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Category Archives: Music

Advertisers’ Review

Written on July 15th, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Gross motor, Music, Organisation, Preschool aged, Reviews, Saving money, School aged, Toddler

I’ve been lucky enough to have awesome advertisers at Hear Mum Roar. I always choose companies that sell products I would actually buy and use myself. If you only saw some of the rubbish I’m asked to advertise and actually knock back.. Anyway, some of my advertisers have been lovely enough to send out some samples of their wares, so I felt it was time to shine the spotlight upon them.

Little Dance Invitations are a fantastic place to go for everything party related. They have the cutest themes for kids, ranging from tv characters, to cute little Kokeshi Doll lollipops and everything else that interests children. They also do invitations and party supplies for adult parties. What I also love about this online store is that they can customise party goods with the birthday person’s photo.Next time we have a birthday party, I’ll be definitely going through Little Dance.

Bright Star Kids sell cute kids labels, wall stickers, bag tags, and all sorts of other cool stuff. I recently was sent some small name labels for all of my three kids…

I’ve blocked out parts of their names privacy reasons, but I left part of the lettering there so you can see the different fonts used. Missy 3 loves the fairy on her labels and always tells me it’s going to fly away! So cute.. I also love that if I put a name label on anything of hers, she’ll drink it, for example, water. She wasn’t keen on water for a while, but now she has a label on her water bottle, she’s drinking lots of water and is much healthier for it.

I’m also pleased to find these labels as Mr 5 is starting school next year, and it’ll be much easier with two kids at school if I can be prepared with labels now. It’s helping to build the excitement in him, also.

Forever Clover sells a new range of school-aged girls’ swap cards.

When I first saw these, I fell in love with them instantly! These cards were created as an antidote to the sexualisation of girls in our society. Your daughter can join the free Forever Clover Club online. Missy 10 has joined and loves it! You can read their Forever Clover girls’ blog with stories of their adventures. If your daughter is a member of the club, she can even comment!

The cards and packaging are made from renewable resources and starting a collection is very wallet-friendly, so anyone can start collecting and swapping! All three of my kids have been given some, and they absolutely love them.

KelliOne is the home of handmade toys. Simple concepts that kids will love and very cute too! Kelli was kind enough to send out three ribbon wands for the kids to play with.

Here, you can see Mr 5 happily fishing with his. This is a brilliant, open-ended toy for toddlers, preschoolers and school aged kids alike. They can get exercise as they twirl around in or outdoors, dance to music, draw shapes in the air, pretend they’re walking a dog on a leash, in short, they can do whatever they can imagine! KelliOne also can make these wands for weddings, and I’m thinking when we get married one of these days, I’ll order some for the guests! I can imagine how beautiful the wedding photos would be with ribbons swirls from happy guests, in our custom colours.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about these companies. They all have such great stuff and are lovely people to deal with.

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Mattel’s Laugh and Learn Learning Book

Written on November 2nd, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Baby, Cognitive, Fine motor, Language, Music, November 2010, Reviews, Toddler

Sponsored by Nuffnang

Look at what Missy 2 was lucky enough to receive in the post. It’s a Laugh and Learn Learning Book from Mattel. This title is called, ‘Counting animal friends’. It’s an interactive book with a cute sun button which lights up and depending on which page your child is looking at, makes different sounds. It:

- reads the story to the child
- counts the animals
- makes the animal sounds
- plays songs

I think this book is adorable, and the sound isn’t too noisy or annoying, like some toys. My kids are all obsessed with books, so this caught everyone’s attention. Anything that promotes a love of reading to my kids is encouraged by me.

This book is aimed at babies and toddlers between 9-36 months old. Missy 2 has become utterly attached to it. She sits down playing with it for long periods, pointing at the animals and making the sounds. She likes saying the numbers, too. Her favourite part is looking at the ducks in the book, pretending to flap her ‘wings’ and saying, ‘quack quack!’. She’s even taken to falling asleep on top of it every night.

This book is highly age/stage appropriate, being very simple and appealing to this age group. Mr 4 is extremely interested in counting and numbers at the moment, and as soon as he spotted the book, asked, ‘has this got numbers? Cool!’

I’d also like to add my own little story about Mattel toys. We have always bought a lot of Mattel toys over the years, because they last a very long time. My two younger kids are still playing with a lot of Missy 10′s toys from when she was a baby. They love pushing around her push-along activity puppy and playing with her Little People dollhouse, car, bus, and of course, the dolls that come with it.

As any parent could tell you, little kids can be rough on their toys. Most of our Mattel toys have been thrown around at some time or another, either due to a tantrum, or just from excitement. But all our Mattel toys are still going strong.

But what I am really wanting to tell you about it, is what happened with some of our Mattel toys during our flood in the childrens’ playroom. We had a Mattel Flip Phone on the floor, and a Laugh and Learn Learning Home, which you can see here, both got saturated.

At first, the electronics in these toys didn’t work. But after a couple of weeks, once they’d dried out, they were working again! So please, if your Mattel toys ever get wet and stop working, don’t throw them out! Let them dry out, and they should be fine. We’re very impressed here.

Now I’m going to leave you with a quick video of Missy 2 enjoying her new book. It shows you how the book works, and how much she likes playing with it.

What’s your child’s favourite Mattel toy? Or your favourite, even?

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New toy from Mattel – Peek a Boo clock

Written on June 4th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Baby, Cognitive, Fine motor, July 2010, Language, Music, Preschool aged, Reviews, Toddler

Sponsored by Nuffnang
It’s time for another Mattel review! Last time it was the adorable Flip Phone, and this time we were lucky enough to receive the Peek a Boo clock in the post. You can imagine how excited my little ones were. In case you can’t imagine, you can watch Missy Two’s reaction below.

The Peek a Boo clock is so cute! It has so many surprises for children to enjoy. This toy is aimed at children aged six months to three years old. You can press the green button on the top of the clock to see a little bird pop out of the door (just like a cuckoo clock) and light up brightly. Each time it pops out, it makes a different sound. Some of the sounds are:
Peek a boo! I see you!
Cuckoo!

Hello! Then when the door closes again, good bye!

It also plays a variety of songs when the bird pops out. My daughter also likes to pull the door open to make the bird pop out, and this is easy to do, as it has an indent for little fingers.

Little kids can turn the handles on the clock, and in the centre of the handles, is a little light-up button. This also plays a huge number of songs, Mr Three’s favourites being the alphabet song and the counting one. He enjoyed reading the alphabet displayed along the top of the toy, and counting the numbers on the clock.

There is a little disc on the side at the top, that displays a sun and a moon as you turn it, to represent day and night. Of course, this cool clock takes it one further, and actually says ‘day’ and ‘night’ at the right times! There is a little spot on the other side with little sliding shapes for the younger babies to play with; my two year old still enjoyed looking at those, too. On the other side is a key that makes a rewarding clicking noise when the child turns it.

I found even Missy Nine really thought it was cute and enjoyed playing with it, too. Her and Mr Three took turns at holding it facing each other and saying, ‘now I’m going to put on a show with the clock, who wants to watch?’ In this household, the more kids who enjoy one toy, the better. Because there’s a large age gap between Missy Nine and the younger two, it’s nice when no one feels left out. Plus, I always feel if all the children get some enjoyment out of our toys, then we’re getting good value.

I was so impressed with this clock. I love the fact that the volume can be adjusted, and that it explores the concept of cause and effect with my children. The most important thing to me is that my kids like it, and if you watch my little video below, you will see how much Missy Two loved it, and hear her squeals of delight.

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