Orchard Toys - Shopping List, Old MacDonald's Farm and Incey Wincey Spider

A bit of an off-piste post but I consider the Orchard Toys games we have to be as good as many of the books we read! They offer consistent good quality and fun and are also very educational, what more could you want?

First up is Shopping List, according to their website it's their bestseller and it's easy to see why. It's packaged as suitable from three years although we got it last year for Rosie's second birthday and she found it enjoyable to play it as a one person game and fill all the trolleys herself rather than play it with other children. It's basically a matching game where you have to take a shopping list and trolley and then fill your trolley with the items you need from your list, it's good for extending a child's food vocabulary too.

Next we got Old MacDonald Lotto. It doesn't really feature Old MacDonald but has four different farmers with their various animals and tractors to collect. It's similar in concept to Shopping List but you can also make the animal noises! This is great with a child who can't quite get to saying the word yet but can make the animal noise to indicate what they mean. I would say it's a bit easier to play with a younger child making it definitely suitable from two years.

We have just bought Insey Winsey Spider which is aimed at three year olds to six year olds. It uses counting and shapes to help the spiders up the drainpipe and has added drama with a spinner which can wash them down again! We haven't played it that much yet but I can see already that it's going to be a game that we play over and over again.

So that's the games we currently have from Orchard Toys. I think we will be adding many more to our stock over the years! I have my eye on one of their new ones 'Where's my Cupcake?'!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

This book doesn't need introducing. It's one of the best known children picture books ever and for a very good reason - it's a wonderful book! I have spent hours, days, weeks, possibly a year trying to think up a picture book as good as this. It covers days of the week, the life cycle of a caterpillar metamorphosing into a butterfly, different foods, numbers, I probably could go on!

And then there is the classic, timeless artwork. It has a naivety yet is brilliantly sophisticated at the same time. You can clearly see the influences of Picasso and Matisse in the line, texture and colours. It probably has the most spin-offs in terms of other product (crockery, stationery etc) that any children's book has and this is mainly due to the enduring appeal of the artwork.

We've been reading this since Rosie was tiny and it still is one of our favourites - proof of why it's a classic, it endures! When we read it we spend quite a lot of time on the food page with the cake, pickle etc and choose what we think everyone we know would like to eat off the page. I have also done some butterfly painting with Rosie (when you fold a piece of paper and paint half a butterfly on it and then press the other half of the paper onto it so it's a mirror image) but I think the joy of doing that is when you can do it yourself and she's still a little young.

Toddler Touch First Words and First Numbers

The Toddler Touch series has been developed to lead on from Ladybird's very successful Baby Touch series. There are currently two books: First Words and First Numbers. I've used them with Rosie and she's really enjoyed them but she's more into her stories at the moment and they are also slightly young for her. I think they are more suitable for 1-2 years old. It's probably also the format. Board books with touch and feels just don't hold Rosie's attention in the way they used to (she's now 2 and a half). It's interesting finding this out with your own child. When I was working in book publishing I would merrily propose board books for much older ages! She does like books with bits you can remove however! I hate them! They end up all over the house. Another thing I never realised when I was busy making books that had about 50 removable pieces in them!

But although they don't hold her attention as much as they would if she was a bit younger she definitely enjoys exploring the books with their lift-the-flaps and touch-and-feel trails. And she particularly likes to display her counting skills with the First Numbers. Each book has a trail to follow, apart from just being good fun they are there to encourage pre-writing skills, if you can follow a twisty line with your finger then it's one step towards using a pencil.

First Words follows themes and displays them in engaging ways. The Food theme is arranged as a teddy bears picnic and the Outside theme is arranged as a walk around a park. It works well since you can use them to generate discussions and ask your child what they like best and what they would choose etc.

I think the design and illustrations work really well for these books and they look fresh and fun. They're easy to use and clear in what they're setting out to do.

I do have to put in a small caveat here and admit they are written by me. So I am going to be biased towards them! I don't gain from any sale of them though so although it's slight self-promotion it's not for monetary purposes.