Category: gifts for kids

Cross The Family Gift off Your List with Enchanted Forest Observation Puzzle

Cross The Family Gift off Your List with Enchanted Forest Observation Puzzle

Every Christmas holiday season, I begin the search for the perfect family gift (which I am sure so many of you do too). Every Friday night we try to have a family game night, it helps us unwind after a busy week and we can re-connect over friendly competition and team work. We get to hear about the kid’s week at school and we can tell them a little bit about our week. For an hour or two there is no thought about work, what needs to be done around the house or worry about driving to extra-curricular activities.

Not all family games are suited for bonding and unwinding. You need an activity that requires team work, encourages talking, has a goal and is not connected to an electronic (sorry for all you gamers!).

Cross The Family Gift off Your List with Enchanted Forest Observation Puzzle

The Observation Puzzle Enchanted Forest fits all these must have requirements and more. The Enchanted Forest has 100 puzzle pieces to put together as a family. Once the puzzle has been put together around the edges are images of items that you will need to find inside the puzzle.

Cross The Family Gift off Your List with Enchanted Forest Observation Puzzle

We had a lot of fun putting this puzzle together. While it is a 100 pieces, the puzzle pieces are on the medium size so that little hands can put the puzzle together with just enough difficulty to help them with their fine motor skills. The box includes a large poster of what the finished puzzle should look like which helps you fit the pieces  together.

Cross The Family Gift off Your List with Enchanted Forest Observation Puzzle

Once the puzzle was completed, your family can move onto the second challenge – find all the images on the outside white frame within the puzzle. Some of the images were easier to find while others really made you think. This was a great addition to this puzzle and added extra fun to this activity. You can even through some competition in this one – the person who finds the most items wins something special or gets to choose the family movie.

Cross The Family Gift off Your List with Enchanted Forest Observation Puzzle

You can find more information on the Observation Puzzle Enchanted Puzzle on iLo307. The puzzle can be purchased at specialty toy stores and select book stores across Canada. The puzzle sells for $19.99 CDN.

What is your favourite product to purchase for a family gift?

Disclosure: I received the above mentioned product in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

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Collect and Battle with the Awesome Little Green Men

My kids love to create battle scenes and whenever their cousins come over, our toy room becomes a huge battle ground. We have soldiers versus soldiers, soldiers versus superheros – anything is game!

Collect and Battle with the Awesome Little Green Men

Awesome Little Green Men bring a whole new take on your typical soldier figure. These small little figures are full of spunk and authority! These characters, both male AND female, are truly epic with fantastic features and even better names (Sgt. Major Attitude and Major Boo Book to name a few!).

Collect and Battle with the Awesome Little Green Men

Your child can create their own battles OR follow the super easy Battle Game Guide (which can also be found online). Each player picks their army so that each player has the same amount of power points, which can be found on the bottom of each soldier. They also require a small coin, large coin (which are included in the packs) and a “prized possession” – which can be anything but each player should have an equal sized possession that becomes the goal to capture. The smaller coin becomes the attacking slider and the larger coin the march slider.

Collect and Battle with the Awesome Little Green Men

Your child should set up either on the floor (no carpet!) or a long table in order to have a good-sized battle. The youngest player always goes first (this is actually in the rules not just our youngest making it up). Each player can use their march slider to advance their soldiers or their attack slider to hit an enemy soldier. They have to hit the enemy enough times to match their Hit Points in order to capture that soldier. The main mission is to capture the prize behind the soldiers but if your children are anything like mine they will love the marching and attacking just as much if not more. All the obstacles and bandaids that you will need for your attack are included in the package or you can print them online.

Collect and Battle with the Awesome Little Green Men

The boys even made up their own battles too which was pretty awesome and fun. They enjoyed battling just as much as they did playing and setting up their characters in their rooms. The characters are well designed and they loved showcasing and just carrying them around as is.

