12 Days of Christmas Toys - On the Eleventh day of Christmas...

So it's getting to the point where you can't really deny it any more, Christmas is well and truly on it's way, before you know it, the presents will be unwrapped, the dinner eaten and the living room scattered with toys. So for those of you who are still looking for the perfect toys for your family, that hopefully won't be discarded in favour of the wrapping paper, over the next 12 days I am going to be featuring  a variety of toys aimed at a range of ages from toddler to teen.

We will also have some giveaways to help you get an extra present under the tree!

On the Eleventh day of Christmas my true love  Santa gave to me...

Kevin’s Car from Character building BEN 10 range

Both Be10 and Building Blocks are a favourite in our house at Christmas and Character Building is set to wow again this year with exciting new additions to their range, including a brand new Ben 10 collection!

The Ben 10 range features eight collectable construction micro-figures of characters from across the series, including Ben and popular aliens such as Big Chill, Water Hazard and Ultimate Swampfire. Larger playsets include Kevin's Car  and a fully functional Azmuth’s Laboratory with 430 bricks!  Kids can spend hours constructing their own Ben 10 alien adventures

You can build and play with this awesome replica of Kevin's muscle car which first appeared in Ben 10: Alien Force; this construction vehicle includes an opening bonnet and one Ben 10 micro-figure. Suitable For Ages 5 Years +

At less than £7 a great little stocking filler than will keep any BEN10 fan entertained over the Christmas holidays!

12 Days of Christmas Toys - On the ninth day of Christmas...

 So it's getting to the point where you can't really deny it any more, Christmas is well and truly on it's way, before you know it, the presents will be unwrapped, the dinner eaten and the living room scattered with toys. So for those of you who are still looking for the perfect toys for your family, that hopefully won't be discarded in favour of the wrapping paper, over the next 12 days I am going to be featuring  a variety of toys aimed at a range of ages from toddler to teen.

We will also have some giveaways to help you get an extra present under the tree!

On the Ninth day of Christmas my true love  Santa gave to me...

Gelarti from Flair

I have to admit that when i first heard of this, my thoughts immediately strayed to Italian Ice cream, and memories of devouring quite a few on a trip to Venice.  But once i'd managed to stop drooling, I realised that this was in fact 'Gel Art' and it was quite funky!

As soon as we opened the box Ben got rather excited and couldn't wait to get all of the contents out.

Inside the box there is...

-over  50 stickers
      -5 Gelarti paint pens
            -2 plastic hanging discs
                 -a fun filled activity booklet.

The gel paints were really easy to use and because of the raised outlines on the stickers Ben (who is usually a bit messy with painting) was able to colour them really neatly.

We had great fun with these and there are plenty in the pack so could easily have another two crafty sessions with them.

We have made some lovely gifts and decorations...

My favourite was the dolphin when Ben decided to colour with blue and glittery green, the pack showed this on a goldfish bowl but we decided to try it on a glass and I thought it looked really effective.

This set is aimed at 5+ but i believe that it would be suitable for younger. This a great activity set with hours of fun in one box and it would be a perfect present under any tree this christmas... 

12 Days of Christmas Toys - On the eighth day of Christmas...

So it's getting to the point where you can't really deny it any more, Christmas is well and truly on it's way, before you know it, the presents will be unwrapped, the dinner eaten and the living room scattered with toys. So for those of you who are still looking for the perfect toys for your family, that hopefully won't be discarded in favour of the wrapping paper, over the next 12 days I am going to be featuring  a variety of toys aimed at a range of ages from toddler to teen.

We will also have some giveaways to help you get an extra present under the tree!

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love  Santa gave to me...

                                                     

Go Mini Freestyler Tiger

 Go MINI from golden bear bring you fast action stunts and ultimate style to any Christmas wish list this year!

Go MINI Crew-zers are the perfect stocking filler gift to start a collection. There are five super cool styles each with its own character name, such as Chilli the red hot Crew-zer and Jaxx the patriotic royal blue dude emblazoned with a Union Jack.

