educational Archives

Visiting The Living Rainforest

Posted on February 12, 2018November 14, 2024 by Emma Reed

We discovered The Living Rainforest in Berkshire a few years ago and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of it sooner. Situated in Thatcham near Newbury, Berkshire this indoor gem is an ecological and educational centre which attracts visitors all year round. It provides a tropical environment based across 3 rooms in which you can discover wonderful plants, insects and animals all of which are becoming endangered in our rainforests today. If you love The Eden Project you will also love it here!

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Review: Dinosaur World at The Anvil

Posted on May 20, 2017November 11, 2024 by Emma Reed

*Gifted Tickets

Jake is a huge dinosaur fan, so when Anvil Arts invited us along to review the new show Dinosaur World we jumped at the chance. The show is suitable from the age of three and runs for 50 minutes with no interval, which works out well. With this being our third theatre show of the year we have started to learn how long Jake can hold his attention for and anything over an hour has him wriggling in his seat. However, this show is completely different from your usual one. The lights remain up through most of it and photos are permitted throughout which is a nice change.

The Dinosaur World show is performed by Miranda who tells her story of how she came to live on an island inhabited by dinosaurs. She grew up around them and learnt all she could from her parents. She is extremely enthusiastic throughout the show and her on-stage energy keeps the children’s attention. She encourages the audience to shout out and join in as well as asking selected members to join her up on stage to help with each dinosaur.

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Making Learning Fun with Little House of Science

Posted on May 14, 2017April 22, 2025 by Emma Reed

*Collaborative Post

Back in the day, when I was at school, you were there to learn and this meant the classes were usually pretty serious. I always did well in the interactive classes– Music, Science, English– but I struggled with Maths from the start. For me, it was always explained in a very complicated way. If I can relate information I am given to practical situations and it seems logical to me I can take it all in and learn and perhaps if it had all been made more fun I may have been much more engaged. It wasn’t until I failed my Maths GCSE and had to re-do a year at college that I found a teacher who finally made it all ‘click’.

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Review: Mr Bloom’s Nursery Live Show

Posted on April 13, 2017October 23, 2024 by Emma Reed

*Gifted Tickets

When we were invited along to review the new Mr Bloom’s Nursery Live Show I was just as excited as Jake. We had really enjoyed his very first trip to the theatre last month to watch Room on the Broom and as he is a Mr Bloom fan I knew he would love to see him on stage.

We chose to watch the show in Reading at The Hexagon Theatre as this was the nearest venue to us. We were greeted at the box office to collect our tickets and were offered a booster seat for Jake so he could get a better view which I thought was a brilliant idea (these were £2 to hire and you received £1 back after the show– although there wasn’t anyone manning the desk when we left and we chose not to hang around for the sake of £1). Once we sat down the veggies took it in turns to speak and let us know how long it was until the show started which got the kids in the audience very excited. Once the show begins the lights do dim but the stage is so brightly coloured there wasn’t any upset from the children in the audience.

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Review: Life’s Little Bugs

Posted on March 21, 2017November 11, 2024 by Emma Reed

*Gifted Products

As soon as I heard of the concept of the Life’s Little Bugs books I just knew they were right up our street and was over the moon when Tina, the author, asked me to review a set. She has brought together education with fun rhyming stories to teach children the importance of looking after themselves, one another and the environment. There are 7 books in the series and each has been entirely written plus illustrated by Tina. The illustrations are most definitely the first thing that draws you in. Each cover is a bright shade of green which not only catches your eye but also gives the sense of fun. The main character of each book also appear on the cover and they are all just so brilliant! Well, you can take a look for yourselves…

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Why TV isn’t always a problem

Posted on June 15, 2016November 10, 2024 by Emma Reed

How many times do you read headlines on social media: Turn off the TV and gadgets and do more activities with your child OR Why our children are becoming addicted to TV OR TV is the new babysitter? TV for kids is a problem. But is it?

Being A New Parent

Before having a child I would have thought exactly the same way, but then I had never seen CBeebies or any of the new kid’s TV shows. I was at work full time and hadn’t been around kids very much. When Jake came to the age of starting to want to watch TV his first love was (unfortunately) ‘Peppa Pig’… it became the biggest pain in my day, the theme tune along with the bing bong song – anybody else singing this in their sleep then as soon as you wake up?!! However, over this last year I, have noticed how much he actually relates back to her. He remembers the episodes and the activities they carry out and it’s made me come to realise how many words he has probably learnt from it.

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Kid’s Garden Ideas: How We Built The Perfect Toddler Garden

Posted on March 22, 2016November 10, 2024 by Emma Reed

As Spring is here we decided to come up with a kid’s garden idea to keep our little guy busy and entertained whilst we are outside. We chose to make him his very own garden that he can dig and play in, a place where he could maybe grow some strawberries and also an area of his own to stop him destroying all my flower beds!

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