(AD) Christmas Gift Guide for 4 Year Olds

So its Christmas, well it will be in around four weeks and its time for us here at victoriahockley.co.uk to publish our Christmas gift guides for 2019!

Today I am featuring gifts that are suitable for four year old boys and girls. Freddie isn’t actually four yet and wont be for another couple of weeks, so some of these gifts could also be used as fourth birthday presents as well!

The first item is the Pink Fong Baby Shark Song Puppet. Freddie is totally obsessed with Baby Shark and will constantly dance around doing the dance routine when it is played in the house. 

If we are early for picking up James from school he will often sit on the chairs by the back gate and ask me to put Baby Shark on YouTube for him. To use the puppet you move the mouth to start up the music of the entire song. 

Basically the faster you move the shark’s mouth, the faster the song will play or the slower you move its mouth the slower the song will play! I think this will be a huge hit with Freddie and probably also James who is seven!

Next we have the Mr Tumble learning pad. This comes with six activities to choose from including learning numbers, colours, shapes, letters and much more! 

Freddie has just started at our school nursery so something like this I think will help him so much, especially has the foundation curriculum has changed so much since James was in nursery, now children are expected to know how to write their own names before they move into reception class, which I think is crazy as James couldn't really write his own name till half way though reception. But he was the youngest in his class and was virtually a year younger than some of his classmates!

Next we have The Amazing Mystery Box. This product was originally launched in 2015 at Comic Con in London. 

Boxes can be bought on a subscription or as a one off. The box we received was the 24.99 one off box, with the value of the items being around £40. The items we received are fantastic. There are two model engines, a drink cup, a wallet, a backpack and a colour in table cloth which can be washed and recoloured! 

I have also been looking on their website and there are a few boxes that would be fantastic for James. As a special treat The Amazing Mystery Box have given us the code MYSTERYBLINDBAG and they will add in an extra treat with any box ordered!

**We were sent these items free of charge in exchange for featuring in this Christmas 2019 Gift Guide for Four Years Plus**

Redesigning James Bedroom - The Shape and Layout

We have been living in our house now for nearly two years and to be honest we have done nothing to James bedroom at all apart from putting in a roller blind! I do have a series of posts lined up on paints and furniture we are aiming to get for his room so this post is basically on the layout and shape of his room!

As the room is such an odd shape we are going to have to use the space wisely when we start to redecorate and redesign his room to make it more suitable for him!

The room currently had built in wardrobes, a horrible carpet and horrible white puffy wallpaper! Below you can see the shape of his room without anything in it!

As you can see it is a very odd shape. The alcove on the right is actually above our stair case and currently is a dumping group for all his toys! 

Below you can see how his room is set out at the moment. Having the wardrobes where they are currently makes a a long dark passage into his room. His bed is actually in front of his window and radiator so his bed is sucking all the heat away from the rest of the room. 

Below is what  we are hoping to start doing to his room in the next month or so. We are going to take the wardrobes out and move them to the alcove. This new layout will give James so much more floor space to play and enjoy his room. at the moment all he does is actually sleep in his room as there is not much space for him to play with his toys or even set up his wooden train set.

The Reward Box

James is your typical boy, who definitely has selective hearing! We have tried sticker charts, tick charts but nothing worked! Here's where the reward box comes in! There are two designs currently available. We chose the pirate chest for James as he is pirate mad. 

Our first impressions of the box are totally positive! It arrived while James was at school, so I was able to explain all about it on our walk home! He was very excited to personalise it with the stickers to make it "his". Although he made mummy stick them on!

James was told that he would get a star for his chest if he does what he is told at home and he also gets a star for his day at school, I have been asking his teacher every pick up how he has been to see if he gets his star! 

James seemed to get the hang of the system pretty quick, for example, he got a star before school if he ate his breakfast and got dressed with no fuss. He got one after school if his behaviour at school had been good. He got one at bed time if he ate his tea and got ready for bed. Extra stars will be awarded if he does something brilliant. For example he got an extra star for getting 99% attendance at school last term and he got a star for letting mummy clean his dirty ears with no fuss! He has also been getting an extra star for leaving mummy in the cloakroom at school and going to the classroom on his own with no tears! I am very proud of him for doing this one as we have been working towards this for a few weeks already and had no success till we got the reward box.

We said when the box is full he will get a treat, whether it be a toy or a trip to McDonalds which is what he got for filling the box for the first time!

We will definitely continue to use the box with James as it is having a positive reaction on his behaviour.

Disclaimer: We received this box at 50% of the retail value of £35 including postage. All words and pictures however are our own. Boxes can be purchased from www.therewardbox.co.uk