AD - ORS Hydration Tablets Review

Over the last few years we have had issues with James and his consumption of water during the day. He would go to school with a full water bottle and come home barely having drank a a few centimetres down the bottle. 

When he was in Foundation and Key Stage One we knew he was getting either milk, water or a juice at lunch time and that he was drinking it. But once he moved into Key Stage Two in September 2019 he moved onto pack lunch. For the first few weeks we were putting a drink bottle of weak squash in his lunch bag. He was barely having one or two mouthfuls and he was then bringing home a barely touched water bottle from the classroom. We then moved to giving him fruit shoots in his lunch bag and he would sometimes drink half of it, but other days he would bring it home untouched along with an untouched classroom water bottle. 

We tried all sorts to get him to drink over the course of the day, We tried using his reward chart at home by drawing a line half way down his bottle and saying well if you drink to the line you will get an extra star on your chart, but this didn't work. James would get badly constipated due to the lack of fluid he was drinking. He would be getting up in the night with a bad stomach.

When O.R.S. got in touch and offered to send us some of their kids hydration tablets we were thrilled. We got sent a selection of their tablets for kids and adults. James is almost eight, so for him it was two tablets per two hundred mls of water and no more than ten tablets in twenty four hours.

We would normally give James a water bottle at seven in the morning and by around eight am he would have barely touched it no matter how many times we have said to him "James drink your water!" When we made up two hundred mls and put it into his drink bottle at around eight am he had completely finished it by half past nine!

To make the solution up, I put two hundred mls of water into a jug and added the two O.R.S. tablets and left them to fully dissolve. Once they were dissolved I poured the solution into James water bottle and he drank it! I don't know if it was the fact that the blackcurrant tablet turned the water pink or that it flavoured the water but he drank it! 

We will be seeing how James does over the next few weeks with these and will report back!!

**We were sent the O.R.S tablets free of charge in exchange for this review, all words and pictures are our own. 

Living Arrows 2020 Week 27/52

Welcome to Living Arrows 2020! This is the third year I have taken part in this linky and I love taking part each week! If you haven't heard of the linky before, This was set up by Donna at What the Redhead Said and the name comes from the poem by Kahlil Gibran "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth" 

 Each week I share one photograph of James and one of Freddie and share what they have been up to during the previous week.

This week started with mummy going into school to drop medication off for Freddie as he was due back.

James had a great online virtual Beavers session. We are now running joint with the Cubs so we learned about the Japanese star festival Tanabata. He was set homework to make a Tanzaku. Since daddy had a week off work James decided he was going to come and help in the garden! 

Living Arrows 2020 Week 26/52

Welcome to Living Arrows 2020! This is the third year I have taken part in this linky and I love taking part each week! If you haven't heard of the linky before, This was set up by Donna at What the Redhead Said and the name comes from the poem by Kahlil Gibran "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth" 

 Each week I share one photograph of James and one of Freddie and share what they have been up to during the previous week.

This week we got the confirmation that Freddie will be back in nursery on the 6th of July for the last two weeks of term. It will be so strange not having him here, but I think he needs to see other people that are not mummy, daddy and James. 

James has also turned into spiderman! He's discovered he can climb our hallway wall!

Living Arrows 2020 25/52

Welcome to Living Arrows 2020! This is the third year I have taken part in this linky and I love taking part each week! If you haven't heard of the linky before, This was set up by Donna at What the Redhead Said and the name comes from the poem by Kahlil Gibran "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth" 

 Each week I share one photograph of James and one of Freddie and share what they have been up to during the previous week.

So the lockdown situation is starting to lift a bit in the UK. Non essential shops have reopened. Not that we are going to any! The only places mummy and daddy are going is Tesco, Aldi and occasionally Poundland!

We have had some more lovely weather so we have tried to take the boys out for walks on an evening when it has cooled down at bit as its been far too hot during the day to take them out!

[AD] Review of Robot Workshop by Ojo

Back at Christmas 2019, we received a brilliant coding game for James called "Which Way!" it was based on the Cbeebies programme Messy goes to Okido, James absolutely loved it and even now six months since he still plays with it often.

When Ojo contacted us and asked if James would like to try out another one of their games of our choosing I was thrilled. Ojo specialise in STEM and learning games. So even though they are really fun to play James is also learning something while he's playing!

The object of the game is to get from start to finish. When you roll the dice you move the number of spaces, but if you land on a mission card you have to complete the mission to move the rest of your spaces. If you fail the mission you have stay where you are and let the other players take their turns. 

 When you land on the mission card, you have to follow the instructions on the card and build the robot to meet the specification. Every player is given a core card at the start which is the robot's body, as you can see in the picture to the right, the core card on this robot was orange. From the instructions on the card you then have to choose a head, an arm and some legs. You then check the pictures in the back of the instruction book which contains pictures of all the robots for each mission. 

If you get the design right you can finish your turn. If you get it wrong, it passes to the next player who rolls the dice and moves their spaces. If they land on a mission card then the whole process is done again, build the robot, and check the design.

This game has been absolutely fantastic for James. He has had so much fun playing it. This is one of those games that can be passed down to Freddie as at the moment he is slightly under the lowest age limit for playing.

We will definitely keep on playing this game with James and I think it is something that I could actually borrow from him and take into a Beavers session! 

With James having a birthday in a couple of months time I am definitely going to be going to look for more Ojo games for him!

You can buy the games direct from Ojo or you can buy them on Amazon!

**We were sent this game free of charge in exchange for this review. All words and pictures are our own!**

The Siblings Project 2020 - June

Oh boy we are late with the post this month! Time has just got away with us being on lockdown and not going out of the house very much! This months pictures were taken when we were taking part in the Virtually Marra camp over the May bank holiday weekend.

With only weeks until the school summer holidays, I am hoping the weather improves a bit more so we can get the boys out and about for walks to burn off some energy!

Living Arrows 2020 Week 24/52

Welcome to Living Arrows 2020! This is the third year I have taken part in this linky and I love taking part each week! If you haven't heard of the linky before, This was set up by Donna at What the Redhead Said and the name comes from the poem by Kahlil Gibran "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth" 

 Each week I share one photograph of James and one of Freddie and share what they have been up to during the previous week.

So the lockdown has been slightly lifted and non essential shops have been allowed to reopen! Yeah I'm still not taking the boys out. We are staying home as much as we can. Mummy is only leaving the shops once a week and thats to go to Tesco for extra supplies!

James has been working very hard on another badge for Beavers which is now almost complete! Freddie has been just a little tinker and very naughty! I think the whole no nursery and not seeing any of his little friends is really starting to get to him!