Penny

Oonies – inflate, create and stick

September 12, 2018 by Penny Leave a Comment

Oonies are another of those craft toys that are a tad tricky to explain at first. Cue, a blog post with lots and lots of pictures as we review the Oonies Starter Pack.

What are Oonies?

So, in short, Oonies are mini balloons that you can inflate from what almost look like rubber pellets, and then once inflated they can stick together. Without the need for any glue, tape or anything like that.

Oonie pellets

In the Oonies starter pack you get a series of these little pellets or different colours. 36 of them in total.

When you look at them individually they’re actually quite small.

Oonies Inflator

The other thing that you get in the Starter Pack is the Oonies inflator.

This is designed to be completely child safe. It inserts a needle inside the oonies pellet and through that needle air is blown to inflate it. Once you’re done, the needle is withdrawn and the Oonie self-seals itself up. Meaning there’s no need to tie it off like a normal balloon or fasten it in any other way.

What you do is load an Oonies Pellet into the Oonies Chamber. Once this is in position, and do take a little while getting it lined up right and so that the the neck of it sits in the correct position with the base of the pellet sitting outside the chamber.

The chamber is then placed on top of the inflator and then turned and locked into position. There is also then a locking lever to depress. This is the stage that makes the inflator know that it is safe for the needle to come out. Without the chamber locked in position that will not happen.

You then simply pump the handle to get your Oonie to the size you want.

Creating Oonies Characters

Once Oonies have been made you can then start creating Oonie creatures with them.

In the Starter Pack are a series of Oonie Deco Bits.

You need to cut these from the holder, but then they will just stick on to your Oonie without needing anything else to help.

Oonies will just stick to each other, but if you want to make a firmer connection you can also choose to use nonie connectors to help.

Creating our Oonies Characters

Inside the Starter Pack are some “character inspirations” and Little Miss C and Master C used these to start off their character building, along with some of the pictures on the box.

Their only real disappointment was the fact that not all of the characters on the box can be made with the deco bits that you get in the Starter Pack. You only actually get 18 Deco Bits, plus 12 eyes and they found that it wasn’t quite enough for what they wanted to make.

I notice that various Theme Packs are available to buy online and I think these have more deco bits in them, but I’ll be honest and say that I’m not 100% sure if they do.

The creatures that LMC and Master C did manage to make where brilliant though, and they were really pleased with how they looked. The finished results were great fun.

Oonie Problems

Although the inflator is relatively simple to use we did encounter a few problems along the way.

Generally LMC was able to use it quite independently and had a fair bit of success in doing so. There were however some Oonie Pellets that simply wouldn’t inflate. Each time one of us tried that just went straight back down, as if they had holes in somewhere. It can take a little bit of a knack to get the pellets lined up correctly in the chamber, but even doing that didn’t seem to help in some cases. She found that to be quite frustrating at times.

Final Thoughts

The kids really loved playing with Oobies. As well as creating the characters that we did it is also possible to use the Oobies themselves for a variety of games, challenges and activities. Something that I don’t think they really thought about when creating the characters. There are loads of ideas and suggestions though over on their website.

I felt that the starter pack was good value for money and I can see it being used again and again as the kids use their pocket money to buy Theme Packs or more pellets.

The Oonies Starter Pack is available to buy online here and has an RRP of £19.99.

Disclaimer: We were sent the Oonies Starter Pack for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.

Orbeez Wowzer Surprise Series 1 Magical Pets

September 10, 2018 by Penny Leave a Comment

Hands up – Orbeez have totally passed me by until now. I agreed to review Orbeez Wowzer Surprise based on the fact that they’re a cute collectable and I know Little Miss C loves them. What I hadn’t really related to was just how in demand Orbeez are themselves.

What are Orbeez?

This was what I found myself searching for earlier today. These little things were completely unknown to me before now. Basically, they are tiny absorbent balls that grow into squishy, bouncy balls when soaked in water. The internet it seems is full of people having loads of fun with them in all sorts of situations and I now discover that my kids have been introduced to them by school friends too.

What is a Orbeez Wowzer Surprise?

Series 1 Magical Pets is out now and what Orbeez Wow World are doing here is using the magic of Orbeez so that rather than just unwrapping a collectable you instead get one magically appearing when you add water. I realise this sounds a tad weird, so let me explain.

