Tractor Ted - Review

A love of farms and farming isn't limited to the children in our family.  In fact, our ideal dream is to have our own little farm one day.  Whether that will happen or not remains to be seen but in the meantime we can learn all about farming together with Tractor Ted.

Tractor Ted from Tractorland is the brainchild of mum, Alexandra Heard who, seeing how much her children loved farms and tractors, decided to work with local farmer, David Horler to bring farming to children everywhere in a fun but educational way.

One single video named "Tractorland" was all it took to build the Tractor Ted enterprise.  The aim was to explain, encourage and teach children all about animals and farming, using real life people and filming.

Since those first small steps in 2005, Tractor Ted and Tractorland have become a real part of life even for children who can't experience country life themselves.  Through a range of products there is no child who cannot learn and enjoy the experiences of farm life.  From learning how food is grown and harvested, to caring for farm animals, Tractor Ted provides an invaluable education in a fun and interesting way.

I was very impressed with the range of products we were sent to try out.  The DVD's capture the children's attention time and time (and time and time) again and the books are colourful and fun.  Tractor Ted has certainly got a following in our house!

Tractor Ted's range has grown in time for Christmas for all young farming fans and now you can treat your little farmer to a selection of practical goodies as well as toys, books and DVD's. 

Tractor Ted Breakfast Set (rrp. £19.99)

The Tractor Ted Breakfast Set consists of a melamine mug, bowl and plate set, brightly decorated with the eye-catching Tractor Ted logo and a fun tractor design around the rim.  The set is beautifully packaged, making it a perfect gift for a special occasion.

Tractor Ted Lunchtin (rrp. £9.99)

We all know how much children love their very own lunchboxes, and this Tractor Ted Lunchtin is no exception. Made to the same high quality as the rest of their products, this is sure to keep your little farmer's school lunch or picnic goodies safe!

Tractor Ted Wellies (rrp. £18.99)

Every farmer needs some sturdy footwear and who can fail to love these fab Tractor Ted Wellies!  Made of 100% rubber, they're easy for your little ones to pull on thanks to the convenient handles.  They're just what you need when muddy puddles need to be jumped in!

The brilliant Tractor Ted range doesn't stop there.  If you have a farming-mad child and want to treat them to something farmtastic for Christmas, head on over to Tractorland right now and see for yourself!  

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Harry Potter Years 5-7 - Review

The ever-creative geniuses at Lego  have teamed up with the equally ever-creative geniuses at TT Games to bring the magical wizardry of Harry Potter straight to our consoles.

The Harry Potter Years 5-7 is the latest action adventure game which continues Harry's journey through the final three books of the mystical series that has left a generation of children and adults alike completely spellbound.

Your mission is to help Lego Harry through various worlds, both Muggle and Wizard, and embark on a journey of spellcasting, duelling and learning life's lessons as only Harry can.  

Your observational skills will be tested as you go, giving you the opportunity to earn Hogwart's House Crests.  If you are successful in finding all four sections within each level you will receive the ultimate award...  a Gold Lego Brick.  Collect all the Gold Lego Bricks for bonus content and special rewards.

Keep your eye out as you work through the levels for the character tokens which are hidden throughout the game.  Save them up and use them to purchase new characters, and with over 200 of them to unlock you certainly have your work cut out!

Practise your skills as you make your way along until you come face to face with He Who Must Not Be Named.  Can you defeat the evil Voldemort?  We were sent a game to try for ourselves.  

Our verdict is that the game is fun both for players and observers alike.  There is a great sense of humour tied together with the challenges that the it sets and the attention to detail and attractiveness of the game is fantastic.

Some of the tasks require certain challenges to be completed before you can progress, so some perseverance is required at times.  It does bring home the saying, "If at first you don't succeed, try and try again".  (If you have had enough of putting that saying into practise, they have very kindly advised on how to get yourself some cheats in their instruction booklet. Ssh! Don't tell them I told you!).

The children loved this game, finding it fun trying to crack the puzzles and looking out to complete their collections as they went.  Some of the screens were a little dark at times but the brightness is easily adjusted so it's not a big deal to rectify.  All in all, this was a resounding success in our house with the overwhelming majority stating that it was "So much fun!".

If you don't believe us, take a look for yourself...

(Is it so wrong to admit that I would love Lego to create a version of my family?  Then my life would be so complete!).

