VTech Gadget the Robot

Meet Gadget the Robot. The perfect friend to help your children learn all about numbers, letters, objects and music and great fun for them too. Gadget is aimed for children aged 3 - 7 years and any child who loves robots will be instantly attracted to him.

Gadget talks and dances, and also responds to your child clapping. You can twist his ears and nose and he in turn will move his eyes, eyebrows, arms and body in response to different things. There's an LCD screen on his body which shows pictures, letters and numbers to fit in with the activity Gadget is doing at the time.

Gadget's favourite food is "computer chips" and he comes with 30 of these round discs which go in his backpack. 26 of them are for each letter of the alphabet whilst the remaining 4 are special chips - more about these later. Chips can be fed into his forehead and then you need to turn his nose clockwise for each to be accepted by him.

There are six different modes in which children can play with Gadget - selected using the slider switch on his tummy:

1. Explore it - In this mode if you put in a letter chip Gadget will tell you what the letter is and a word which begins with it. If you instead put in one of the special chips he will either exercise, say something in a foreign language (with an English translation), sing or do a magic "trick".
2. Charge me up - Gadget asks to be fed a certain number of computer chips and counts as each one is fed to him. A great opportunity for children to practice counting.
3. Super speller - If Gadget is few a letter chip he will then tell you what letter it is an the word on the chip which begins with that letter. He will then spell out the word, one letter at a time, as you twist his ear.
4. Follow Along - Gadget gives the child instructions (turn my nose, turn my green ear, turn my purple eye etc) and they have to follow along. If they get it wrong he'll tell them, or they will be congratulated for doing things correctly.
5. Robot Rock - If you clap your hands when he asks you to Gadget will sing (mainly about the alphabet) and dance for you.
6. Gadget's Quiz - In this mode Gadget will ask you a question and you have to answer by either putting in the correct computer chip, or by twisting his ear until the correct answer comes on the screen.

There's no doubt that Gadget is adorably cute and children seem to be instantly drawn to him. At first his dancing can be a little scary if they're not expecting it, but before long they were dancing away too.

The letter and counting games that Gadget has are well thought out and have good educational benefits. The only disadvantage with them is that all the letters are in the ayy, bee, see form, rather than the ah, buh, cuh that they learn at school or nursery.

Having the computer chips is a nice touch and they can also be used on their own to help children with letter recognition and spelling. All of the letters on them are lower case which is perfect for this. It is also nice that Gadget has a backpack to store them in, although when the backpack is actually on his back it is impossible to open the lid fully to fit them in. It does slide off easily though when you want it to.

If there was one thing that I would change slightly then it would be that the LCD screen on his tummy lit up as it can be a bit hard to see if you're not in a very well lit room. Only a small suggestion though.

Be warned that as well as eating "computer chips" Gadget is also rather fond of batteries. When he's running low on energy he will tell you that he's feeling sleepy and shut down, but as he takes 4 AA batteries it may well be wroth investing in some rechargable ones which will work out cheaper in the long run! When he's not being played with Gadget will shut down to conserve battery power.

Gadget the Robot makes a wonderful friend for children and being from VTech he's also got the quality that you expect from their toys.

You can buy Gadget the Robot in any of our Cuthberts stores (Hatfield Galleria, St Albans and Letchworth) or he is also available from our online shop.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears from Orchard Toys

Following on from our recent review of The Game of Ladybirds from Orchard Toys, we're this week looking at another one of their games - Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

There can't be many children ages four and older who don't already know the story of Goldilocks and that's why this game works so well with children in that age range. The aim of the game is that the bears have to race home to stop Goldilocks from eating Baby Bear's porridge, breaking his chair and sleeping in his bed, and any child who is already familiar with the story will easily grasp this aim straight away.

When you unpack the game, the playing board comes in eight pieces which are then put together as a jigsaw - providing younger children with a great opportunity to help set the game up.

Each player selects one of the bear families and that is their playing piece. The dice has the numbers one, two and three written on it (rather than in dots), along with two pictures of Goldilocks. When a player rolls they dice, if they get a number they move their bear family that number of spaces forwards along the brown path. If a picture of Goldilocks is rolled then the player must spin the Goldilocks spinner and move her playing piece that corresponding number of spaces along the green path (in the two player game) or just one space along in the 3/4 player version.

Scattered along the path are honeypot tokens. If a player (either bear or Goldilocks) lands on one of these then they must turn it over to find out of they must go further forwards, move back, stay where they are or return to the start.

If one of the bear families arrives home first and reaches their front door then they have won the game. If Goldilocks arrives at the front door first she must then work her way through the rooms of the house and she does not win the game until she's made it to the bears' bedroom and got into Baby Bear's bed.

