The Knight Tribe go to the Panto 2018
Peter Pan Christmas has crept up on us super fast. We love visiting our local theater to see the Pantomime, and this year it was Peter Pan. We arrived at the key theatre ready for…
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Rescue Runts from Bandai review and Giveaway
Rescue Runts are 7″ plush puppies who desperately need your child’s help to transform them into loved and cared for pups.
A Christmas 2018 toy must have!!
We received a Rescue Runts Spaniel puppy who needed Lydia’s help and she was only too happy to oblige. We have a dog ourselves and although she isn’t a rescue she is very loved and the thought of a puppy looking like this really touched her heart.
Whats in the Box?
7″ Plush puppy, brush, tweezers,cloth, collar, bandage and six colorful fleas.
She named her ‘Penny’ and made it official by writing her name on the collar which is included in the box and cutting out the certificate on the back of the box and filling it in.
Before putting Penny’s new collar on, she needed to remove those pesky fleas. There are 6 colorful flee’s loosely attached to the puppy so they can be easily removed with tweezers provided.
There is a bandage that needs removing from her leg, which again is easy to do and would not need an adults help.
There are little stickers on their eyes which resemble tears that can be peeled off, and a little stitch on the mouth so you can pull her tongue down to smile.
Her paws are very muddy so you will need to clean them by using the cloth to rub them away and make them nice and clean. Her ears are pointing down which means that she is not happy so you can perk them up for her.
All that needs doing now is to make that scruffy coat all beautiful by using the brush.
Now you have a well groomed, well loved, happy little pup to play with and make memories with and if you keep all the bits you can play with it over and over again.
This toy does not require any batteries, which will keep the adults happy, and provide hours of fun whilst teaching the child to care for an animal physically and emotionally.
They can be enjoyed by both boys and girls and are not gender specified; Lydia just wanted to call hers after her friend.
There are 4 to collect and retail at £17.99 each and are available to buy from all good toy stores.
Enter my giveaway below for a chance of winning your very own
Botley™ the Coding Robot Activity Set
Meet Botley, the new coding robot from Learning resources. Botley is designed to help children as young as 5 learn the basic skills of coding.
It encourages Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) by engaging them through play. It also has an advantage of unlocking advanced features as they progress.
Lets have a look at whats in the box…
- Botley the coding robot
- Easy-to-use remote programmer
- Detachable robot arms
- 40 coding cards
- Six boards
- A sheet of stickers for customisation
- A variety of accessories to create obstacles and activities for Botley: Eight sticks, 12 cubes, two cones, two flags, two balls and a goal
Lydia has never done coding before, so when we received Botley I was looking forward to see how she would get on with it and I was pleasantly surprised. Botley is good to go straight out of the box (after popping in 5 AAA batteries in the remote and Botley).
Daddy Knight was also very keen to have a go at coding Botley and had a quick go before he started setting basic challenges for Lydia. He laid 3 tiles in a straight line on the floor and explained to Lydia what the buttonson the remote do and that she had to stop on the orange tile at the end.
In no time at all Lydia and her 12 year old brother, Leo, was setting up courses and coding them into the remote for Botley to follow. We also set up a course where Botley had to guide a bolder around, placing it into the circle and then going back for the other bolder to do the same.
We love the little sounds Botley makes in his fun robotic voices when he’s moving around. If he is stationary, he beeps at you so you still know he is there, which is very cute.
The coding cards are designed for the child to set up their own sequence of where they want Botley to go before programming it into the remote. It acts as either a reminder of what they have pressed so they can plan Botley’s activity, or use it with problem solving so they can plan what they need to do before programming the sequence into Botley. I like the idea of these as sometimes its good to actually see what you are doing instead of figuring it out in your head, which can get really frustrating for them.
Here is a little snippet from the booklet with some ideas you can do to start off with. There are 10 basic challenges to get your imagination flowing and then you can have lots of fun creating your own obstacle courses.
I also like that there is no tablet or screens needed to play with Botley. It’s just you and your brain and being able to actively think about what course you are going to make up and how you are going to code it. Botley works best on hard flooring.
Botley retails for £79.99 and can be purchased here.
**I was sent this product in return for an honest review**
David reviews an Acer R11 CB5-132T 11.6″ 2-in-1 Chromebook in white from AO.com
As an auditor, I am often on the road to businesses, carrying out reviews and site tours while taking notes to ensure that all I need for my report is captured. The easiest way for me to do this is through paper, but my quick hand often ends up being cryptic, requiring deciphering that even I am unable to do at times. Electronic recording is great, as it removes most of the deciphering, but carrying out site audits with a laptop is somewhat tricky and tablets, while they are easier to carry around, I often find it hard to type on them.
I was given the opportunity to use the Chromebook for work and it has made my life that little bit easier. The ability to use the device as both a touch screen and keyboard to write with, makes the use while moving a lot easier. The device is small, lightweight and easy to carry around.
In addition, the battery life on the device is really good. I decided to test it to see just how good it is. With a whole days (7.5 hours) use writing a methodology report, the battery had only reduced by around 60%, which when compared to my laptop is seriously good. On my laptop, if I am lucky, I can probably manage about 3 hours off a full battery, which is a good benefit to me during a site review where you are unsure how long you will be on the premises for.