The show offs of the forecourt, however, are the Go MINI Stunt Racers. There are six to collect* and each comes with two modes – race and stunt, with every car having a different unique stunt. The Stunt Launcher is a must have accessory and will auto charge any of the six Stunt Racer cars. Just position it on the launcher, pump up the power to see the rev counter climb and hear the engines roar. Once charged it’s ready to launch so press the start button and watch as the car speeds ahead or performs a stunt!

Alternatively, the Go MINI Freestylers have their own unique and quirky features that make them a truly customised crew!  

Ben reviewed the Go Mini Stunt Launcher earlier in the year and he was thrilled to have another from the collection to play with! The Go Mini Freestyler Tiger looks the part, decorated in bright orange and black colours with a changing tiger graphic on the roof that really fascinated him, but the 'icing on the cake' had to be the Roaring sound it makes when you touch the windows! This gave him a fright the first time, as he activated it unintentionally while picking the car up, but now he won't stop doing it and I seem to have the noise constantly in my head! Despite the 'noise' this is a really good quality toy that I would recommend as a stocking filler for both boys or girls this Christmas...

Go Mini Review

Last month I was lucky enough to go down to London and visit the Christmas in July toy event! As you can imagine I had great fun playing with all the toys! One particular range that caught my attention was Go Minifrom Golden Bear...

    

As you may know I usually prefer wooden toys to plastic battery operated noisy things, however having young children, they are inevitably attracted to brightly coloured plastic toys! So there has to be a compromise and that's why I was so impressed with the toys on offer from the Go Mini range.

They were bright and colourful enough to appeal to Ben (and Elizabeth of course, anything her big brother's got, she wants too!) but they are also well made and sturdy and best of all don't take batteries!

There is a good selection in the range and we were thrilled to be sent the Stunt launcher to review, which comes with its own exclusive stunt racer. There are 5 more to collect that each have an individual stunt. All of these would also work with the stunt launcher.

 

As soon as Ben saw the box he got excited! What 4 year old boy doesn't love cars?! After getting out of the box (From a mummy point of view I was impressed with this, instead of those annoying twisty wires that I'm used to battling with every time my children get a new toy, there were simple plastic discs to turn which release the toy from it's box quickly and easily and before Ben started to get impatient!)

The set consists of just two pieces, the launcher and the racer, so there are no small, fiddly parts at all, because of this I feel that it may reach under it's recommended age range of 3 - 6, Elizabeth, who is 20 months was fascinated with it and loved carrying the launcher around by it's chunky handle!

And so to the playing...

The launcher has a big chunky handle, a large faced dial, a pull back lever and a start button. After securing the racer on to the ramp (this was a little fiddly and Ben needed help with this the first few times) He proceeded to pump the lever back and forth, both him and his younger sister were very impressed with the revving noise it made while he did this! As he pumped, the needle on the die rose and as it reached the top he pushed the start button to see it race off! At first it wasn't going as fast as we expected, until I realised we had it in stunt mode! Once I switched to race mode, boy did it go!!

After the first few goes where I showed him what to do, Ben can easily do this independently now and it seems to be his go to toy at the moment, being played with most days! It also seems to make a regular appearance in the evening when Daddy gets home from work, I wonder why?!

I like the fact that the stunt racer can be used separately so when we've been visiting family and I only want him to take a small toy along he's quite happy to take just the car and 'pull back' to play.

This is a great set and seems very well made and good quality so it will stand being bashed around by an enthusiastic pre - schooler. At around £20 for the set and £10 for the individual stunt racers it's quite good value for the quality and of course the 'mini' brand! To be honest the link in with the brand is lost on Ben, at four he loves playing with cars, but has no concept of brands and their merchandise. It does however appeal to my (big Kid at heart) Hubby and I'm sure it would have pull with older children.

Needless to say , this set has been a huge hit in our house and I think some of the other cars in the Go Mini range will be making an appearance on Ben's (and possibly Daddy's) Christmas list this year!

Moon Dough Supermarket - Role play and creative play combined!

