Premier League Writing Stars Kids Poetry Competition

This month I’ve been finding out more about the Premier League Primary Stars programme which is currently being used in over 10,000 primary schools across England and Wales. Primary Stars helps to develop literacy, numeracy, PE and PSHE skills in the schools, with all participating being linked up to and supported by their local football teams. My son’s school has had several exciting visits from Manchester City FC players to help motivate and encourage pupils.

Primary Stars has recently launched a fantastic kids poetry competition, with winning entries being published in a book. Other prizes include author-led writing workshops and Premier League Trophy school visits, as well as poems being read aloud by football stars.

Premier League Writing Stars is open to all primary schools in England and Wales and aims to get pupils writing poetry in different creative forms, whether it be in a rap, song lyrics or haiku.

The great news is, the first 1,000 schools to enter the competition will also receive a bespoke “Book Bag” of poetry which is great for expanding school libraries and encouraging a love of poetry.

For more information on how to enter Writing Stars click this link.

The Writing Stars competition invites schoolchildren aged 5-11 to write around the theme of resilience; what does it mean to you to try and try again? Have a look at this brilliant advert from the Premier League Primary Stars campaign, where footballers and children recite the William Hickson poem “Try, Try Again”.

A few famous faces have had a go at writing a poem on the try, try again theme and they’re brilliant. Take a look at the poetry of Alan Shearer, Ben Shephard and Alex Scott (female footballer who has played for England and Arsenal).

All Writing Stars entries will be read by a panel of judges including former Chelsea midfielder and children’s author Frank Lampard; Lauren Child, the author-illustrator of the Charlie and Lola series and Waterstones Children’s Laureate; Yannick Bolasie, the Everton winger and lyricist; and Young People’s Laureate for London, Caleb Femi.

The closing date is 22nd December.

How can you get involved?

Primary Stars is a fantastic scheme for primary schools to get involved in. They have a huge range of free resources for teachers to use, so it is worth checking with your child’s teacher to see if they are using Primary Stars already.

Get writing! I’ll be showing my son the advert and talking to him about resilience and how try, try and trying again is the secret to success in all things. We will also be having a go at writing a little poem at home.

Reading and writing poetry at home is a great way to encourage a love of the written word. Poetry doesn’t have to be hard work. You can write a limerick, haiku, sonnet or song. You can even write a rap. It doesn’t matter what you do, the goal is to enthuse children and encourage them to love learning!

Toy Review: Chocolate Egg Surprise Maker

My son is addicted to watching those egg opening videos on YouTube, which means he gets pretty excited when he’s given a chocolate egg of his own. Give him a Kinder egg and he is one happy boy. I wondered if his enthusiasm for opening and eating chocolate eggs would translate into enthusiasm for making them. There was only one way to find out, we put a Chocolate Egg Surprise Maker to the test.

Toy Review: Chocolate Egg Surprise Maker

The Chocolate Egg Surprise Maker came with everything you need to make your chocolate eggs, except the chocolate, so we used some organic chocolate from Indigo Herbs as I’d been making chocolate that day.

The instructions are long and a bit too complicated for my six year old to process, so I sat down and read them through twice. You get two plastic pods and four egg “shells” which you put your surprise in before you make you egg. The kit also includes some small bags to melt the chocolate in, foil to wrap the finished eggs in as well as the egg maker.

The process is fairly simple, but we found the whole thing quite messy, so be prepared for that. Each plastic pod had a small hole in, presumably to ensure excess chocolate squirts out, but unfortunately when I spun the chocolate maker to make sure the egg was evenly coated, melted chocolate oozed out of the holes and flew across my freshly painted kitchen.

Toy Review: Chocolate Egg Surprise Maker

There are many stages to the egg making process and I’d heartily recommend that this should all be done under adult supervision. You put your surprise in the plastic egg, grease your pod, fill the syringe bag with melted chocolate. Clip your pod into the chocolate maker and squirt your chocolate into the pod. Turn the handle on the chocolate maker several times to ensure that the egg has been covered by chocolate and then put the pod in the freezer to set.

I’d heard that the eggs could be tricky to remove from the pods once they’d set, so I sprayed each pod with cooking oil, which did help them pop out. To set them I put the eggs in the freezer for the recommended half an hour, but they still weren’t set so I left them for a couple of hours.

I was disappointed when we removed the eggs from the pods as the eggs weren’t evenly covered with chocolate, which on closer inspection seemed to be because the chocolate had leaked out of the little hole. But we had made some chocolate eggs, so I wrapped them up in the foil and offered them out that evening for pudding.