Harry Potter Years 5-7 is available from all good stockists in the following platforms: Wii, PSP, XBox 360, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS and Gameplay for Windows. For more information on Harry Potter Years 5-7 click here. 


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Musical, magical, girly fun

Lite Sprites

When I was a little girl I had a Tiny Tears doll whose eyelashes had been cut by someone.  Oh, ok, it was me.  I loved my doll, despite her lack of lashes... or clothes.  She didn't talk or cry or do anything else.  She had a tough old body and one eye stayed open when the other shut.  

I did love her. 

I'd have loved Lite Sprites more though.

Lite Sprites (rrp: £14.99) from WowWee are the five magical, colourful, fairy-type Sprites who live in Lite Topia.  Prisma, Astra, Meadow and Brooke look after the water, air and sky by sharing and transferring each of their seven colours with the help of the Lite Wand.  Look out for Bleak though, who tries to steal their colours!

The Lite Sprites come with their own pods to sleep in and you can buy four different Deluxe Playsets (rrp. £19.99) each with their own special sounds and colourful displays.  At the centre of Lite Topia is the Tree of Life (rrp. £39.99) where the Lite Sprites sit in their pods which hang from the tree and then spin around in a musical, magical display of colours.

Meet my children's cousin, Amy.  Well, actually she's something like a first cousin something or other removed or something.  I don't know.  It confuses me.  We'll stick to cousin.  It's easier that way.  

Anyway, meet Amy.  She was the lucky recipient of the Lite Sprites because Cait was too old (and boy, was she upset about that!) and the twins were too young to play with them.  Actually, on second thoughts, Cait would have loved it.  Anyway, back to Amy....

See the concentration on her face?  And she looks like she's concentrating so hard she's not talking.  (That would be reason enough to buy your child Lite Sprites if they chat anywhere near as much as the children in our family tend to).

Amy loved it.  

In fact her mum, Karen sent back such thorough feedback that rather than put it in my own words I thought I would just share it with you as she gave it.  Here it is:

Karen's Lite Sprite Review:

"Pros
Amy was instantly attracted to pretty girly packaging
Easy to put together
Good quality chunky bright and colourful plastic pieces
The whole set is attractive, the Sprites are pretty, the lights look good (particularly in the dark) and the wand makes 'magical' noises

Kept Amy's attention for an hour and half (had to stop playing with it to have dinner!) and she wanted to play with it immediately after dinner and again before school this morning.

She loved the way you can transfer light colours between wand, 'The Tree of Lite' and Sprites.
It has a sleep mode and shut off mode if toy is not played with for saving battery power.
Contemplated putting it in her bedroom to use as a night light - particularly as it switches itself off.

Cons
It took about 30 mins to get through all the packaging, 8 AAA batteries and a tiny philips screwdriver to get going.
8 AAA batteries required - 4 for wand, 4 for house (just as well there is a battery saving sleep/shut off mode!!)
Wand is a little confusing even after reading instructions - it has a colour library and spells - I think an adult would def need to explain it to a child (or am I just stupid?) 

Other than the above cant find anything negative to say about it.

A lovely, girly toy - thank you xx"

So there you go.  A lovely, girly toy which is musical, colourful and fun.  What more could a girl want?

(Thank you to WowWee for sending us the Lite Sprites to enjoy).


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"Dino Bite" Review and Giveaway

“” by Drumond Park Games

Readers who are familiar with us will be aware that we have a lot of sons.  They are all very different, with a range of personalities yet they all have a fascination with dinosaurs.

Show them a box containing a game called “Dino Bite” and the cries of ,“Can we play it now?!! Can we?!  PLEEEEAASE!!!!” become quite deafening. 

The game is recommended for children aged 4 and up, and between 2 and 4 players can play at a time.   Another bonus is that it only takes 2 x AA batteries, so isn’t going to break the bank there either which is always a plus in my opinion.

The aim of the game is to rescue the twenty Dino Babies hidden beneath a leaf in their Dino nest before the big, bad Dino realises what you are up to and JUMPS!  It isn’t as easy as it sounds as you need to rescue them using the Dino-head shaped tweezers.  Can you feel the pressure?

