With everything that is going on in the world at the moment, James is very emotional.
He is really missing his school friends, his teachers, the staff at the school, his friends at Beavers and of course our other three Beaver leaders.
Just before all this kicked off we were asked if we would like to review the Happy Confident Me Journal. James is normally quite a sensitive child, so we were thrilled as we thought it would help him to get his emotions out and onto paper.
The Happy Confident Me Journal is designed in a really positive and child friendly way. The colours are so bright and eye catching, I love how it has lots of ways to help James get his emotions out and onto paper.
James has been writing in this most days since the lock down started, the first few days he was ok, but once the government announced only to leave the house for essencial trips aka food and medical trips, it soon changed.
He has been having numerous meltdowns as he just does not really understand what is going on. We are trying to shelter him from the news and only checking what is going on from our phones or putting the news on once the boys are in bed.
This is an example of one of the pages in the Journal. At the top there is a place to write what day it is, then a place to write how you are feeling.
I love how it has space to write three things that you are grateful for that day, Then it has a section for the best part of the day and at the bottom a space for something they have learned that day.
Some days James is finding it a struggle to write how he is feeling as he is just so confused as to what is going on. Then again mummy is just as confused at times too. Its quite hard to comprehend that the boys realistically could have finished year three and nursery!!
This is definitely something I would recommend for children age 7+ especially at the moment
**We were sent this product free of charge in exchange for this review**
These days everyone is all about doing things online, and paper invites or cards can be ignored. So when Paperless Post got in touch with us to see if we wanted to try out their service we jumped at the chance.
Paperless post is all about sending cards, invites and even flyers by email. You can send all sorts of cards, invites, flyers etc by Paperless Post.
When you register on the site you get credited 25 coins and more coins can be purchased, starting at £8.
We decided to use Paperless Post to design an invite to a tea party for Freddie's up coming fourth birthday to send to Nana and Gaga.
The design we looked at first was baby shark, but we then decided to go for something different. We then chose a space themed card which was fantastic! Freddie absolutely loves rockets and most things space related!
As you are making edits to the card, in the top right hand corner it shows you how many coins your card will cost you to send to each recipient. So the invited we designed for Freddie's birthday would cost 6 coins per recipient.
Over all we really enjoyed trying out Paperless Post. It is such a good idea, I've lost count of the amount of times James has been invited to parties and we have ended up losing the invite!! At least with using Paperless Post the invite will stay in your email inbox and you can set reminders for it!
And since we have some coins left over from making the invite for Freddie's birthday, We will use them to make some Christmas cards since we are so lax at actually writing and posting them to our friends and family!
**We were credited with Paperless Post Coins in exchange for this Review**
James is just about to finish Year Two at school and to be honest Year Two has not been the best for James. As he is so young he is actually working at levels below what he should be.
When we were approached by the people behind the website Night Zookeeper we were thrilled.The Night Zookeeper website is An educational platform that helps children learn new words, understand them in sentences and create amazing stories shared around the world. Children draw their own magical zoo creatures that go through the zoo to help
them to develop their creative writing skills. This is something that James is definitely going to
need to improve on for going into Year Three in September.
The Night Zookeeper website says "The foundation of all great writers is their broad and rich vocabulary. We help your children learn thousands of new words through exciting, personalised activities and games."
It also states "Children are then challenged to put their learning into action, producing stories, reports, poems and other styles of writing. Their work will live in a personal portfolio that can be shared with family, friends and a global audience
James has absolutely been loving the challenges he has done so far! He has been loving designing his own characters and writing about them
What I love the most is the fact that children get instant feed back on what they have wrote. For example on one of the challenges James has already done, he forgot to add punctuation in at the end of his sentence and once he pressed enter it reminded him.
I can see us using this with James over the summer holidays a lot to get him ready for the challenges he is going to face once he moves into Key Stage Two in September.
**We were gifted a 3 month subscription to Night Zookeeper and also sent a copy of one of the books in exchange for this review!**
With having two boys in school or playgroup all week, a decent backpack is something both boys need to have. James had his school bag replaced last summer, and Freddie started using one of James old bags, but once it came to him starting his preschool hours January just gone we knew he was going to need a newer and bigger bag. We could just not find one that we liked in the time frame we had to find one, So he started using James old school bag from Reception and Year One as it was bigger and it had a chest clip which I loved!
When we received an email from the lovely people at Estarer offering us one of their children's backpacks for Freddie we were thrilled! This is actually the first new bag Freddie has had for school since he started and I can see him using this bag for at least the next couple of years!
The four main features of this bag are:
- Light and Durable – The backpack weighs 0.46kg making it
perfect size and weight for Freddie.
- Speciality Pockets – 1 main compartment with an adjustable
strap, 2 pouches, 1 pocket, 2 front pockets and two side pockets.
- Chest strap – This helps to keep the backpack secure and on
Freddie’s back, making it more comfortable when he is carrying it. There is
also a trolley handle strap, so if we go away anywhere Freddie can still use
his bag and we can just slip it over the handle of our case to make it easier
to carry!
- Shoulder Strap – This is wider and adjustable to offer more
comfort and support and to distribute the weight of the bag evenly!
Freddie started to use the bag for school the very next day and mummy was so impressed with it! There was plenty of space on the inside for all the things Freddie needs to take with him! There is even enough room for him to take a second spare set of clothes with him!
I can definitely see Freddie using this bag all the way through the rest of playgroup, school nursery and into reception class!
[Ad] We were gifted this backpack in exchange for this review and a review on Amazon.co.uk. All words and pictures are our own.
With everything that is going on in the world at the moment, James is very emotional. 
The Happy Confident Me Journal is designed in a really positive and child friendly way. The colours are so bright and eye catching, I love how it has lots of ways to help James get his emotions out and onto paper. 
This is an example of one of the pages in the Journal. At the top there is a place to write what day it is, then a place to write how you are feeling. 