With the aim of the game so clear for the children playing it, the game is quite easy for children to get to grips with, and as they're not trying to understand the aim, they can instead get on with understanding how the play actually works.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears provides excellent maths opportunities for moving playing pieces the number of spaces indicated on the dice and also for understanding that the + and - symbols on the honeypot tokens mean that the playing pieces should be moved forwards or backwards.

The only confusion that we had when playing the game was the time that Goldilocks won. As no one player is in "charge" of Goldilocks my daughter couldn't quite understand how we could have finished the game, yet non of the players round the table had won. I think she finally got the concept of Goldilocks having beaten everyone who was playing, but can definitely see where her confusion came from.

The Orchard Toys range includes several games that are based on well known stories like this one, as well as nursery rhymes and family activities and they all provide an excellent scenario for children to play a board game around. When looking through the leaflet that was in the box showing the other games Orchard Toys make, my daughter was very keen to point out which of her books the games were based on.

The games themselves are full of educational opportunities are made here in the UK to the highest quality standards. We believe Goldilocks and the Three Bears would work particularly well for families where there are two or more children within the suggested age range of 4 - 11 years, as they could then play it together without needing adult help.

The Orchard Toys range is available in all Cuthberts stores (Letchworth, St Albans and Hatfield Galleria) and also from their online shop.

Creativity for Kids - Big Fun Stamp Art

When you hear the name Faber-Castell you may well think of their beautiful range of quality art materials which have been available for years and year . The kind of thing that not all children manage to appreciate properly when experimenting with their creative side. But did you know that Faber-Castell also have a whole range devoted to younger artists - Creativity for Kids.

We plan to review some of the range here on the Cuthberts Blog to give you a feel for the Creativity for Kids kits available and this week we're going to start with Big Fun Stamp Art. Aimed at children aged 3 and over this set is perfect for little hands who want a first go at stamping.

The kit contains 12 stamps, 8 washable felt-tip pens, 3 ink pads (again washable) and two cardboard frames as well as a pad of white paper to stamp on. In my opinion the best bit of the kit isn't even mentioned on the box - a small booklet full of inspiration of what you can make using the stamp shapes and the pens.

This booklet is a fantastic idea and can really help a child see how pictures are made up from basic shapes and then have a go themselves. It's also nice to see that the inspiration pictures really appeal to both boys and girls - with everything from flowers to rocket ships.

The instructions do suggest washing the stamps in water before trying them with a different colour ink, so that the previous colour does not mix with the new one. Not all children are going to be patient enough to do this, but if you don't wash it you certainly see the effect of the previous colours. This little caterpillar doesn't seem to mind though.

All the stamps in the kit are big and chunky, made from foam, with pictures on the back showing you what shape they all are. The ink pads are also nice and big so that all the stamps fit on them comfortably and each one has a plastic lid to stop them drying out. The frames included are a nice touch to allow children to frame some of their art work.

The Big Fun Stamp Art kit really does contain everything your children need for doing some stamp art, and as you would expect with Faber-Castell all of the materials are of fantastic quality too.

The Big Fun Stamp Art kit is available in Cuthberts Letchworth store and also from our online shop.

The Game of Ladybirds from Orchard Toys

Here at Cuthberts we're big fans of games which combine fun with learning, and Orchard Toys are experts at this.

The Game of Ladybirds is aimed at an age range of 3 - 7 years and can be played with 2 - 4 players. The aim is simple - to collect more ladybirds than the other players.

You start by placing all 24 ladybird cards on the table so that you can only see the dice spots. Each player in turn then rolls the dice and picks a card with the same number of spots on it. They then turn the card over and see how many ladybirds are on the leaf. At the end of the game the player with the most ladybirds wins.

What I particularly like about this game is just how many skills development and learning opportunities there are for children. The game is also ideal as a first introduction to playing with a dice. Aged three children just have the right dexterity levels to shake the dice in the cup and roll it onto the table and the game provides them with a great opportunity to practise. Once the dice had been rolled you can count the spots on it and then look to find a card with the same number on - yet more counting practise. When the card is turned over there are also ladybirds to count - or not if you're unlucky with your card choice.

At the end of the game, adding up the number of ladybirds that you have in total may be beyond some of the younger children playing the game, but it's a good use of maths for the older children. The game also provides an example of comparing how many of something one person has to how many others have.

When we first played this with my three year old I was amazed at just how quickly she caught on to how to play and that's all thanks to it being very simple. The fact that the cards showing the dice spots were the same colour as the dice itself was also a nice touch to help with understanding that they should look the same. As the game doesn't have any written down numbers or words in it, it doesn't limit it to children who can already read, making it more accessible to younger children.