Ben has just turned four and he loves role play! He is always playing shop either with his play till or an imaginary one! (I think he may become a shopaholic like Mummy!) I encourage this as much as possible as I think its a great way to develop use of numbers and simple maths. He has also recently become quite interested in creative play (when he was younger he was never to keen on getting messy with things like that and preferred to tell me what to do instead) and making things; from simple crafts to moulding shapes and 'dinners' out of 'play dough.'

I was delighted to be given the opportunity to review the new Moon Dough Supermarket from Spin Master Toys. As soon as I heard about it I knew that this could become a potential favourite in our house, as although we regulary use play dough I really don't like the smell and hate when it dries out and needs replacing, which wastes pennies!

What Ben thought...

Ben became very excited when he saw the brightly coloured and illustrated box and couldn't wait to get it open! Once I had put Elizabeth down for a nap we opened the box to discover what was inside!

Inside the box we found a cash register (needed putting together but very simple to do so) a shopping basket, 6 'shopping' moulds (milk carton, pineapple, chicken, tin of beans, bread and apple), 3 packs of 'moon dough' in Red, Yellow, and White and an instruction leaflet.

Ben's attention was immediately drawn to the till, which to be honest was a lot smaller than I was expecting from the illustrations on the box, but this didn't seem to bother him at all! He loved turning the handle even before there was any dough in it!

The instructions said to compress the moon dough into a single lump with your hands before removing from the packaging, then once out of the wrapper to squish it into a ball untill it softens. I did this and it became a soft mallable dough that resembled ready made icing in texture!

Ben found it easy to break off lumps the moon dough and compress them into the moulds, he made one of each of the shopping items and placed them in the basket, before returning his attention to the till!

The till itself was also a mould! Ben popped the dough in at the top, turned the handle and a coin magically appeared from the side! I was pleasantly surprised at how easy this was for him to do on his own and he soon had a vast array of coins! He could have happily repeated this all day, but when the dough was running out I asked if he would like to play shop and he immediately decided I would be the customer and he would be the shopkeeper!

We had a lovely time playing and Ben loved counting the coins. (I find he is always better with counting when he has something physical to use rather than just in his head or looking at numbers on a page!)

Ben gave the Moon Dough Supermarket a big thumbs up and it is a toy that will give him hours of enjoyment and I'd imagine it would also be a hit with most other children in this age group!

What Mummy thought...

 It was lovely watching Ben play with this set, he really got into it and it made me smile to to see him really concentrating and working things out. However from a Mummy's point of view there are a few things I'd like to mention...

It's great that the 'dough' will never dry out and will last the test of time but I was disappointed that there were no containers or even resalable bags provided to store the dough in, I have used some zip-lock bags inside the cardboard box (which is nice and sturdy and really handy to store everything in between uses).

After we played with this for the first time and were putting everything away Ben got a bit over enthusiastic and managed to merge all the colours together so now when he plays with it everything is a bit psychedelic looking, this doesn't bother him and actually looks quite funky but is something to bear in mind!

The dough does get very crumbly and Ben managed to get it all over his clothes and the carpet, it brushed off fairly easily but it would make me wary about letting Ben use this if his baby sister was around as she may try to eat any crumbs he dropped!

Overall I would say this is a lovely toy that most children aged 3 - 6 will get many hours of fun from!

 I found it great for promoting creativity and imaginative role play. I really like that it doesn't smell, is not greasy and is very easy for Ben to use the provided moulds, I also love that it is hypoallergenic (as we are a family of very sensitive skin and tend to get reactions from a multitude of materials). I would recommend using a mess mat on the floor and being very cautious if you have younger children around who might be tempted to pick up any crumbly bits!

Oh, and make sure you have some small containers or ziplock bags to hand!

Moon Dough Supermarket is made by Spin Master Toys and is available from most leading toy shops and online at an RRP of £15.99. And if your looking for and even better deal Argos currently have 1/3 off so you can grab it by the 12/10/11 for just £10.49! A great bargain, ideal for stocking up on Christmas Presents!

We were sent the Moon Dough Supermarket set from Spinmaster Toys through Blog-Match in exchange for writing this review but all opinions are our own!