I'm sticking with the slightly scientific theme introduced on the blog yesterday for today's Ladybird Tuesday: More words for Numbers. I have to admit that when I picked this book up I wasn't really sure what to expect. What do they mean more words for numbers? Is this a thesaurus with just one entry? I'll let the description inside the cover of the book take over here: When describing the changing approach to the learning of mathematics, the Schools Council observes in "Curriculum Bulletin No. 1" that we can accelerate learning by providing suitable ... read more
Archives for January 2013
A budding little scientist
Whilst out doing a spot of shopping with Mr C and the kids last week I happened to spot what looked like a children's chemistry set in a shop window. Not that uncommon a sight, but always good to see. Once in the shop I noticed that it was actually aimed at younger children that I'd expected with a recommended age of 4+. This attracted my attention and a lovely shop assistance happened to come over and ask me if I wanted to see inside the box. I am so glad she did as that was the start of my love affair with the Learning Resources Primary Science Set. Making a volcano What's ... read more
Woburn Safari Park
For years I've driven up the M1 past Junction 13 and seen the elephant on the brown sign pointing to Woburn Safari Park, yet for some reason we've not visited until now. It's only about 40 minutes from where we live so getting there was nice and simple - always important when you have a toddler and baby in the car. What's there to see The safari park is in two halves - the road safari and the foot safari. The road safari gives you the opportunity to see some of the bigger, badder animals (lions, tigers, bears, wolves etc.) from the comfort of your own car, whilst the foot safari is more like ... read more
Food, glorious food!
I've had my suspicions for a while that Master C has been rather hungry. Firstly he went from sleeping 6 or 7 hours at night through to at worst waking every 90 minutes for a feed. And it was only a feed he needed in the night as he would go back to sleep as soon as he'd had some and general comforting wouldn't have any effect at all. His feeds were also starting to last longer and longer and this was accompanied by chewing on his own hands and anything else that he managed to get into his mouth. When I took him along to my weekly knitting group he'd sit there completely ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: A Second ‘Do You Know’ Book
I remember as a child sitting down with my Dad to look up some facts about planets as part of my school science homework. In those days the only way to do so was to sit down with some books yet I'm pretty sure that when I have to do similar with Little Miss C and Master C we'll be using the Internet instead and I think I feel a bit sad about that. Yes Google is very useful, but there was a certain satisfaction in finding the answers there on my bookshelf. My choice for today's Ladybird Tuesday is a book that fact loving children would have jumped upon at the time - A second ... read more
Toddler fun in the snow
Like much of the country we've spent the last week with snow and when there's snow on the ground and children in the house there are much more exciting things than sitting inside in front of a computer. Combine that with a few days solo parenting and blogging has once again taken a bit of a back seat. The wonderful thing about snow is just how magical it is for children of all ages. Enough of a rare event here in the UK that there's a huge novelty value attached to it and all the disruptions to school and transport is exciting. Talking to the parents of other toddlers yesterday we ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Picture Reading
As well as the many non-fiction books that Ladybird produced they were also responsible for many children of a certain generation learning to read through their Key Words Reading Scheme. This book, Picture Reading, was designed to fit in before children actually started reading though. The aim is to encourage parents to sit down with their children and to talk about what they see in the pictures and possibly relate what they see to things in their own lives. Picture Reading was the only book in series 721 and was originally published in 1972. Harry Wingfield was responsible for the artwork for ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday
As Ladybird Tuesday gathers steam I thought it worthwhile trying to pull together an index of all the books that people are writing about and to separate them into series. I will try to update this as often as possible, but please remember that I can only include the posts I know about. All books listed without links are ones that I own but have not yet written about. Ones where someone else has written a review are also owned by me if they have a * next to their title. Series 401 Bunnikin's Picnic Party Ginger's Adventures Smoke and Fluff Lost at the Fair The Green Umbrella Bunny's First ... read more
Octonauts and the Undersea Eruption
Another CBeebies tie-in today, but rather than reading about Knights we've now moved to under the sea and the Octonauts. A slight difference here is that the Octonauts originated as characters in books before moving to the small screen. Following their TV success they're now ready to go on some new adventures in books. In The Octonauts and the Undersea Eruption the Octonauts have to deal with an emergency caused by a volcano at the bottom of the ocean that is erupting. Will they be able to get everyone out in time? In particular the three floating blobfish, Bob, Bob and ... ... read more
Mike the Knight and the Real Sword
Mike the Knight is someone we've only recently got to know. For those of you that are not familiar with him - he's a Knight in Training who lives in CBeebies-land here in the UK. A wiki search tells me he might actually be Canadian, but I somehow had it in my head that all knights were English, so that's what I'm choosing to believe for now. To tie in with a new series having started on CBeebies this year two new Mike the Knight books have been released by Simon and Schuster and we were sent a copy of Mike the Knight and the Real Sword to review. In the story, Mike is due to ... read more