This day I love.......: game

My eldest daughter is football crazy. She loves football. Playing it and watching it. She goes into the garden after school and lays out stones on the garden to practise dribbling a ball around and when she isn't doing that she is kicking a ball against my fence as target practise.

I love watching her play and I am trying desperately to find somewhere to take her to help her practise more but it needs to fit in with all the other sports she currently does. She isn't the only football mad person in our house. I say person what I actually mean is our dog. He also loves footballs.

I have never seen a dog chase a ball as much as J does. I have also never seen a football get destroyed as quickly as J can do. Leather footballs last around 2 minutes on a good day, plastic ones less than 30 seconds. It really frustrates my eldest and we have to constantly remind J to 'leave it' whilst she is playing, though often her forgets. You can see the frustration building up inside him to play.

One World Futbol got in touch regarding their incredible, indestructible football that can withstand any playing conditions, it never needs a pump and never goes flat. It sounded like a solution to our problem. A ball that my eldest and J could use together? Would this be too good to be true?

The ball was developed by an entrepreneur in the US with support from Sting: “One World Play Project is inspiring children to realise their own potential through this nearly indestructible ball. It’s a simple idea, but it makes all the difference in the world.” Sting, musician, entertainer and humanitarian. For every One World Futbol sold a percentage of sales goes towards providing footballs to organisations working with youth living in disadvantaged communities around the world. Collaborating with sponsors, organisations and individuals, One World Play Project has brought the power of play to an estimated 60 million youth in 185 countries worldwide.

On the 24th July our One World Futbol arrived. J ran off with the package before I even had chance to open it. He would make an excellent police dog if they ever needed a dog to find a ball. I eventually managed to open the package and since then J has not let the One World Futbol out of his sight.

I was worried he might destroy it before my eldest got home from school but despite all the teeth and claw marks on it, it is still going strong. Strong enough to withstand my eldest practising against the fence panels.

Just to show how indestructible the One World Futbol is, here is a video of J running around with it.

It is safe to say that over a week later J still loves the One World Futbol and my daughter finally has a ball that will last!

The One world Futbol was sent for review, all words are my own opinion

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Ever since the postman delivered the Little Tikes Splash Face the girls have been itching to get outside and play. The problem however has been the weather. Snow, grey skies, rain and wind not to mention the cold temperatures are not the ideal condition for playing with a game in which you get very wet. So we waited and waited some more.

Yesterday it seems the weather Gods were looking down on us in favour. The sun shone. The temperature went above 20 and the wind was non existent. Perfect. The girls came home from school and were so happy to see I'd assembled Splash Face ready for them to play. It only took a quick 5 mins and the only tool I needed was a screwdriver. Off into the garden we went.

I used a hammer to ensure the pegs stayed in the ground, this was to make sure splash face stayed upright with all the tugging during the game and then I went to get the hose pipe. Here we encountered our one and only issue. The connector supplied on the Splash Face didn't fit with out hose pipe. The engineer in me wasn't going to be beaten. I rummaged around the kitchen found some electrical tape and wooden skewers and before you knew it I'd fashioned a fix to make the hose pipe stay in place.

Although only a temporary fix as I shall go and purchase a connector to ensure longer play. It mattered not. The girls began tugging and splashing each other. As they tugged the other got squirted with water. Much to the delight of their sibling. The garden was filled with shrieks of delight. Little man trying to get in on the fun too.

A temporary fix is just that, temporary. I had to keep putting the hose back on but that's no fault of Little Tikes, simply I need a different adaptor. The girls soaked to the bone but with huge smiles and lots of giggles. Little Man kept running off with the hose pipe and trying to get in on the fun.

Splash Face was certainly worth the wait. The girls loved it. Little man loved it. I best get to the garden centre and buy an adaptor so they can play for longer. I can see it featuring heavily in our garden during the warm weather.

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Wave racers are a revolutionary new way to race cars aimed at ages 6+. The cars operate via wave technology. Put simply the faster you wave, the faster the car goes. Each car has a sensor which detects your movements. Waving over the sensor starts the car and it sets off after a few seconds.

There are many different track sets available, which can be combined if required. We were sent the super helix speedway set which has 2 cars, 109 track pieces and offers an aerial loop and 3-tier circuits too!

The first task was assembling 109 pieces! What at first seemed really daunting actually went really quickly as the track is very simple to assemble. It slots together and in no time at all we had built the track. I couldn't follow the pictures on the instruction sheet and instead just built what I could see on the main box.