Check out this video showcasing these adorable and spunky characters:

You can purchase Awesome Little Green Men at Toys R Us, Amazon and Walmart. They are sold in starter packs of four, deluxe battle packs and blind box. The starter packs include 4 soldiers, 4 dog tags, 1 chain and a collector poster. The deluxe battle pack includes 8 soldiers, 8 dog tags, 2 chains and a collector poster.

Make sure to check out the Awesome Little Green Men website for more information, super cool videos and more!

Disclosure: I received the above mentioned products in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

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Build, Battle and Learn STEM with HEXBUG!

HEXBUG

We all know how important education is – I am personally very fond of the sciences. I did my Bachelors in Kinesiology and many of my electives were in Biology and Chemistry. I want my boys to understand this same love I have for sciences and how much fun the sciences can be (how can you not love mixing chemicals for reactions or building up a car that moves?). When you can combine learning with fun in a toy, this is a definite win win for this parent!

This year, HEXBUG has released a whole new line of products that are perfect for children from three to their teens. These products will find your child building, using their imagination, battling and so much more.

Build, Battle and Learn STEM with HEXBUG!

The HEXBUG nano Space Discovery Centre allows your child to take their HEXBUG adventures to space and beyond. The set is very easy to build and put together. My son and I had it ready to go in under ten minutes flat. The set comes with two nanos, space suit, a rover and all the necessary pieces to make their space adventure come to life.

Build, Battle and Learn STEM with HEXBUG!

Our son had so much fun creating space battles and even added in extra nanos to race around the space centre. He used his larger HEXBUG as an alien that would attack the Space Discovery Centre and the smaller nanos would have to do everything they could to protect the centre and not allow the alien to take over.

Build, Battle and Learn STEM with HEXBUG!

The Space Discovery Centre provided hours of imaginative fun and can be found at many retailers, including Amazon, Chapters and Toys R Us. There is also a nano Space Cosmic Command and nano Space Zip Line in this product line that would go perfectly with this set.

Maybe you have a child that is a budding engineer? Then the VEX Robotics Tombstone by HEXBUG would be a great gift option for them.

Build, Battle and Learn STEM with HEXBUG!

This set will have your child putting together pieces to assemble their own VEX BattleBot. This set is definitely for the older child or a younger child with a lot of patience and a parent nearby to help them. The instructions are excellent (some of the best that I have ever seen) and also includes real size image of many of the smaller pieces so that you can compare each piece to the instructions during each stage (which really helps to ensure that you don’t get near the end and realize you used the wrong piece in step two). The BattleBot took us about two hours to put together, although to be fair we took a lot of breaks.

Build, Battle and Learn STEM with HEXBUG!

It was really fun to put together and the pieces snap together easily, although they are a bit trickier to pull apart. I found if you used one of the smaller pieces and pushed from the bottom the pieces would unsnap easily. Once the BattleBot was fully assembled, it looked incredible. We were both quite proud of the final product!

The VEX Robotics Tombstone can be purchased at Amazon and Toys R Us. You can also purchase the VEX Robotics Minotaur by HEXBUG to get into full battle mode.

What features do you look for when purchasing educational but fun products for your child?

Make sure to follow HEXBUG on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date with all the newest products and more.

Disclosure: I received the above mentioned products in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

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Make a Memorable Holiday Season by Adopting a Species Through WWF Canada

Make a Memorable Christmas by Adopting a Species Through WWF Canada

Last Christmas, my family and I made the trip to my husband’s home – South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. While we visited his family, we were able to experience the amazing wildlife and animal sanctuaries that can be found in abundance. This exposure really drove home for our children and us how important it is to protect our wildlife and that one person can make a huge difference in the life of an animal. Here were everyday people who were making a huge difference in the world one animal at a time by rescuing injured animals, nursing them back to health and if it was possible release them back into the wild.

Passport to Adventure

When we returned home to Canada, our youngest was adamant that he wanted to grow up to take care of animals. Now whether this means he will be a Ranger in a park in Canada or leave us to go care for the animals abroad, we were so proud of him and wanted to continue to encourage him to do his part in caring for our wildlife.

