Tag Archives: pre-school

May 13, 2012

City of Friends app for pre-schoolers

The new City of Friends app (for iPhone and iPad) contains games and activities for children 2-6 years, based on the successful children’s TV series, City of Friends.

The series centers around the three emergency services – Police, Ambulance and Fire and three friends (Max, Ted and Elphie) who are dedicated to their new positions in the emergency services. They experience lots of adventures which all lead to new experiences and life lessons.

The app enables you to get to know the three recruits, Max, Ted and Elphie as they join their respective emergency teams on exciting missions. There are 6 games:

Put out fires with Elphie

Organise Ted’s First Aid kit

Fly the helicopter with Max

Get to know the City of Friends in a classical memory game

Check out the emergency vehicles

TV series movie snippets rewards

My toddler just loves his ‘nee-naws’ so I thought this app would be perfect for him. He’s scarily good at navigating his way around our iPhones and iPad so I knew he would have fun with the app. It’s pretty easy to use and he enjoyed all the games although needed a bit of help with some of them. This gets a big thumbs up from us and, as there are three levels of difficulty in some of the games, it’s one app that he’ll get lots of enjoyment from as his skills develop.

The City of Friends app (for iPhone and iPad) is available from the iTunes store.

Giveaway: My First Justin’s Jokes by CBeebies Star Justin Fletcher

I have a little cBeebies addict, never happier than watching some of his favourite programmes, such as Chuggington, Mike the Knight and of course Mr Tumble. The man behind Mr Tumble, the very talented Justin Fletcher, has just released his first book for pre-schoolers, titled My First Justin’s Jokes.

The book is aimed at 2 years+ so perfect for my toddler. We’ve had lots of fun reading the jokes and looking at the pictures of Justin dressed up. Our favourite joke has to be -

What do you call an angry pea?

Grump pea!

The book includes jokes about animals and food as well as a range of seasonal jokes. Perfect entertainment for your little people. RRP £4.99

Giveaway:

I have 5 copies of the new book My First Justin’s Jokes by Justin Fletcher to giveaway to readers of the gingerbread house.

To enter simply tell me your favourite joke in a comment below.

For an extra entry you can tell others about the competition using the Retweet button below.

For an extra entry follow me via Networked Blogs or subscribe to my blog via email. I have lots of exciting competitions coming up and I would hate for you to miss out!

The Rules: the competition closes at midnight on May 6th and is open to UK residents only. The winners will be selected at random and contacted using the email address or twitter name supplied. If any of the winners does not reply within 3 days the competition will be redrawn. Good luck! The winners’ names will be announced on this blog post.

***** The giveaway is now closed and the winners are Susan D, Helen, Becky Gower, Ashleigh and Cheryll H *****

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Filed under cBeebies, competition

Tagged as CBeebies, competition, pre-school

April 12, 2011

Review: This book is totally rubbish

We were recently sent a copy of This Book is Totally Rubbish to review. The title made me laugh and actually relates to the fact that the book is filled with eco-friendly activities to do with your children.

The book contains lots of activities which can be made using the contents of your recycling bin and help illustrate how everyday items can be recycled and re-purposed. It follows the adventures of Maggie, Rose, Oscar and Bentley who have a “totally rubbish day” where they reuse things and invent new stuff to play with. Each idea starts with a list of items you need and you are taken through the steps needed to make them.

The book is aimed at children aged 3 and upwards but there were some activities suitable for Edward. We made shakers and drums from old magazines and empty food containers which we filled with rice.

He seemed to enjoy himself once I showed him what to do!

A second book, called This Book Totally Makes Stuff Grow, inspires children to go wild growing your own plants, and discover that there’s more to soil than mud pies in a science-based activity book.

All the activities in the books have been tried and tested in the London-based Maggie & Rose family club which you may remember we visited earlier this year. The club was set up in 2007 with the aim of educating and entertaining pre-schoolers through bespoke art, music and cookery classes.