It took the girls a little getting used to the wave technology. I expected this though as it is like nothing they have done before. Once they got the hang of it, they were able to set two cars off at once with ease. A tip we learnt is do not set the cars off anywhere else. On wooden floors they whizz off and are really tricky to catch. The girls were soon racing together and watching the cars whizz round.

The cars do seem to pick up quite a bit of speed. Unless it is just my girls waving really fast. Little Man loves watching the cars as they go through the loop.

The track pieces seem robust and have withstood both girls pushing them to build the track together. Even the cars which have zoomed off the track a few times, when the girls have decided to set them off on the floor, have no damage to them.

Wave racers have proved to be very popular in our house. The girls and Little Man love watching them and racing them. Even J, our dog, sits and watches the cars whizz round the track. The girls try to see if they can get the cars to catch each other as they whizz round!

The item was sent for review, all words are my own opinion.

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The weather is getting colder, the shops are getting ready for Christmas and my daughters have begun practising their Christmas songs for their school performances. It certainly is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. With the girls getting into the Christmas spirit it seemed the perfect time to play Orchard Toys Christmas surprises game.

Orchard Toys Christmas surprises game is 2 games in 1, and suitable for 4 players. The game needs an initial set up to pop out the playing cards but once this is done it does not need doing for subsequent games.

The first game is a colour matching game. Roll the dice to display a colour and add the corresponding colour bauble to your Christmas tree.

Whilst both my girls are confident with their colours it is a lovely game to talk about colours. With my eldest I usually ask her how many more does she need? Or haw many more does her sister need? To get her thinking about the words 'more than' to help her with counting up. Both girls seem to really love this game and want to play before school

and even at bedtime

It is a great wind down and relax game and so is perfect to play before bed.

The second game is Father Christmas and his presents. The dice contains different shapes and each roll of the dice corresponds to a different shape present. We then had to match each shape present to the shape on Father Christmas sack.

My youngest started guessing what each of the presents would be, every circle was a ball and every rectangle was some chocolates. Love her thinking. You keep the presents turned wrapping paper side up until someone wins.

Once you have filled Father Christmas sack with presents you get to turn them over to see what he has brought you for Christmas. I love my daughters excitement at doing this

Whilst not part of the game I also wanted to share what my youngest gets up to with the counters from the game. She likes to make letters from them!

A wonderful Christmas game full of surprises!

Thank you Orchard toys for sending us Christmas Surprises to review. All words are my own opinion.

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After Christmas dinner we have a tradition in our house that we always play a board game. In fact most of the evening after Christmas dinner is spent playing games. We are always keen to play a game that the whole family can get involved in. This can be a little tricky when catering for such a diversity of ages.

What a Performance! by Orchard Toys is one such game that anyone over the age of 2 can play. In fact they could probably play if younger but you might need to adapt the game slightly. That however is the beauty of What a performance! it can be adapted to suit different ages.

The set up for What a Performance! is minimal. Everything is ready straight from the box, all you need to do is put the board itself together and you are ready to go. Inside the box is a spinner, magic spy reader, counters, cards, dice, board and instructions

To get into the Christmas spirit the girls set up the table with a Christmas themed table cloth and we got ready to play. The game has four counters, which means you could play as teams for a large family or individuals.

What a Performance! is very easy to understand and my youngest picked it up with no problems. As you move round the board you have to carry out an activity as described on the card. This can be anything from finding 5 items in the room beginning with a letter, to pretending to be a window cleaner. The game is very interactive.

The game helps my girls to build on their social skills by having to perform in front of family or friends. Some of the tasks like finding things beginning with a certain letter is also great for the girls as they have to think about letter sounds and with the added time pressure this gets them thinking quick. What a Performance! got my girls thinking and using their imagination which is such a lovely part of the game.

You can however choose not to do the activity and in this case you must carry out a forfeit. The forfeits are hidden on the back of the cards and you need to use the special reader to uncover them

My eldest took great pride in reading the back of the cards. It was great to see her practising her reading in such a fun way, and she loved how the special reader helped to make the words appear, as if by magic!

What a Performance! by Orchard toys, is our Christmas game for after Christmas dinner this year. One for the whole family to get involved with.

Thank you to Orchard toys for sending us What a performance! to play. All words are my own opinion.

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