The Boys Archives - Page 20 of 39

When I was growing up we didn’t have home computers, tablets or apps to help with our learning however that was a different time. These days IT is at the epicentre of the majority of career choices in one way or another and ITC related subjects are enthusiastically and thoroughly explored as part of the national curriculum.

Having access to the internet is a real advantage for many children and having had the opportunity to review Reading Eggs with Kieran I am convinced that in a way the children of today have a great number of advantages when it comes to learning that we didn’t.

Reading Eggs is a website which offers fun and learning-focused levels dependant on age and ability.

Kieran chose to review the Reading Eggspress section, already being a keen and skilled reader. Needless to say he was impressed!

At this level the site offers a wide range of themed games and activities, as well as online books to read, all of which build on existing skills and confidence in all aspects of literacy from a love of reading to spelling and more.

The way the site works is that users may collect golden eggs etc for achievements made on the site and these may be swapped for clothes for their avatar and more. For anyone who knows anything about Club Penguin, it works in much the same way apart from the games and activities are far more focused on learning.

A spelling game in progress.... choose which of the worlds are incorrectly written and correct them for bonus points! — A spelling game in progress…. choose which of the worlds are incorrectly written and correct them for bonus points!

While I am keen for Kieran to be out and about, enjoying the fresh air and climbing trees, using the PC is a part of his leisure time and I am thrilled to have been given the opportunity to review Reading Eggs with him as he now has a place online that merges fun with learning.

My rating as a parent: 5* – a fun and educational website which is easy to navigate and promotes a love of reading and a wide range of skills. As confidence and ability grows your child may move up through the levels to find more challenges games and activities. I also appreciated the feature which enables users to read stories online and then leave a review.

Kieran’s Rating: Ten out of ten! I loved playing the games and when I go on next time I want to beat my score in the Spelling Sprint and go up a level to get more golden eggs. I’ve enjoyed playing on the site so much that I even chose it over Minecraft one day!

We were given an extended free trail in order to review this site and after this runs out we will be subscribing (full subscription information is available on the website). For my readers wanting to try the site out themselves I have been given a code which will give you a four week free trail as opposed to the standard 2 weeks. Just add UKB26RET when registering.

I’m a big fan and would love to hear what other parents and children have to say about it so do leave a comment if you choose to give it a go.

My two boys love building things, pretending to be things, arts and crafts, dancing and (often) wrestling on the floor), jigsaws and puzzles and just about everything else that young boys find riveting. While I’m thrilled they enjoy such a wide range of activities my problem has always been storage, as you can see!

Gradually the playroom has been reclaimed by the grown-ups as a dining room once more and the majority of the toys and games have moved upstairs to their bedrooms. While this is blissful for us when downstairs, tip-toeing around toys and walking over Lego in the middle of the night is becoming quite an issue. Extensive research (and bitter experience) has taught me the following:

Storage furniture doesn’t need to be ugly

In an effort to store toys properly I have mixed buckets, nets, boxes (with and without lids) and much, much more. In reality this half-hearted mixture has simply resulted in a collection of miss-matched and rather ugly dumping areas for toys, teddies and more.

If you have a look at the Great Little Trading Co. toy storage page you’ll see that there are a number of ways in which toys, games and everything else may be stored safely and allow easy access while still looking fantastic.

Plastic boxes have their place

A boy’s bedroom or a playroom is not the right place for plastic boxes (well not in my house anymore!). Boxes will quickly be emptied all over the floor to be used as pirate ships, cars or turned over to become stepping stones. We nearly learned a lesson the hard way as Taylor did just this; climbed up on a box to jump on the next one and put his foot through it as the plastic cracked! Fortunately he was wearing slippers else he’d have cut himself.

Storage solutions need to be versatile

Taylor used to be into teddies, now he is into Duplo. Kieran used to be into cars and now has hundreds and thousands of itsy bitsy Lego pieces scattered all over his room. Children grow and their interests change, as do their storage needs. Buying lots of smaller storage cubes, boxes with lids and what not is quickly going to prove futile whereas a piece of furniture with open storage or larger pull out sections are much more versatile.

I am not the only parent who has wrung her hands in frustration over a lack of decent toy storage. I doubt I am the only one fed up of seeing toys all mixed up so that finding everything needed for a specific game or play session is difficult. I wish, going back that I had invested in good quality, long-lasting and versatile toy storage from the beginning rather than constantly moving, replacing and tidying miscellaneous gaudy plastic buckets, bags and cheap and nasty boxes.

So, my advice for today…. Research toy storage options properly and don’t be fooled into thinking that cheap and cheerful always wins the day, it doesn’t!

Showing all posts in The Boys

Reading Eggs – Merging Learning and Fun

Getting Toy Storage Right