Tag: kids

BEAR Nibbles

We were sent a selection of BEAR Nibbles for Madame to try out.  I have to say I love the modesty of the bear on the packaging!  It made me smile.  I’m forever trying to find healthy snacks for Madame and to be honest we are getting bored of the limited selection in our local supermarket.  They basically only stock 2 brands and I had never seen the BEAR brand.

This reminds me of when we were in Canada last summer visiting family and I asked at the grocery store where the children’s healthy snacks were.  They looked at me like I was from Mars.  No wonder they have issues with childhood obesity.

Anyhow, we were sent quite a selection (Fruit Nibbles, Granola Nibbles and Yo-yo’s which are dried fruit roll ups).  What I really like about them is that they are all natural, no additives and they count for 1 of your 5 a day of fruit and vegetables or 1 of your 3 a day of whole grains.  The also come with collectable nature fact cards inside.

Here is the list of ingredients from the back of one of the packs and I can pronounce every single one of them!

  • Whole grain oats
  • Whole Grain Maize
  • Pineapple Pieces
  • Coconut, apple, grape and carob extract
  • Absolutely nothing else

Madame really likes the granola type ones.  She did turn her nose up at the dried pineapple one.  However, I have to admit I’m personally not a fan of dried fruit either but they do smell delicious.

Price is 49p yoyos – 2 of your 5 a day & nibbles 69p.

Current BEAR range stockists: Waitrose, Ocado, Boots, Co-operative, Holland & Barrett, Somerfield, Asda, Wilkinsons, Wholefoods, Planet Organic, over 250 small chains & independents & available through Marigold, Fife Creamery, Sweet Ideas, Simple Simon, The Bay Tree, Fosters Traditional Foods.

Hope we see them on ‘our’ local supermarket shelves soon.

Monster Detector

Available from Itunes for £.59

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‘In addition to being a mum of a 3 year old, I used to be a former primary school teacher and I’ve been an ICT trainer for 10+ years (I do software/hardware training in schools). All apps that ‘we’ review are not only trialled by Madame but I’ve also had a good play with them.’

In the last few months Madame has developed a fear of monsters and has taken to sleeping with the light on. Apparently they come out of the mirror and go up the chimney, plus, there’s a little brown one that comes out of the toy box and runs over and pulls her hair. It took all my power of control not to giggle out loud when she told me.

For a laugh, I downloaded the Monster Detector App. I personally think it’s crap. There’s only one screen. You push the scan button a few lights flash and then it says ‘no monsters detected’. That’s it, no different screens or different results. Not that I wanted it to say there’s a monster in the room.

However, Madame loves it and she runs around checking all the rooms in the house. So, I guess it wasn’t a complete waste of money if it helps her sleep.

Here’s what we thought:
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Humf Iphone App

Available from Itunes for £1.79

In addition to being a mum of a 3 year old, I used to be a former primary school teacher and I’m now an ICT trainer (I do software/hardware training in schools). All apps that ‘we’ review are not only trialled by Madame but I’ve also had a good play with them.

I’ve never watched Humf. I have no attention span for children’s programming and put too much faith in the Children’s TV producers, but Madame loves it. We were given a copy of the Humf Iphone App to review. We both really like it. Madame is continually asking me to play it and I have to battle her to get the phone back.

It has 9 different solid activities which are not only fun, but they also have an educational element to them (counting, sorting, numbers, and colours), which makes mummy happy.

Here’s what we thought

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As you can see we highly recommend this app!

The only suggestion I have for the developers is to build in some sort of reward. Possibly children could collect stickers along the way and a ‘place’ to stick them. It would also be great if the instructions were ‘read’ to the children as they are unable to read them for themselves.

Do you have any that you would recommend or like me to review?

Iphone Apps for Pre-Schoolers (Books)

When I first bought my Iphone I never thought in a million years that I’d let my 3 year old play with it.  She absolutely flies around it, when my hubby wouldn’t be able to make a call on it.  I’ve downloaded so many apps, I’ve started organising them by subject (Literacy, Numeracy, etc).  This may stem from my former life as a primary school teacher.

I don’t tend to download games such as Paper Toss, Angry Birds etc as I’d like them to have some educational content but I haven’t gone as far as downloading flash cards.

I was looking for some classic books (Cinderella, Pinocchio, Snow White, etc), which I didn’t find but stumbled upon these books by Kidz Story.  I think they’re great and so does Madame.  You have the option for the story to be read to you or read it yourself plus there’s a bit on interactivity built in.  They’re not free but for 59p I think it’s a great bargain!  They would have cost a lot more than £3 for 5 books on the High Street.

Here’s what we thought:

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Do you have any apps that you would recommend for a 3 year old?

Which ones would you avoid?

The Healing Power of Sugar

I was in a soft play centre last week, for my sins, sitting in the corner as I usually do playing on my phone, ear wigging and tutting at the other mum’s sharing stories about the colour of their children’s faeces, when a little girl came rushing up to her mum screaming with a split lip.  The mother calmly picked her up, opened a sachet of sugar and started to sprinkle it on her lip.  I really thought she was nuts!

But, me being me, an inquisitive soul, I came home and did a bit of googling.  Please don’t quote me as my research wasn’t very scientific but apparently there’s something behind it.  It seems that it can help wounds heal faster and reduce pain.

The treatment originally came from Africa, where they didn’t have access to conventional medicine so they used whatever was available.  On my Google travels, I came across an interesting study by

‘Senior Lecturer Moses Murandu grew up in Zimbabwe and his father used granulated sugar to heal wounds and reduce pain when he was a child. But when he moved to the UK, he realised that sugar was not used for this purpose here…….

Sugar can be used on wounds such as bed sores, leg ulcers and even amputations. It works because bacteria needs water to grow, so applying sugar to a wound draws the water away and starves the bacteria of water. This prevents the bacteria from multiplying and they die. Moses found that a 25% sugar concentration ensures the microorganisms cannot survive.’

Apparently, if it’s adopted by the NHS it could save billions of pounds!  But you and I know the pharmaceutical companies aren’t going to let this happen. I do think it’s unfortunate that some of the traditional medicines are overlooked in favour of their much more expensive counterparts.

So, I’m off to Starbuck’s for a large latte and to nick a bunch of sugar sachet’s for the next time Madame does a face plant.

Have you heard of this?

Does it work?

Is it a wives’ tale?