Activity Books

AD: Review – Happy Confident Me Journal

April 30, 2020 by penny Leave a Comment

We were sent a copy of the Happy Confident Me Journal for the purposes of this review. Full disclosure statement at the end of this post.

As lockdown here in the UK continues, looking after our children’s mental health is so important. Our kids have been uprooted from the routine that they have been used to since starting school and that can be really quite confusing for them. No matter how well they might understand what is going on, getting to grips with it all emotionally is so much harder. Especially as they are all missing their friends so much. That’s where I’m hoping the Happy Confident Me Journal will help my daughter in particular.

Happy Confident Me Journal - picture of front cover

Nine year old Little Miss C has always been a bit of a worrier, but she’s the type of child that will seem fine on the outside for ages and then suddenly everything will come tumbling out in a hot, teary mess. What I’ve learnt to do is try to get her to release how she is feeling on a more regular basis and this is how I hope using the Happy Confident Me Journal is helping her.

LMC tries to sit and write her journal each night before bed and she’s admitted to me that it’s great put everything down on paper then, as it helps her to sleep better.

Happy Confident Me Journal - example of a daily page in the journal

The journal is arranged so that each day children are asked to think about the different emotions that they have felt that day. It’s a brilliant way of making children see that emotions can change daily, and that while you might feel sad at one point in the day, you might also feel happy at another point.

They can focus on happy things like what they are grateful for that day, what has made them smile, what has made them proud, and who has been kind towards them. There are also weekly activities, and plenty of space to doodle and get their creative juices flowing.

Happy Confident Me Journal - example of a weekly activity in the journal

One thing that my daughter particularly liked was the inspirational quotes that are included daily. And when she didn’t know the person that the quote was attributed to she simply asked her Alexa to tell her all about them. A perfect combination of modern technology and learning right there!

The other brilliant thing about the Happy Confident Me Journal is that as a parent you can often use it to help initiate conversations about emotions and feelings with your child. Some days my daughter is happy to share what she has written with me. On other days she’s not. Both of these are perfectly acceptable, and even if she doesn’t show me what she’s written on a particular day talking to her about why can often help her to understand how she is feeling even more.

Happy Confident Me Journal - part of a completed daily page in the journal

As a parent right now it is challenging in a whole new way to anything we’ve ever been used to before. Not only are we responsible for our children’s education differently, but also, we are the only adult that they have any interaction with. We need to make sure that we don’t miss things that might be obvious to a fresh pair of eyes. A child slowly slipping down into an anxious, possibly depressed, state is something we all want to avoid, but there’s a risk we might miss as we are so caught up in a lockdown juggling act. For me, the activities in the Happy Confident Me Journal help to give us a regular temperature check as to how my daughter is doing emotionally through this. It’s not to be used instead of taking time to be with them and talk to them, but more as a tool to open up some of those conversations about both bad and good feelings.

The Happy Confident Me Journal can be *bought online here.

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of the Happy Confident Me Journal for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links marked *. If you click through and buy anything from these links I will earn a small commission, but it will cost you no more than if you had gone to the site direct. Many thanks for anything that you do choose to buy.

Review: The Magical Underwater Activity Book – Mia Underwood

December 18, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

Review: We were sent a copy of The Magical Underwater Activity Book for the purposes of this review. See full disclosure statement at the end of this article.

My ability to find time to actually read books seems to have taken a bit of a hit in the run up to Christmas. As usual at this time of year, there is so much to do that I’m not quite sure what to turn my attention to next. Trying to keep my head above water in the festive rush means that there are times when I need to occupy the kids, and rather than just using technology to help I’ve found that deploying an activity book at the right moment can be the solution.

The Magical Underwater Activity Book is probably one of the most beautifully illustrated activity books I’ve seen. As I said when we reviewed Mia Underwood’s first book (The Secret Woodland Activity Book), her Scandi-Style of artwork is just gorgeous.

