Radical Reward Charts (review)

This is my son's new reward chart from Radical Reward Charts. They sent me one to review, and so far we are very impressed.

Radical Reward Chart

I had been wondering whether a reward chart my be a useful way to encourage my son to do the things I want him to do more of - like trying new foods or getting dressed without too much messing about. 

He will be 5 next month, and doesn't really understand money yet, so a monetary bribe doesn't work. I don't really want to give him sweets or small plastic toys. Stickers are enthusiastically received but tend to get stuck on his t-shirt and then end up in the washing machine. So I looked at the reward charts in high street shops but I found them a bit dull and uninspiring.

The Radical Reward Charts look a lot more fun. My son chose the lovely Reedy River design, which has a blue border and goes well with the blue decor in his bedroom. We have stuck it on the side of the chest of drawers so that you can see it as soon as you walk in the room.

One of the things that is particularly appealing about Radical Reward Charts is that they are designed to be used with a laminated photo of your child to act as a moving piece to move up the chart. This is much more exciting and motivating than obtaining stickers on a conventional reward chart.

My son starts his journey up the Radical Reward Chart

We received a free Radical Reward Chart and laminated photo for the purposes of writing this review. This would normally cost £14 including postage and packing. All words and views expressed are my own.

Megson - When I Was A Lad...

Over the last couple of months, my little boy and I have really enjoyed listening to When I Was A Lad... by Megson after we received a free copy to review. 

In fact, we haven't just been listening, we have been singing along and dancing around the living room.

Megson are Stu and Debbie Hanna. They recorded this album of children's folk songs after having a daughter. The mix of traditional and new songs is lovely and makes good use of how Stu and Debbie's voices work together.

Here is a YouTube video of the first track on the album, which is a traditional Yorkshire Lullaby called Bee-o (where "go to bee'o's" means "go to sleep").

My favourite bit from Bee-o is 

I love my little laddy, he's just like his daddy

I love him, I love him, I love him cause he's mine

Another song I really love from the album is Jenny Jenkins. My maiden name is Jenkins and it is the first time I've had a song to sing with my family name in it!  

The album When I was a Lad is available to purchase from Megson's website for £10, along with all their other CDs.

I received a free copy of this CD for the purposes of writing this review. All my reviews are completely honest.

Moo MiniCards

I just received 100 MiniCards from Moo (using a PeerIndex perk so that they were free of charge). 

I'm very pleased with the results. The design of these cards is fairly simple, just my Tatty Devine name necklace blog header on one side and contact details on the other side, but you can be more creative if you want to.

So now when I meet other bloggers, or people who want to work with bloggers, I will have a card to hand over.

Leather Satchel Co - 14" satchel in Deep Purple

My new favourite bag is this beautiful leather satchel from The Leather Satchel Co. It is so gorgeous that people stop me in the street and ask me where I got it!

The leather is Deep Purple, with black on the reverse. This is how the colour is described on the Leather Satchel Co website:

"Our Deep Purple is a Byzantine shade of purple, similar in style to indigo but with a more bold and sophisticated finish to it. It's the type of rich, deep purple that clergy men used for their stoles, or wealthy London businessmen would use as the silk lining of their tailor-made suits. The consensus of opinion is that it is also very similar to plum purple or violet, but not exactly the same due to it's deeper finish, which gives it sophisticated edge. The leather is finished in our standard method, leaving the leather very hard wearing with a slight satin sheen to it. The reverse of the leather is dyed black, a combination which serves to emphasise this beautiful shade of purple."

The stitching is light blue which looks really nice against the purple. The 14" size is perfect for me - I can fit my 11" MacBook Air and A4 documents inside along with all my other essentials.

One of the things I really love about The Leather Satchel Co is that they offer a range of customisations. I chose the following customisations to make the satchel easy to use and comfortable to carry:

• magnetic fasteners
• detachable strap and briefcase handle
• shoulder strap pad with a lovely black suede underside

You can see what the magnetic fasteners, strap and briefcase handle look like in the photos below.

So all in all this is a really lovely and practical satchel and I am very pleased with it.

This satchel was purchased using commission. All words, photographs and opinions expressed are my own.

'Teach Your Monster To Read' - game review and competition

I came across a quote recently: 'Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.' This seems very true - I've been sharing picture books with my little boy, who turned 4 in August, since he was born.

But when it comes to phonics, I haven't really known where to start. To be honest, I have been scared of mispronouncing things and causing confusion when my son starts school.

So yesterday afternoon I sat with my son on my lap and we tried out a new game called 'Teach Your Monster to Read'. This game is absolutely free and we really enjoyed playing it. I'm pretty sure we both learned a lot too, though we were having so much fun that it didn't seem like hard work.

Whether it was herding sheep into the right pen:

Playing a retro platform game with flowers telling you which direction to go in:

Or trying to rescue the princess by choosing the right sounds to climb the tower:

Here are some of the points I thought were really good about the 'Teach Your Monster to Read' game:

• very strong link between the sounds and the letters
• your child can choose which games they play and which prizes they are playing for
• it features the voice of Simon Farnaby, from Horrible Histories

So we will definitely be playing this again!

Draw a Monster Competition

The folks at Teach Your Monster to Read would love to see your little monsters’ monster designs.

They’re giving away £200 of Usborne books to the monsters the judges would most like to have as a pet.

For a chance to win, they’re asking children to draw (or paint or build) a monster and send a photograph of the finished work to go in their online gallery.

The monster can be one from the Teach Your Monster to Read game or from your imagination – it can be friendly, spooky, scary or silly!

The judges will be Cathy James from www.nurturestore.co.uk plus her two daughters – they will have the hard task of choosing the winning pet monsters.

Good luck!

Prizes:

1st prize: £150 worth of Usborne books of your choice*

2nd and 3rd prizes: £25 worth of Usborne books of your choice*

* Subject to availability, of course!

How to enter 

Send a photograph of your monster’s monster drawing to competitions@teachyourmonstertoread.com

Deadline is 5pm on Friday 9th November 2012.

The winners will be announced on Friday 16th November 2012

For full competition details - check out the Teach Your Monster to Read blog.

Disclosure: we will be sent 3 books of our choice from the Usbourne: Very First Reading Series as a thank you for publicising the competition.

Tatty Devine name necklace

This is my nyssapod name necklace from Tatty Devine. Isn't it fab?

Name necklace from Tatty Devine

It was really easy to design this necklace by choosing the colour, lettering style, charm and chain colour. I tried various different combinations, and the final selection was as follows:

• standard size
• turquoise
• sundae lettering
• star charm
• silver-coloured chain

The cost was £27.50 plus £3 postage and packing, and my custom-made necklace arrived 10 days after ordering.

In case you are wondering why I am called 'nyssapod', I'll give you the short version here.

There was once a Doctor Who companion called Nyssa. I rather liked the name so adopted it as my middle name when I was at school. It even ended up on my degree certificate.

My dad started calling me 'nyssapod'. It was actually a joke. But in 2005 when I needed a name for an e-mail address I found that all the obvious choices were already being used by other people. So I decided to use 'nyssapod'.

It's handy to have a name that no-one else uses, and now I have various accounts in the name of 'nyssapod', including

• pinterest
• twitter
• audioboo

Over the last 7 years I've grown quite fond of the name 'nyssapod' - and this necklace is a celebration of that.