Getting used to the device took a day of playing around to learn the functions and quick ways to move around the apps and software, but anyone that uses Google or an android phone shouldn’t find it too difficult to get to grips with. It is very quick to load at start-up, which is fantastic when compared to my laptop, and you can move between the apps and internet easily with the function keys and touch screen. As I already have a Google account, once I logged in the device picked up all of my information, reducing the setup times as the all features I currently use on Google were automatically loaded (bar the games).
However, I will say that there are elements I am still getting to grips with. Functions you get used to on a laptop are not there, particularly key functions however, with the use of the touch screen you can easily get around this. As part of my office package I also use Microsoft Office and have often found that the two do not always play well together. Google does try to take over by pushing me towards using Google Docs or Google Sheets. However, again this is a minor issue and something that has occurred during my induction period.
The device doesnt have the capability of being able to remove the keyboard, instead the screen folds all the way across so the keyboard site behind the screen. The software then locks out the keyboard so any strokes are not registered and the rubber ends and sunken keyboard mean you can place it flat without any issues. This is fine, but for me I found it difficult to walk around with just the tablet bit as the keyboard on the back just felt odd.
As for games, which my kids and I love playing (although mostly me on this device) the Chromebook is great. With the touch screen function all the games I play on my phone I can easily play on this device, just now with a larger screen. My daughter is now jealous because Daddy has a ‘laptop tablet’, so obviously she wants to play with it constantly.
All-in-all I have found the device really easy to use, both at home for fun but also at work for my needs. It sits on my desk nicely given its size and allows me additional functions as I work with it and my laptop. At home it is great to use as a laptop when I am browsing the web (which is great with both touch screen and keyboard) and also when playing games whilst chilling on the sofa. A great kit that I would recommend to anyone, particularly those who already use android.
The Chromebook comes with a built in microphone, webcam, 2 speakers, 2 Usb ports, 4GB RAM, LCD screen It does not have a CD/DVD drive or a micro sd memory card slot. To read more on the specifications for this particular model you can visit their website here.
**I received this Product in return for a honest review***
Sdr – 8 years on
November 16th 2010 will always be an important date in our lives. On that day Leo underwent a life changing operation in St Louis USA. This operation we hoped would give Leo the chance to stand on his own and ultimately walk. We had fundraised and travelled to the U.S because at the time SDR was not available on the NHS. Leo was 4 years 11 months and had been diagnosed as having Spastic Diplegia Cerebral Palsy for almost 3 years. Although Leo could not stand or walk he could pull himself up on furniture and got around by high knee crawling. This mean Leos world was almost all indoors. He was unable to play outside of his garden without literally ripping his knees to pieces. He did go to nursery but couldn’t understand why his legs didnt work the same as his friends. He thought a lot about what he couldn’t do and this became obvious when the U.S Dr asked Leo what did he want to be able to do and Leo answered ‘go to the toilet without mum watching.’
I am not going to sugar coat this. The experience of fundraising was tough, its hard to talk about what your child can’t do. Hard asking strangers for help, hard standing outside shops with collection tins but we were really lucky in the number of people that helped us reach the target we needed. Listening to his doctors here advising us not to go ahead, telling us Leo needed his spasticity for the little control he did have of his legs, Hard going against their advise. Hard defending yourself on why you were intent to put your healthy child through such a traumatic operation so far from home when there was no guarantee the operation would even make any difference. However we knew without this chance Leo would definitely be in a wheelchair and dependant on others for the rest of his life. That the spasticity would cause damage to the rest of his body . Cause more pain as its a proven fact spasticity causes premature aging of the muscles throughout his whole body. Even muscles not affected by spasticity age as they compensate for the muscle groups that are affected.
Once we arrived at St Louis Children Hospital and met Dr Park and his team we knew without a shadow of doubt we had made the right decision and no matter what the outcome was we would be able to look Leo in the eye and tell him we gave him every chance we could.
For us the outcome was amazing. Three days post op Leo stood clinging to Mike ( the physio) and placed his feet flat on the floor. By the following week he was standing with a walking frame days after that he rode a therapy bike and most amazingly of all 6 weeks after the SDR Leo walked for the first time. First of all a few shaky lurching steps very quickly became more confident. He could now go to the toilet without his mum watching, He could also help himself to drinks and food from the fridge. He would often be recognised when he was out and about because he had been featured heavily in our local paper and people would come over to talk to him and say how surprised they were he was so mobile.
Leo is now almost 13 and has continued to become more and more independent. He has completed 5k fun runs, can go up and down stairs on his own, Can look after his own personal hygiene and very recently completed 5 widths of his school swimming pool. This week he prepared cottage pie for his family not only using a knife but allowing his hands to get dirty. Leo doesn’t like getting his face wet or his hands dirty.
To say he is totally independent would not be true. He has to use a K Walker around school ( more to stop people bumping into him as he falls easily). During growth spurts his walking becomes unstable and he falls. The cold weather makes his gait worse and occasionally uses his wheel chair if he is expected to stand for any length of time ( i.e. church parade with his scout troupe). He still gets upset that he cant keep up with his peers and complains that he has to go to bed earlier than his friends.
That said we have absolutely no regrets regarding SDR and would go through it all again in a heartbeat. Luckily SDR is now being carried out in the UK following Dr Parks technique
Leo underwent Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy which is a life changing operation for children/adults who have cerebral palsy performed by the legend which is Dr Park and then two weeks later Leo had more surgery performed by Dr Matthew Dobbs to lengthen his hamstrings and heel cords in both legs both of these were carried out in St Louis hospital in Missouri.
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