What do you do with a Wowzer Surprise?

Think of an Orbeez Wowzer Surprise as being a bit like a display globe in which your magical pet is going to appear. Firstly you need to take off the plastic outer wrapping. When you do so you then have a clear plastic display globe (on a pink plastic base) which is filled with clear Orbeez.

It is possible to see something inside the globe, but the Orbeez in there mean that you can’t actually work out what it is yet.

At the top is a plastic lid which you can screw off and under that is a foil seal. When you open the Wowzer Surprise you screw off this cap and remove the foil as the Orbeez inside are already hydrated – hence the need for the seal. Screw the cap back on and then remove the smaller flap in the lid as this is where you pour in water.

Adding water to the globe means that the Orbeez “disappear” and you’re able to see what your magical pet is. In the base of the globe is a collector list and also a “spin key”. By putting the spin key into the whole on top of the Wowzer Surprise you can then turn the magical pet around inside the globe.

Releasing your magical pet

Taking the lid off the Wowzer Surprise reveals a pink plastic grid which you can then use to keep the Orbeez in place whilst you pour the water back out. Alternatively you can lift the grid out and remove the magical pet from the Orbeez and water mixture.

If you remove the display globe from the plastic base then your pet can then also be displayed on there, out of the water.

How do Orbeez Wowzer Surprise work?

Want a better understanding of how you open a Wowzer Surprise? Then hopefully this little video will help.

Orbeez fun

For Little Miss C the main attraction of the Wowzer Surprise was the pet itself. For Master C it turned out to be the Orbeez, He was absolutely fascinated with them and spent ages just pouring them into bowls, mixing them with water so that they disappeared, and then fishing them out again with a spoon. He had an absolute ball! These ones in a Wowzer Surprise may come already hydrated, but the way that they disappear meant they had quite a lot of play appeal in themselves.

I know we’ll certainly be looking at getting some more Orbeez as I can see him getting a huge amount of play out of them. I may have to work a bit on him remembering what they are called though. For some reason the name “Orbeez” didn’t stick and instead he kept shouting about how he loved playing with “his boobies” and then talking about how he’d dropped his “boobies” on the floor and needed to pick them up. LMC and I thought it was hilarious – mature as we both are!

Orbeez Wowzer Surprise are available to buy online here and are normally priced at £9.99.

Disclaimer: We were sent some Orbeez Wowzer Surprise for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.

Hearing Things

September 2, 2018 by Penny Leave a Comment

I seem to have spoken on here quite a bit recently about the education value of games. It’s true that they can be brilliant, but let’s be honest, there are times when you just want to play a game for fun and you don’t really care if it has an education value or not. That’s certainly the case with Hearing Things.

Hilarious lip reading

The basic aim in Hearing Things is to read your ten mate’s lips correctly and guess the phrase that they are saying. The team with the most correctly guessed phrases wins the game. Simple.

But, oh so hilarious in practice!

There are 150 cards in the game and each one has four colours and four phrases on it. What you do is choose one colour each game, that way you end up not repeating the phrases too often.

Hearing Things comes with a set of headphones with a one-minute built in timer. When you press the start button on them sounds will play in the headphones for 60 seconds. This means that the person wearing them is unable to hear things that are being said.

In a team of two one person wears the headphones whilst their team mate reads phrases to them off the cards. They have to guess what they are saying and if they get it exactly correct then they select another card and keep going.

You can’t pass and that means that people can start getting quite frustrated with their team mate. One minute is a very, very long time when you don’t know what someone is saying to you. It also seems like an eternity when you are trying to get someone to understand what you’re saying.

In a full game each team takes three turns. The team that has guessed the most correctly wins.

Comedy phrases

One other thing I really liked about Hearing Things is the phrases that are on the cards. Some of them are simply hilarious in their own right. Things like: I really want a pet goat or Pigeons like to cuddle. I challenge anyone not to laugh when you hear someone saying things like that. Now imagine someone saying it over and over again.

It also makes the game a whole load more challenging when someone is trying to lip read someone who is struggling to say something for laughing. There were genuine tears of laughter when we played this whilst my mum was visiting us.