The boys loved the roaring dinosaur which definitely added to the mood of the moment and nerves and trepidation were rife.  The rescue of the dino babies was obviously a very serious task which I had failed to appreciate.  There were furrowed brows and deep levels of concentration followed by howls of laughter when the Dino “caught” them!  This game was a definite winner in our house and got the thumbs-up all round.

Drumond Park Games have given us two “Dino Bite” games to give away.  Just leave a comment below to say you’d like to enter.  You can earn an extra entry by becoming a Larger Family Life Facebook friend  (leave another comment to say you are now a Facebook Friend) and another extra entry for becoming a Larger Family Life Twitter follower, and one more extra entry for tweeting/blogging/Facebooking about the giveaway and linking back to this post. Leave one separate comment below for each entry method you do.


Two winners will be picked after the closing date of Monday 14^th November.  UK entries only please (US readers, please check back as I'll soon be hosting a giveaway just for you).

Good luck!

The giveaway is now closed.  Please check back tomorrow for winners.


The winners are:


Commenter number 11 - Rachel 


and


Commenter number 3 - My Life and Kids


Congratulations!


Please email me at family@largerfamilylife.com with your name, address and email details so that I can arrange for your prizes to be sent out to you both.

(Drumond Park very kindly sent us “Dino Bite” for reviewing)

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Hot Wheels Wall Tracks - Review

There is an on-going battle over the state of the playroom. We ask the children to tidy it. They claim they have. They clearly haven't. So we ask them to tidy it. They claim they have. They clearly haven't. So we ask them...

Get the idea?

They can't seem to grasp the fact that if the toys aren't put away then they are not tidied, and that if toys are still on the floor then the room has not been cleared.  They protest that half the room has been done.  I point out that the ceiling area does not count as half the room.

It's an argument that goes on and on.  They don't understand why they have to tidy up their toys when they'll only be getting them out to play with them all over again.

Hot Wheels have obviously had enough of our endless arguments and so introduced Wall Tracks.  Rather than having the hassle of setting up stunt tracks and races on the floor, only for your brother to get his foot caught in part of it and break it up (resulting in an argument), or for one of the siblings to have set it up all wrong (resulting in an argument), or for someone not doing their share of putting it all away (resulting in an argument), you can set this up once and for all.... on the wall.

The instructions state that they shouldn't be used on wallpapered walls but as every wall has paper on it, we decided that we would be willing to sacrifice a little space on the playroom wall.  Anything for peace is worth a try.

It took Mike a little while to set the track up and he kept sending the boys back into the living room to wait.  However, every time I stuck my head around the door to see how he was progressing it seemed he was playing testing the tracks out without interruption.

Finally, the tracks were set up and fixed to the wall using 3M strips - a double sided tape kind of thing which are available at DIY stores but are also included in the sets and car crazy Oliver couldn't wait to show me how it all worked...

With flippy bits, and wheels and slopes there is plenty to watch as the car flies along the course.  Oliver insisted on my watching over... and over... and over....

... and of course we had to go through the same ooh's and  aaah's when each of his brothers had their goes too.

But while it was clear that playing with it was so much fun, I think the best thing about it for them was... not having to tidy it up afterwards.

(Disclaimer: We were sent some Hot Wheels Wall Tracks sets for the purpose of this review)


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"Pumpaloons" Review and Giveaway

“Pumpaloons” by Drumond Park Games

Many children’s toys and games rely on using batteries in order to play them which can be quite costly.  It was good to see a game where you didn’t have to worry about stocking up on double A’s before unpacking it.

“Pumpaloons” (rrp. £19.99) is for two players aged 4 and up.  You have two squished up characters, Stripeyloon and Spottyloon who need to be pumped up as quickly as possible.  The winner is the first person to pump up their “loon” and make him squeak. 

Sibling rivalry reaches new heights... literally

Use your hands, feet, elbows or nose to pump... anything goes!  Just pump, pump, pump until you win! 

Paddy won! 

(Just don't tell Harry I pulled out his pump from the valve)

We ended up making Pumpaloons an equivalent to an Olympic event here, complete with an elimination round.  Whoever thought that such fun could be had with something as simple as air?!

Drumond Park have offered to give a Pumpaloons Game to two lucky winners.  Leave a comment below to enter.  The giveaway will close at midnight on Monday, 10^th October and winners will be announced soon after.  (UK entrants only please).

Good luck!

(Drumond Park Games provided us with our own “Pumpaloons” game to review)

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