Make a Memorable Christmas by Adopting a Species Through WWF Canada

But how could we do this?

World Wildlife Canada gives Canadians a unique opportunity to support a species while gifting an important person in their life with a special gift pack. For this holiday season, why not consider purchasing an Adoption Kit from WWF Canada! The Adoption Kit contains a plush toy of that species, personalized adoption certificate, reusable tote and information pamphlet and poster.

You can choose from a wide range of species that includes:

  • Canada Lynx
  • Atlantic Puffin
  • Three toed sloth
  • Red fox
  • Snowy Owl
  • Snow Leopard
  • and so many more!

For a complete listing of all the species that you can adopt, make sure to visit the WWF Canada shop where you can find the adoption kits and so many more gift ideas. The Adoption Kits range in price from $40 to $50 Canadian and can be shipped directly to the recipient or to yourself so that you can see their reaction when you give them their gift (which is honestly the most beautiful experience you can see, the happiness and shock in their face makes your day).

Make a Memorable Christmas by Adopting a Species Through WWF Canada

We received the Red Fox and I have never seen our son so excited before. His favourite part was the Adoption certificate, for him that paper signified that a red fox in Canada was being cared for because someone cared and made a donation in his name. He had a chance to make a difference in the life of an animal and this meant the world to him. We later framed his adoption certificate so he could place it on his shelf in his room to remind him everyday to care for others that need our help.

This holiday season please consider giving someone important in your life a gift that has the power to change the world – an Adoption Kit from WWF Canada. For a small cost, you not only help a species but you gift the most memorable gift a child (or friend) will ever receive.

Make sure you follow WWF Canada on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to keep up to date with the latest information and more.

Disclosure: We received an Adoption Kit, no further compensation was received. All opinions expressed are my own.

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Bring Creativity and Imagination to Life with Stikbots

Kids love to create and design, build new worlds and create new stories. As children, we would spend hours making up plays, dressing up in costumes, using dolls for puppets and forcing our parents to watch all of our performances.

Technology has changed a lot in the last fifteen years but the desire to create and design has not changed. Children now not only have the power to create unique, exciting and adventurous stories but they can bring them to life and keep these memories with Stikbots.

Bring Creativity to life with Stikbots

Stikbots are bendable figures that children can easily move and pose into whichever position they want. Each figure also has suction cups on their hands and feet to help hold them into place once your child has planned out their scene. Stikbots began with a simple figure (that comes in roughly fifteen different colours) and has expanded into the animal kingdom with dogs, cats, monkeys and even a panda! The array of figures that your child can use really helps them to bring their story to life, we have a huge animal fan in our home and he loves watching animal documentaries so for him being able to recreate animal videos is huge!

To help your child bring their story to life, Stikbots also has the Stikbot Studio Pro Animation Set. This set includes two Stikbots, a stage (that comes in blue and green colours that is easily interchanged), tripod and two prop boxes. When you use the green stage, you can easily add in animated backgrounds (think space, disco and more) while using the Stikbot App.

Bring Imagination to Life with Stikbots

We loved the Stikbots and how easy they were to use and create images and videos. We downloaded the app first so that we could fully take advantage of the green stage features. The app was easy to download and even easier to use. The figures themselves are very easy to manipulate into different positions and the suction cups worked perfectly to hold them into place on the stage and props. Our youngest (6) had no problem figuring out how to place the figures and use the props to make them appear to float or jump in the air. Once they placed their Stikbots and chose their background in the app, they had the option to either take a picture or video of their creation. After they had taken the photo or video, they could edit the image by cropping, adding wording, images and more through the app.

Bring Imagination and Creativity to Life with Stikbots

The Giveaway!

My Canadian and American readers can now enter to win their Stikbots prize pack! Enter via the Rafflecopter form below – good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received the above mentioned products in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

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