If you want your children to have fun whilst learning maths then The Game of Ladybirds is an ideal starting point.

The Game of Ladybirds is available in Cuthberts stores and also on our website here.

Say hello to our Lego Yoda!

If you've visited the Cuthberts stores in St Albans or the Hatfield Galleria over the last few months you can't have failed to see the giant Lego Yoda that we've been helping to look after. He's certainly been attracting a lot of attention.

Yoda wasn't the result of a group of keen Lego fans being let loose in store though. Featuring a whopping 63,379 bricks (and no we didn't count them to check!) he was originally built by Lego themselves and then brought to site on an articulated truck in sub-section pieces, before the Lego building experts put him together again. My sources also tell me that there might be a bit of glue involved too - just to make sure he always looks his best for his fans.

Yoda is currently residing outside Cuthberts in the Galleria where he will be until the end of July. Make sure you come and say hello before he moves on elsewhere.

Play-Doh Candy Cyclone

When I was a child Play-Doh was just as the name suggested, dough that you played with. The really lucky children maybe had a rolling pin or something to cut it with. The rest of us just had our hands and our imaginations. Things are very different now though.

The Play-Doh Candy Cyclone allows your children to make sweets (or candy) with their play-doh. The main component is a machine where children feed Play-Doh in at the top and then turn the handle so that the spirals turning inside turn it into evenly sized gumballs, which then roll down the spiral chute and collect at the bottom.

At first it can be a bit fiddly to work out how thick to make the Play-Doh to feed it in - the instructions seem to suggest that it can be thicker than the hole you need to feed it through - but once you've mastered that it is really simple to use. It's not difficult for small hands to turn the handle and if things do get stuck inside there is a large door on the back which you can open to free things up. So that there's no chance of any accidents, it's been designed so that the handle will not turn when the door is open, so it's not possible for children to get their fingers caught in the workings.

Once the balls have been formed children can either play with these as they are, or can turn them into shaped "sweets". With the balls places in the spaces on the circular trays you can then place this tray under the press, and when the child presses down on each gumball they are turned into small shaped sweets.

The gumballs are also the perfect diameter to then go into the syringe, which then allows you to make long snakes of Play-Doh. These can be wound into spirals to go on the lolly sticks. The gumballs themselves can also be fed on to the sticks to create other lollies.

With a recommended age of 3 years+ the Candy Cyclone worked really well for a three year old and she was able to work all of it herself, with only adult intervention when the mechanism got stuck as it had too much Play-Doh in it. With the opening back it was really easy to un-jam and the magical texture of Play-Doh meant that it didn't stick inside at all. The Candy Cyclone makes a great gift for any child that already enjoys playing with Play-Doh.

And if you're looking for more inspiration as to what to make with Play-Doh then check out the Hasbro website where there is a whole section of Fresh Ideas for things to make and also some seasonal activities.

The Play-Doh Candy Cyclone is available in store, or via the Cuthberts online shop. 

Playmobil 4009 Super Set Animal Care Station

I remember seeing a tweet from a parent on Boxing Day last year and it simply said "When did Playmobil get so good?" and it probably sums up the feelings of many parents who are just rediscovering Playmobil through their own children.

The Playmobil range is now vast and the Playmobil world stretches from Stone Age Man with Cave through to hotels, pirate ships and emergency vehicles with so much more in-between. With these three inch tall figures and a bit of imagination your children can act out pretty much any situation they can dream up - at any point in history.

One popular set is 4009, the Animal Care Station Super Set. Any child with an interest in animals will enjoy being able to care for pandas, a zebra and a giraffe and to help their keep to look after them. As well as the vet, keeper and animals the set also contains a selection of food for the animals, veterinary supplies, a wheelbarrow and the pens and treatment room. 

Whilst the recommended age range is 4 - 10 years old it's also good for slightly younger children, as long as you keep an eye on some of the smaller parts.

The set also works well in conjunction with others from the Playmobil zoo range, like 4013 Penguin Zoo Waterpark where you can include real water for the penguins to swim and play in.

Going back to that original question on twitter about when Playmobil got so good. Well, they've had over 30 years experience now in designing and manufacturing toys to fuel our children's imagination. One local parent and blogger, daddacool, is a Playmobil Playologist and was fortunate enough to visit the Playmobil Factory in Germany last year. One thing that is really clear from reading about his visit is how much importance Playmobil put on the child's experience of playing with their toys and our little customers coming back for more seems to suggest that they're getting it right.

Playmobil is available in Cuthberts stores in Letchworth, St Albans and Hatfield Galleria, and you can also buy Playmobil on our website.