Introducing, SumBlox! The beautifully designed and crafted wooden block set that allows children to explore and learn more about numbers and their relationships in a hands-on, concrete (and most importantly, fun) way.

It is safe to say that as a teacher, great resources that help and encourage children to learn through play, excite me greatly. When I first laid my eyes on SumBlox, (which have only recently been introduced to the Australian market) I was immediately drawn to the incredibly clever, yet simple concept, that combines children's love of building and physically manipulating materials, with a number of different mathematical concepts. What a fabulous maths teaching tool!

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Magna-Tiles. Are they really worth the money?

This post is sponsored by Finlee and Me

There are so many toys out there available for purchase, that it can be hard to know what is going to be of real value. We have been very fortunate to have the opportunity to review a number of fabulous educational toys over the years. We're often asked to promote or review toys for kids but the reality is that only a select few make it on to the blog and into our hearts as a toy that we absolutely love.

For a toy to make it into our top toys list, it needs to:

• be fun
• be educational
• be appealing
• be open-ended
• allow for creativity
• be able to be used for many years by multi-ages

Magna-Tiles ticks all these boxes and their aesthetic beauty combined with their ease of use and ability to allow for creativity, problem solving and imaginative play have firmly entrenched it as one of our favourite toys of all time.

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Finding good quality, affordable educational toys and materials is not always easy from home. That's why when I'm introduced to places that have these things available, I love to share them with you. This post is sponsored by Parent Direct and Nuffnang.

As a school teacher, one of the many jobs I loved doing was the ordering for the classroom. We usually did the bulk of our ordering at the end of the year so that the supplies would arrive before the new school year started. I would love pouring over the catalogues from educational suppliers and checking out all the fabulous educational resources available.

When I had my own children and was on family leave from teaching, like many parents, I was excited about buying toys and materials for my children. That's the really fun stuff! (Especially if you love to play too.) I was already aware of the awesome resources available for children to play and learn, and these were the sort of toys I wanted for my children. I discovered though, that finding these toys and resources was actually more difficult than I'd thought. I knew the names of a number of educational distributors and attempted to find places to buy or order their goods. I often found the sites and the ordering to be overwhelming though. Many are not really set up for individual purchasers (more for schools or bulk orders) and require you to print out large forms and fax them off. Often with freight costs, the items would end up too expensive.

It wasn't until my daughter was attending 3 year-old kinder that we started getting the fundraising catalogues sent home. I couldn't wait for the book club ones (yay, love book club!) but I was even more delighted when we were sent the ones for educational toys! Finally I had a way to not only easily purchase the educational toys I wanted, but to also help our school or centre. What a great idea!

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This is a sponsored post

A while ago we were contacted by the makers of the super creative construction kit for kids, Fort Magic. One look at their website and already I could see the huge potential for years of fun and learning so eagerly agreed to write a review and give away a set to one of our International readers. You can see what we had to say about Fort Magic here.

With our last giveaway being so popular, Fort Magic have generously offered another set for us to give away! So, have a little look at how we've been playing and learning with our Fort Magic set over the past 4 months and then enter the giveaway at the bottom to win your very own set!

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This is a sponsored post

Fort Magic is an innovative and creative construction kit for kids, and as such, when they contacted me to see if we'd be interested in reviewing one, we absolutely jumped at the chance. One look at the possibilities for fun and learning this kit contained, and I was very eager to see what it was really like and if it could live up to it's potential. At $199 USD, it's the kind of item that you'd want to think was good quality, that your children would gain from and was going to last you for years to come. If you're interested in finding out what we thought and for a chance to win a set, keep reading.

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This is a sponsored post.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know that we advocate for the benefits of learning through play. Here we regularly show you ways to play and learn with your kids, generally using things you can find around the house as well as basic art and craft supplies. However, despite using as many recyclable materials as we can in our play we have still bought and been given lots of toys for our kids. Whilst we don't show you all of that play on the blog, it is still a big part of how our children play and learn.


The toys that we choose to buy for our kids can make a difference in their development. Being presented opportunities to see, play with and experience specific materials will present different challenges, require different skill sets and cover different learning areas. Children can learn from any toy, (or anything they deem to be a toy), but the amount, depth and breadth of the learning depends on the interaction between the child and it, and the type of opportunities the toys provide. Further learning can also occur when the child plays cooperatively with peers or adults.


Educational Toys encourage specific learning areas such as Literacy, Maths, Science, Music etc. and are often more expensive than "regular toys" as (hopefully) more thought has gone into the educational benefits and the usefulness for your child and I find they are more often built to last. This isn't always the case though so it is important when choosing toys for your children that you consider a few points.


Some questions to consider when choosing a toy for your child.

• What areas of learning will this allow my child to experience?
• What different skills will my child need/develop playing with this toy?
• Are there different ways for my child to play and engage with the toy?
• Will the toy grow with them?
• Will the toy last?
• Can the toy be played independently?
• Can the toy be cooperatively played with?
• Does the toy encourage creative thinking?

Thinking about these things first can save you a lot of money because toys nowadays aren't cheap and if they're not going to last and your children aren't going to see many benefits from them and be kept engaged over time, then they are probably just wasting your money. If I round up all the virtually useless toys we've had at our place and their combined price, I shudder to think how that money could have been better spent.

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