This time around she is taking children on a magical underwater adventure where they get to meet a variety of real life and fictitious aquatic characters.

The book provides children with a huge range of activities. Everything from pictures to colour in to learning more code. From learning about map grid references to a template to make a deep-sea submarine. There’s also an opportunity for them to really get creative by using a “roll a story” grid to come up with characters and a plot for their own underwater story.

What I also really liked about this particular book is that it doesn’t just focus on the good side of things. There is a nice dose of realism by taking about the environmental impact of humans on marine ecosystems, and in particular the effect of plastic rubbish and micro-plastics. By making children understand this whilst they learn about marine life will surely help them to be conscious consumers of plastic and to think carefully about how they dispose of it.

It’s so refreshing to see an activity book that is not only fun and educational, but also one that carries such an important environmental message too.

The Magical Underwater Activity Book was published by Button Books in November 2019. RRP £9.99 and for ages 4 – 8 years. It is available to buy online *here.

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of The Magical Underwater Activity Book for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links marked with a * symbol. If you buy something having clicked through from this link I receive a small commission (often not even enough to buy a cup of coffee), but it costs you no more. Thank you.

Review: Roman Adventure Activity Book – Illustrated by Jen Alliston

November 29, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

Review: We were sent a copy of the Roman Adventure Activity Book for the purposes of this review. See full disclosure statement at the end of this article.

I know I’ve said it several times before here on Penny Reads, but I’m still a huge fan of kids’ activity books. Especially ones that fit in with things that they have been learning at school. That way you manage to combine fun and entertainment with a spot of learning – and the kids often don’t even realise.

My eldest two go to school I’m St Albans, a city full of Roman history, so sending us a copy of the Roman Adventure Activity Book to review is rather perfect as it’s something that all children here seem to cover at school in quite a lot of detail. The city has its own Roman Museum in the Verulamium Museum and there are various other bits of Roman history dotted around the city too. Even when I take them home from school we travel along Watling Street north – another nod towards the area’s Roman roots.

The Roman Adventure Activity Book is absolutely packed with different activities for children to complete. There’s really something to suit all children’s interests with everything from pages to colour through to explanations of Roman numerals and some basic sums using them. There are mazes, word searches, dot to dots and also instructions for some craft activities like making your own laurel wreath and making a mosaic using tissue paper. All of them tie-in in some way with the topic of Romans and Roman life.

On a practical note, this book has been printed so that the pages have a lovely matt feel to them. This means that you can use coloured pencils, wax crayons or felt tip pens in it easily. There are also four pages of stickers and some of the activities in the book tell you to choose the correct stickers to answer something, or ask you to use stickers to complete a picture.

The book is described as suitable for ages 4 – 8, but I would caveat that slightly and say that children who can read independently will gain most from it. Younger children can obviously work through it with a grown up to help them. A couple of the activities in it do tell children to get a grown up to help them. Whilst a few of the activities may be a bit simple for her, my nine year old still enjoyed sitting down and completing some of it on her own.

The Roman Adventure Activity Book was published by Button Books in November 2019. ISBN: 978-1-78708-042-3 Priced at £6.99 It is available to buy online here*.

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of the Roman Adventure Activity Book for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links marked with a * symbol. If you buy something having clicked through from this link I receive a small commission (often not even enough to buy a cup of coffee), but it costs you no more. Thank you.

Ladybird Tuesday – Learn to write book

October 8, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

It can be hard to know which Ladybird book to choose from my collection to write about each week. There are some titles though that I’m so excited to tell you about. Last week’s addition to the collection is one such book – the Ladybird Learn to write book.

Ladybird Learn to write workbook series S812 Ladybird Tuesday

I was somewhat lucky to find this title as I’m trying to cut down on the amount I spend in charity shops and so have restricted myself to just looking for the familiar size and shape of Ladybird books and try to ignore everything else. Amazingly thought this was at the front of a stack in a local branch of Oxfam and the Ladybird logo on the cover caught my attention. Measuring 9 1/4″ x 7″ it’s a very different size to normal Ladybird books.

