the giveaway, and may be subject to change if they become unavailable.
The prize will be posted by the promoter, unfortunately I cannot be held responsible or replace missing parcels. Please contact me if there is a problem.
Please allow 28 days from notification for your prize to be sent out.
The Safari Park is the 13th puzzle in the series of What if? puzzles from Ravensburger. This 1,000 piece mystery puzzle is suitable for ages 14+ RRP £11.99.
This is the first time I have done one of the What if? illustrative puzzles from Ravensburger and I wasn’t sure if I would like not having a picture to follow. I also wasn’t sure how much the finished puzzle picture would deviate for the illustration on the box lid. The box gives you a question. “What if?…animals were more enterprising than we realised?” The picture is perhaps what you would expect to happen to visitors in a safari park. I still wasn’t sure if the completed Safari park would be a before or after picture, and set about my usual edges sort.
The illustrative style of the safari park means there is plenty to see on each piece and with a rough idea of what the puzzle might contain I set about finding a place to start. It turned out that there were lots of pieces with writing, like the safari park sign. I was able to fit some of these in but others I had no idea where they might end up in the finished puzzle. This certainly was a different challenge to a standard puzzle and one I was rather enjoying. The picture on the box gives you an idea of what animals are in the finished puzzle, but they had all moved about a bit, so starting with the buildings which stay in the same place was a good starting point.
The boy liked the animals on my puzzle, and wanted to help, but couldn’t understand that the picture was not the same as the one on the box lid. It’s a good job he had the African Friends puzzle of his own to complete. Bingo granny on the other hand was not going to leave me alone to complete the puzzle, and was completely hooked within minutes. This was certainly a great family puzzle, and was a talking point during our usual Sunday morning coffee and cake.
The Safari Park is a great puzzle and I wont spoil the solution by showing you the full finished puzzle, but the cheeky little animals have certainly turned out to be very enterprising. I loved this style of mystery puzzle and look forward to completing some of the others in the series. For more puzzles from Ravensburger What if? series visit the website.
Disclaimer I was sent this puzzle for review the opinions remain my own and have not been altered.
African Friends is a 300 piece XXL puzzle suitable for ages 9+ RRP £7.99, and has a finished size of 49cm x 36cm.
The boy was quite excited to have a puzzle all to himself, and I was immediately banned from helping! he has helped me with my puzzles, but has never wanted to do a whole one so I was thrilled that he was willing to give this colourful 300 piece puzzle a try. African Friends has a very cute picture of a group of wild animals, and the boy enjoyed trying to name them all. I think he managed all the animals, and it was just the birds we didn’t know.
The boy started by piecing the edges of the African friends puzzle together, and found this fairly easy to do despite the amount of blue pieces. I was allowed to turn the pieces the right way up for him, but my help had to stop there. As a puzzle addict this was torture! I found it interesting how the boy wanted to work through colours and animals, quite often choosing the tricky colours first.
The boy had no problem completing the puzzle, and took a few evenings to complete the full puzzle. He says he doesn’t like puzzles, but was happy to sit for some time after dinner adding pieces, and was very pleased with himself when he had completed the picture. African friends is a very cute puzzle, and one we have all enjoyed looking at. The pieces are larger than an adult puzzle, but the boy didn’t feel that this puzzle was any easier than the ones I complete. I love the size of this puzzle, and Ravensburger have a great range of different sized puzzles suitable for different ages and abilities from the 100xxl for ages 6+ to this one the boy completed 300xxl age 9+.Visit the Ravensburger website for more great kids and adult puzzles, or click my affiliate link below to buy African Friends.
Disclaimer I was sent this puzzle in return for an honest review, our words have not been altered.
World Wonders is a 2,000 piece Ravensburger puzzle which is part of the Panorama collection of puzzles. Suitable for 14+ and RRP £20.99 this puzzle measures 132 x 61cm when complete.
World Wonders is an illustrated puzzle by Maria Rabinky and with 2,000 was going to be my Christmas challenge. Like other Ravensburger puzzles, World wonders has the same well made pieces with the soft click technology which means they fit together perfectly. I did feel daunted when I first opened the box but with a little help from the boy soon got started. I find I only use the box for my sorting pieces, but with this puzzle decided I needed a couple of trays. as I sorted and looked for the edges, I also decided to separate all the blue coloured pieces. Strangely I found it easier to complete the penguins and blue seas first.
Sorting through the 2,000 pieces of the World wonders puzzle took some time, and completing the edges took more than an hour. It was interesting to see how much of my table this puzzle took up. I thought the boy might enjoy helping with this puzzle, but in-fact he found it a little daunting, and helped towards the end when he could see that we were getting close to completion.
I love the details on the World Wonders puzzle, there is some poetic licence with the placement of some of the images, and the boy enjoyed finding these. With two Sydney opera houses, floating kiwis, and some strange islands off the Cornish coast. The details of animals and famous landmarks is lovely on this puzzle, but don’t be fouled to thinking that you will know the location of every piece. The pieces are smaller than the illustration on the box subjects so the World Wonders puzzle is still a challenge.