Hearing Things is definitely one that we’ll be pulling out at Christmas time when the whole family is together. I’m guessing that the addition of some alcohol may make it even funnier!

Hearing Things is available to buy online here.

Disclaimer: We received Hearing Things as a raffle prize at a recent Blog On Conference. We were not asked to review it, but have chosen to do so. This post contains affiliate links.

Brio Track Repair Vehicle

August 31, 2018 by Penny Leave a Comment

Every so often five year old Master C tells me that he’s getting too old for his wooden railway. Then he’ll usually follow that up by setting up a massive track arrangement covering every inch of the living room floor and spend hours and hours playing with it! That’s certainly what happened this week. No matter how much he enjoys more “grown up” model trains he seems to keep coming back to his Brio set again and again.

His train obsession has now got past just wanting to push trains around a track and have them call at a station to pick up people or freight. Instead he’s much more interested in the actually running of the railway and what goes on behind the scenes to enable it to keep running properly. That’s why reviewing the Brio Track Repair Vehicle was just perfect for him.

As all train addicts will know, engineering trains are usually yellow and that’s why the Brio Track Repair Vehicle passed Master C’s first test. The other thing that he loved about it was the fact that there’s a small button on the top, which when pressed give you a flickering light show underneath the vehicle to make it look like the track underneath is being welded.

On the back of the vehicle is what looks like an engine block (and if I’m honest I’m not totally sure whether it’s an engine or a generator or something else) which can be lifted off. With a magnet point on top you could do so with one of the various cranes in the Brio range. As is the case with all Brio wooden railway sets everything is compatible in so many different ways.

We’ve seen various engineering trains out and about on our train travels so Master C has always been keen to recreate a track scenario incorporating them in some way. He spent ages arranging track on the living room floor so that he could have a special siding to keep the track maintenance vehicle in whilst normally operations were taking place on the railway. At the right point the track repair vehicle could head out and ensure that things were fixed ready for the next day’s service.

I love the Brio Track Repair Vehicle because of the way that it extends Master C’s imaginative play with his wooden railway perfectly. As I’ve come to expect with all Brio products it’s made robustly and has a quality feel about it. It’s a great extension to any child’s wooden railway network.

The Brio Track Repair Vehicle is available to buy online here. It has an RRP of £15.99, but may be found online for less than that.

Disclaimer: We were sent the Brio Track Repair Vehicle for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.

Ludo

August 14, 2018 by Penny Leave a Comment

Ever since he realised that there was a second game on the back of the Snakes and Ladders board, Master C has become slightly obsessed with Ludo. It’s one of those games that I remember playing as a child as part of a compendium of games, but yet I don’t think I’ve touched it since childhood.

Ludo’s origins

I do vaguely remember that Ludo is actually based on the Indian game Pachisi. Described by some as the “national game of India”, Pachisi is a cross and circle game (otherwise known as a race game) in which players move around the board, in a race against each other. First played in medieval India, the number of spaces moved was determined by throwing six or seven cowrie shells and whether the shells landed with the opening upwards or not gave you a score.

Game play

We’ve obviously moved on since then, and Ludo is played with a single die now and up to four players. Each player has four counters and each has a corner of the board as their initial home position.

If a player rolls a six then they move one of their counters into their starting position, and from there a second roll of the die determines how many spaces they need to move. Players then race around the cross shape on the board, until they get back to almost where they started. Then they have to head up their coloured strait towards “home” in the centre of the board.

The aim is to get all four of their coloured counters home. But it’s not as easy as it may initially seem!

The twist

With players having all four counters, and different starting times for them, it ends up with everyones counters overlapping on the board. Even more so if you have three or four players. If you land on a square that already has a player’s counter on it then you knock them off the board and they have to go back to their home position, and await a six to start again.

It’s also possible to block other players by getting two of your counters on adjacent squares. If you manage this then it means that other plays can not knock you off, but also can’t get past you.

The only place on the board where you are really safe is on your home strait, as then no one else can catch you.

The kids’ reactions

As I mentioned when I wrote about Snakes and Ladders, Ludo is a much more complicated game, as you an play it with a huge amount of strategy. It’s up to you which counters you move when and whether you aim to knock the opposition off the board or not with certain moves. Realistically, it’s a huge step up from Snakes and Ladders, but at the same time it’s a perfect game for introducing strategy to children.

