Century A New World game by Emerson Matsuuchi is the third and final game in the Century game series (the previous ones being Century Spice Road, and Century Eastern Wonders) This new Century A New World game is set in The Americas in the early 16th Century, and can be combined with the other two Century games if you have them.
This was our first time playing any of the Century games, and we were sent this game to try out as part of the Asmodee Blogger Board Game Club.
We love game nights as a way to spend quality time with our older kids on the weekends, and one of the great games we’ve tried out recently via the Asmodee Blogger Board Game Club is Blue Lagoon from Blue Orange.
Blume Baby Pop is a brand new range from Blume Dolls, which is out today (Boxing Day) in Tesco Stores across the UK.
We have been enjoying playing with Blume Dolls recently, so N was so excited to try out these new toys. The Blume Baby Pop range has all of the fun elements and surprises of the Blume Dolls, but with a new twist – inside your sprouts, there are babies hiding along with cute accessories. How many babies will you get in each pack – will it be 3, 4 or 5?
When you open the packet, you’ll find a tray with five sprouts, each needs to be popped – which has a very satisfying sound! Inside each one you will either find a baby, or some accessories.
When my boys were little, I found audiobooks so helpful with getting them settled at bedtime and encouraging them to lie in their beds happily while they fell asleep. I had been wanting to try something similar with my daughter who’s now getting to the right age, but with CDs not so common these days and as I’m not keen to use an iPad or Voice assistant device in the kids rooms, I have been wondering what method would be best.
Enter the tonies® Toniebox which offers a perfect child friendly solution to my dilemma, with screen-free story time and figures which are instantly recognisable to young children enabling my little girl to choose easily, and activate her Toniebox herself.
Christmas is not complete without family board games! This year in the run up to the festive season, we’ve been trying out some great card games from Ginger Fox which would make ideal stocking fillers, and are also great to bring along when visiting wider family over the Christmas season.
Here’s a run down of the games we have been trying out…
Tenable is a fun family board game, based on the popular ITV game show Tenable, where players have the opportunity to win up to 125,000 pounds. The show is hosted by Warwick Davis and has been running on ITV for three years, since 2016. Now with the Tenable board game, you can re-live the action and try out your own knowledge at home to see which of your family members will be the champion, and who will be ‘terrible at tenable’!
We were sent the Tenable board game to review, via the Asmodee Blogger Board Game Club and have enjoyed playing it together with the kids. The Tenable game is recommended as age 10+ but we found when playing as a family group that younger children are able to take part quite easily, you may just need to be selective on some of the topics to give them a better chance if some of the topics are beyond their knowledge base.
A few months ago, my toddler N started to go through a phase where she didn’t enjoy baths. This really didn’t make the bed time routine relaxing, as every night rather than happily running up the stairs to the bathroom like she had always used to do, she would be crying and protesting about getting in the bath. Then, once I finally persuaded her to get in, I would have to wash her as quickly as possible because she would be desperate to get out pretty quickly too.
I wondered if some new bath time toys would help the situation, and luckily we were sent a BABY born Surprise Bathtub doll which I was sure would be perfect for our bath time issues.
Code Names is an easy to grasp spy themed card game based on word association. We were sent this game as part of the Blogger Board Game Club and have enjoyed playing it with the older kids in our family.
To play the game, the aim is to correctly identify words on a grid of cards based on one word clues from your team member.
Word cards are set out in a 5 x 5 formation in your playing area, with certain ones assigned as blue and certain ones assigned as red. Others are assigned as innocent bystanders, and one is the assassin card. The “guessers” will not know the location of each of these cards or colours, they can only see the words. Meanwhile, the clue giver will be able to see another card showing a map of these locations.
Hatchimals CollEGGtibles are small collectable Hatchimal figures which come inside little eggs that you need to rub to hatch. You can’t miss hearing about Hatchimals as they have been such a popular toy for the past few years, especailly at Christmas, but this was our time trying out Hatchimals for ourselves and N has been having so much fun with this set.
We received the Hatchimals CollEGGtibles Royal Snowball 12 pack, which comes in a cute egg box style container that can be used to store all of your Hatchimals and accessories once you have hatched all of your eggs, making it really easy to keep them all organised.
When you first open the box, you will see 10 gorgeous glittery eggs revealed, and 2 little Hatchimals already waiting to be played with. You also get a leaflet showing you all of the Hatchimals in the series which you can compare and tick off with your child if they are trying to complete the whole set.
We really liked how sparkly and glittery the little eggs are. It was almost a shame to crack them open because they are so pretty! But of course we wanted to find out what treasures were lurking inside.
To hatch the eggs, you need to keep rubbing until the heart turns from a dark purple into pink, then you will be able to push through with your thumb and crack the egg open.
N had a lot of fun with the hatching process, and it took her a while to hatch each one (with help from me for some of the eggs). I found this let us spread the Hatchimals over a few days, so she would take her time to hatch a few and play with them, so the fun lasted us longer that way and kept up the excitement.
Within each of the eggs, you also get an accessory item for your Hatchimals, which could be a bobble hat, or a hair brush – a crown, or a little snowman.. there are lots of different ones included and you can mix and match them all between the Hatchimals.
These add to the fun and N particularly liked the hair brush, which also came with a hair extension for the hatchimal to clip in, and the crown.
The Hatchimals Royal Snowball pack has been lots of fun for N, both in the hatching process and in playing with the figures once they’ve all been revealed. They are so cute to collect, with each one having a different look and style.
Now that she’s got her first Hatchimals, I’m sure she will want to add to her collection in future! I would buy a similar pack in future, as I feel they do offer good value..
To find out more about other fun Hatchimals products, and the chance to win, make sure to join in with the Hatchimals #WeekofWow Twitter party on the 9th November at 6pm!
The Balance Wonder is a two wheeled wooden balance bike from Hape. Using a balance bike is useful for giving children the confidence they need to ride a bike, practicing their sense of balance to help prepare them for riding a pedalled bike when they are ready – skipping the training wheel stage.
This balance bike is suitable for indoor and outdoor use, and we have enjoyed using it both ways – outdoors in the summer, and now we are using it indoors again as the weather is getting colder. This balance bike has rubberised wheels which do not scuff up the floor and have never left any marks on our flooring. During the summer, we did store it indoors too to help prevent any weather damage and just brought it outside to play. By doing this, after using it for several months it still looks just as good as new and has not suffered any wear and tear at all so seems to be durable and well made.
The Balance Wonder is recommended for age 3 years and up, and we were sent one to try out with N who is almost three.