I loved the Panorama puzzle size which makes a change from the standard rectangle and this fitted the map view of the puzzle well. With the addition of the fish and dolphins, boats and islands there are no large coloured spaces so your interest is kept right up to the last piece. World Wonders I think took me around 8 hours in total to complete, although I do get carried away and still finished this puzzle within 2 days of staring it. I love the bright colourful details of the World wonders puzzle, and think that puzzle fans will enjoy the challenge of this larger puzzle.
Have a look at Ravensburger for other puzzles in the Panorama series like the one I completed of London at Night as well as lots of fun puzzles for the kids.
Disclaimer I was sent this puzzle to review the words remain my own and have not been changed.
We have been having fun with Plasticine, and have enjoyed making some great creations which we can mould and keep without drying out! I can remember when Plasticine was something my Nan bought me for Christmas and came in shades of grey, brown, and green. So I was interested to see what modern Plasticine had to offer and how it has changed.
The consistency of Plasticine is the same as I remember, it is cold and hard but once warmed up is easy to mould and shape however you want it. The boy and I were excited to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that you can make from Plasticine called Squidgems. These mini packs come with enough to make and create your own turtle. Each pocket money pack contains card cutouts and enough Plasticine in green and brown for your model. You simple shape, add faces, and weapons and you have a great little fun character. There are of course four to collect, and these would be great to make you own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle battle scene. We found the Turtles great fun to make and easy enough for the boy to be happy with his Leonardo figure. proving Plasticine is not just for younger children.
Plasticine comes in many colours and we were sent Fluro, which are fun neon colours great for silly monsters. Basix, with 6 basic colours for fun mixing and play. Plasticine also comes as 24 colour packs, and the boy thought this would be perfect with so many colours for making a fun Minecraft scene. Many of the packs come with small plastic tools to aid the modelling process, handy if you don’t want the kids to use the cutlery.
My favourite pack has to be the animal creations, this pack comes with a plastic stencil like shape that you can mould your Plasticine into, to create a fun animal. There is 12 different coloured sticks of Plasticine, so you can go wild and make crazy coloured animals if you like. Our reindeer was easy to make, and looked very effective when finished, and a little overlapping f colours gave his some character.
Plasticine, is fun safe, and best of all I didn’t have to pick little crumbly bits out of the carpet afterwards, like I have done with some modelling clays. If you are looking for something for the school holidays for kids, then Plasticine might be the answer with something for every pocket and sets starting at £1.49 for the Turtle Squidgems, up to FunTubulous buckets at £6.99. I can see the boy using Plasticine again for some fun creative play, and even school projects.
Disclaimer: we were sent a selection of Plasticine to review and keep the opinions remain ours and have not been altered.
We had a great half term holiday from shopping, photo shoots and days out. One of our favourite places to go is the Zoo, you cant beat watching animals, or should that be being watched by animals? Local, Marwell Zoo is a great fun day out and we set off with our picnic to see what has changed since our last visit.
We were surprised and delighted by the addition of a whole new host of animals including Dinosaurs, and there you thought they were extinct! Well Marwell have whole families so I guess there are a few left. The Rise of the Dinosaurs is the latest addition to the park ,a great mix of animated dinosaurs has captured visitors imaginations including ours.
Here are our favourite Dinosaur friends…
These animated creatures with sound effects are pretty realistic, not just in size but the movements are pretty cool. There is a show daily, which we didn’t stop to watch but sounded good. There is a dinosaur dig, find the dinosaur trail and our favourite the cheesy dinosaur jokes.
Have a look on the Marwell website for more information on the Rise of the Dinosaurs, and if you have the chance to visit we can recommend the Sunset Party which take place on this year on 13th June and 5th July.
We were sent Deadly 60, Factbook, Fish, Squid and Jellyfish to read over the summer holidays and as a family of Deadly fans this book was not going to disappoint!
This factbook is part of a series produced by Orion books and some of the other titles are Mammals, Insects & Spiders, and Reptiles & Amphibians. The factbook is a great pocket size so was great for popping in our suitcase or rucksack over the holidays, as something to dip in and out of on the go. It is a paperback book, but being good quality paper will still stand up to some abuse. We did lots of car travel and this was a good book to pop in the car to keep the boy entertained. There are 78 full coloured pages in our factbook and a great mixture of words and pictures. The fonts are nice and easy to read and I think this would be suited for children aged 4+. The facts are in manageable sections which make this book great for reading in small parts, and also great for picking up as a reference book for school projects.
I love the full colour pages to this book, it makes it very engaging and exciting for children and certainly kept the boy interested. I asked the boy what he thought of the book and he said “its weird”, I think he means it has some strange pictures, there certainly are a few weird looking squid!
Factbook
Fish facts
for fish fans
of all ages,
and Deadly
60 fans too!
We loved this book, and being a great pocket book it deserves a 5/5 from all of us.
Have a look at the Orion website HERE for lots more Deadly 60, and Steve books…
We were sent this book by Orion Star as part of their bloggers network, the opinions remain ours and have not been altered.