Master C got so excited the first time that he managed to knock me off the board. He also takes a great thrill from being able to block other players by getting two of his counters together. He may not yet understand all the strategy behind why you might do either of these things, but it’s a brilliant way to get him starting to think about them.

It’s also helped his mental maths come on even faster. As well as counting out each move of his own, he’s also been working out what he needs to roll to knock other players off the board.

Ludo around the world

I admit that I hadn’t really thought much about Ludo being played elsewhere until I innocently put a picture of the board up on my Facebook page and a Dutch friend commented.

He pointed out that Ludo looked much like a game in The Netherlands called “mens erger je niet”, which roughly translates as “Man, don’t get annoyed”. Intrigued I went off to do a bit of research and it seems that in German Ludo is called “Man, don’t get upset”. Ludo also has similar names in Albanian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, and Turkish. In Greece there is also a reference to players behaviour in the fact that they call it “Grumbler” and Italian just call it “Don’t get upset”.

I had no idea that what I had just thought of as a simple game could bring about such a response from players! And I Guess it just puzzles me even more as to why it so often seems to be found on the reverse of a game as innocent as Snakes and Ladders!

A variety of different Ludo sets (with and without Snakes and Ladders) are available to buy online here.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.

Snakes and Ladders

August 8, 2018 by Penny Leave a Comment

Snakes and Ladders is one of those board games that feels like it’s been around for ever. It therefore seems like possibly a bit of a strange one to be the subject of a blog post, but please bear with me on this one.

A few months back Bonn and I came across a copy of it at a car boot sale that we stumbled across on our way back from Harwich on bank holiday Monday. I seem to recall that it didn’t cost very much and, as I feel like I’m very much having to restock all the toys and games I have for my kids since splitting from their Dad, I decided to grab a copy. I’m so glad I did.

The game came home with us, ended up on the shelf with some other games and to be honest I didn’t give it much more thought at first. Then, as the weather started to improve, Master C and I took to going and sitting at one of the picnic benches in his school playground in a morning, whilst we waited for the school bell to ring. On that particular table is a giant version of Snake and Ladders and we started passing the time in a morning by me rolling an imaginary die and him moving an imaginary counter round the board in an attempt to win before the bell went. One morning I happened to mention to him that we had a real copy of the game at home and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. Bad mum for not telling him sooner I guess!

Since then the pair of us have ended up playing Snake and Ladders quite regularly. It’s made me realise what a wonderful game it is for a child his age. On so many different levels.

Firstly, and this almost goes without saying, board games are a wonderful way to engage with your kids. Conversations can happen whilst you’re playing. It’s like the action of playing a game means that children somehow forget that they normally don’t tell you anything about their day at school. It’s also proper focussed time with them. No opportunity to pick up your phone and end up down a social media rabbit hole when you’re having to take turns.

A game like Snakes and Ladders also introduces children to so many different things. There’s the whole concept of taking turns. It may seem obvious to us as adults, but it’s a skill that children need to learn. There’s maths involved in rolling the die, counting the dots on the surface and then moving a playing piece the right number of spaces on the board. Regular playing of board games can help a child so much with some of what they are more formally taught in the classroom.

In a game like Snakes and Ladders there are rules to follow. If you land on the bottom of a ladder you go up it, if you land on a snake’s head you go down it. Simple rules, but again another concept that it’s important for children to learn.

And finally, there’s the fact that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. As I’ve discovered, it’s very difficult to cheat in Snakes and Ladders, short of not rolling the die correctly. It’s totally random as to what you land on and this means that whoever is playing has an equal chance of winning. There’s no strategy involved. After the initial disappointment of going down their first snake, children soon realise that even mummy can end up landing on a snake on the final row of the board and soon be back to the beginning. And how Master C laughs whenever that happens!

Interestingly the version of Snakes and Ladders that we picked up came with Ludo on the reverse of the board. A game that I vaguely remembered from childhood and one that I assumed was equally as fair as Snakes and Ladders. How wrong I was! Look out for a whole separate blog post about this game and why it’s apparently called “Man, don’t get annoyed!” in some parts of the world!

It goes without saying that there are numerous versions of Snakes and Ladders out there. You can find a wide selection online here.