As well as the regular familiar Ladybird books there have been several other titles that they published over the years. In the 1980s they branched out into a series of workbooks to accompany all the Keyword reading scheme books and other educational titles that they published. I’d heard of these before by finding Learn to write was my first experience at seeing one in the flesh.

Published as part of series S812 Learn to write was I believe the first title in this series. The copyright date inside my copy is 1981, but I believe the book first appeared in a Ladybird catalogue in 1984 and that tallies with the date written on the front cover or my copy.

The style of the book is very obviously a workbook for children to work though as they develop their pen skills and writing ability. There’s plenty on letter formation in there that I recognise from the Ladybird Handwriting book, although drawing in the dragon’s teeth is a bit more modern in style.

When you look at some of the other titles in the same series though they appear more activity book like.

Learn to write
I can write
Crossword Book 1
Crossword Book 2
Puzzles Book 1
Puzzles Book 2
Sport Billy Activity Book
Major Tom’s Space Activity Book
Learn to Count
General Knowledge Quiz Book
Sports Quiz Book

What is quite wonderful about the copy of Learn to write that I picked up is that it’s not been used at all. There’s a name and the year 1984 written very neatly on the front cover, but inside all the pages are clean as it was when first printed. Quite how it has managed to remain intact for 35 years with no child deciding to have a go with a pen or wax crayon is some sort of a miracle.

From what I can gather from the pages of an old Ladybird catalogue that a collecting friend shared with me the same format and size was also used for four playbooks in series S703 and a series of colouring books in series S779. These apparently took pictures from other Ladybird titles and used them as inspiration for children colour in the same pictures. How I’d love to get hold of some of them.

I’m not totally clear if all the titles listed in the catalogue were actually published or not though as some don’t match with those on the back cover of Learn to write. I can see though that this opens up yet another whole area of Ladybird history for me to delve into. I always used to assume that what Ladybird got up to in the 1980s wasn’t as interesting or exciting as what went before. How wrong I was!

Ladybird Tuesday is a regular feature here on Penny Reads where I delve into my Ladybird book collection and choose a title to share with my readers. The weekly series originally started on my old blog, Being Mrs C, and I’m now in the process of moving all those posts over to Penny Reads and also adding titles that I have acquired since then. A list is currently being compiled here of all the titles I have in my collection.

Lonely Planet Kids Sticker World – Airport, Castle and Farm

April 4, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

The school Easter holidays are almost upon us, and if you parent anything like I do then you’ll know that you need to have a few tricks up your sleeves to get through the holidays with as much peace and harmony in the family as possible.

One trick that I’ve learnt over the years is the value of always having an activity book of some kind in my bag, or in the car, so that it can be deployed whenever we have a wait somewhere. Whether that be at a restaurant or cafe whilst our meal comes, or during a long journey, or possibly even something unplanned like whilst waiting for roadside recovery or waiting to be seen at minor injuries! All of these have happened to our family during one trip or another, and now I aim to be prepared for all eventualities.

I was delighted therefore to be sent the three new addition to the Lonely Planet Kids Sticker World Series – Airport, Castle and Farm. In these Sticker World books children get to create their own worlds. The books are a mix of doodle books and sticker books with each double page spread leading children through designing their own world – whether it be an airport, a castle or a farm in these particular books.

The Sticker World Airport book for example takes you through deciding what your airport will be called and where it will fly to, right through to who will work there and who will travel through it. It also takes children through the whole airport process. Going through security, waiting in departures, a spot of airport shopping, boarding the plane, what they will do on board, what they might eat whilst in flight and even air traffic control. It’s a brilliant way of explaining the whole airport and flight process to children and would be excellent preparation for a child who has possibly never flown before, or one who is particularly nervous, or who maybe has special needs.

Each book contains over 500 stickers that children can use when prompted to create their sticker world. The only small world of warning that I would give about the books is that the shiny pages mean that you need to choose your child’s drawing or writing implement with care so that you don’t end up with either pens that rub off easily, or ones that don’t show up properly. Felt tips are definitely the answer, and I found that the Berol ones that we always use worked fine, as long as you let them dry sufficiently before shutting the book.

In the Castle book, children are invited to help restore an old castle. As well as the layout of the castle itself, they are taken through thinking about the people who live and work inside the castle and what they will wear. Also, what will they find inside the castle? Art on the walls? Hidden treasures being kept safe? And might there be ghosts living there too?

Down on the Farm, children are introduced to all the animals and birds that might live on their farm, and all the jobs that the farmer must do there. There’s plenty to keep him (or her) busy looking after the animals and also fixing various things. They’re also invited to think about what the farm might sell in their farm shop.

All three Sticker World books are brilliant in that they combine pages to keep children occupied with also teaching them a huge amount about each world that they are creating. I’ve already talked about how useful I can see the airport book being if you are travelling with children. I can see the castle one working brilliantly with the castle theme that Master C will do at school in Year 2 and the visit to a local castle that they all go on. The farm one will work equally well if you’re planning a visit to a farm (much like we did recently over on Penny Travels) or learning about farms at school.

Priced at £5.99 each the Lonely Planet Kids Sticker World books are perfect for taking along with you any school holiday trips that you have planned, or just working through with your children over the holidays.

Sticker World Airport, Castle and Farm were all published by Lonely Planet Kids in February 2019 and are priced at £5.99 each. Each book has 40 pages, plus 6 sticker sheets.

Disclaimer: We were sent copies of the Sticker World Airport, Castle and Farm books featured for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.

The Secret Woodland Activity Book – Mia Underwood

January 25, 2019 by penny Leave a Comment

With a new baby in the family there’s been quite a lot of juggling of late at home to try to make sure that the other kids are happy and occupied whilst Tube Stop Baby has been taking up my time and attention. My two kids have been reasonably understanding about this and they have learnt that there are times that they can have my full attention and other times when the might need to occupy themselves for a bit. As long as they have something to hold their attention they’ve been pretty good about this and so it’s been excellent timing that I’ve had loads of different activity books to review lately. The Secret Woodland Activity book was one of the first to arrive and it is just perfect for Little Miss C. She loves all sorts of cute woodland scenes and animals and this book has both in abundance.

I think what I liked most about The Secret Woodland Activity Book is that it’s more than just a collection of pages with activities for children on them. Instead it’s like being taken for a journey through a magical woodland and meeting lots of its wonderful inhabitants on the way. The artwork has a gorgeous Scandi-style to it that makes it super cute for children on all ages.

The book contains everything from pages to colour in, maths puzzles, word searches, prompts to come up with a character of your own and write a story about them, scenes to complete with stickers (the book comes with over 150 of them) and instructions to make various craft projects.

LMC has been enthralled with this activity book for hours, steadily working her way through most of the activities in it. At the start there is an invitation to draw a picture of yourself entering the woods, and with whatever you need to take with you for your adventure. LMC seems to have done so with gusto.

She’s also really enjoyed using the stickers to create pictures throughout the book.

She has also come up with an excellent character for a story. No prizes for guessing which series of books she’s currently working her way through at home!

It’s fair to say that The Secret Woodland Activity Book has been absolutely perfect for Little Miss C. With a recommended age range of 4 – 8 years old it worked perfectly for her as an eight year old. I’d think that children at the younger end of the range would need some adult help, but actually older children would still enjoy many of the activities included.

The Secret Woodland Activity Book by Mia Underwood was published in November 2018 by Button Books. It is priced at £9.99 is available to buy online here.

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of The Secret Woodland Activity Book for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.