Toy Review: Chocolate Egg Surprise Maker

My son was very excited to be opening his own Chocolate Egg Surprise. Unfortunately (and this could have been because of the chocolate I used but I couldn’t be 100% sure) the chocolate eggs didn’t crack open into two distinct halves and had to be scraped off the plastic egg with a spoon.

The Chocolate Egg Surprise Maker is aimed for children aged 6+. My son enjoyed the process and the thought of making his own eggs, but was ultimately a bit underwhelmed that they weren’t as impressive or as easy to eat as bought chocolate eggs are.

Toy Review: Chocolate Egg Surprise Maker

I think if I had lots of time on my hands to experiment with different kinds of chocolate for this, it might have improved the outcome a little. It’s worth remembering that this is a toy and not a piece of kitchen equipment. If you’ve got a patient child who enjoys process heavy activities and likes cleaning up after themselves, then they would probably quite like this.

The Chocolate Egg Surprise Maker is currently available from Amazon for £19.99.

We were sent this Chocolate Egg Surprise Maker for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own. Contains an affiliate link.

Me Too: I was the victim of sexual assault

I think everyone, or almost everyone must have a Me Too story. I know men and women who’ve been touched up, harassed, stalked, assaulted or raped. It’s never been a case of asking for it, or dressing provocatively; it’s about power, intimidation and a distinct lack of understanding about boundaries.

I have several Me Too stories, but the one which affected me the most and gave me PTSD happened in 2009. At the time I was working in a hospital. I was assaulted by a mentally ill man who I was trying to get to a different hospital where he could get the help he needed. Instead he trapped me in a clinic room and put his hands all over me, whispering filth and intimidation into my ear. My flesh crawls just thinking of it.

It was a couple of hours of my life I’ve tried very hard to forget. I speak about it infrequently; it’s not a secret but it’s an incident I tend to talk about in a nonchalant way, to try and make the horror of that afternoon much less than it was.

The incident was very much brushed under the carpet. He was whisked off by security and deposited in an ambulance, never to darken our door again. I was made a cup of tea and told to fill in a report. Nothing was ever done about it, I was encouraged not to take it further. I was told things like this happen all the time to nurses so I was making a fuss about nothing. They told me to put it to one side and get on with my life.

I tried to forget but I couldn’t.

Over the next few weeks and months I developed PTSD symptoms. I swallowed them down, ignored what I could and tried to normalise the rest. All of which were the worst things I could have done.

When my husband and I got pregnant some months later, every instinct I had to protect the life inside me kicked in and my PTSD and anxiety went into overdrive. I’d walk through the corridors of the hospital measuring my breath to keep the panic down. I’d be physically ill at the thought of being duty manager that day and putting my unborn baby at risk if I was attacked again. I was hyper vigilant and scared the whole time at work.

I sometimes wonder what I could have done differently. Was I dressed inappropriately? I don’t think so. My work wear would usually make Pauline Fowler look glamorous. Did I encourage him? No, I was friendly and helpful but it was my job to be friendly and helpful. I stepped back, moved away, did what I could to indicate his attentions were unwelcome. I said no, I said stop. He didn’t.

It was not me, it was him.

Did he do it because he fancied me? No, I don’t think so. He did it because he could and because I was new and unsure and easy prey and he was very ill. I can almost forgive him. Almost.

Ultimately it was my employers responsibility to protect me and they didn’t. It was their job to give me aftercare and make sure I was ok. They didn’t. There was a lot of wrong and not much right about the whole situation, which is a shame.

There should have been a slightly happier ending for me, but there wasn’t. After I finished my maternity leave I went back to work. The daily panic attacks returned but were much worse. I went off sick with stress and knew working there would be impossible. I had an incredibly unsupportive new manager who bullied me out of my job, and that was it, my once promising NHS career was over. Over because a man put his hands on me and triggered a course of events I couldn’t control.

So yes, me too.

Me Too: I was the victim of sexual assault

Meal Planning Monday – Costly Convenience Foods

This week, despite being organised and strict with my spending, I’ve still ordered over £100 worth of food for us. Our house is currently the house of the plague, so I’ve planned a few convenience food meals to make mealtimes a bit easier this week. That’s almost certainly helped bump up the cost of mealtimes.

When I sit down and plan our meals for the next week or so, I also write a shopping list. This makes me feel really organised. When I shop online I tend to use MySupermarket because I feel like to helps me to shop in a more pocket friendly way. If I need tinned tomatoes and I’m not fussed about the brand; then I can easily find the cheapest or what’s on offer. I feel like a super savvy shopper when I do this.

You’d think with me being very careful about what I buy it would mean I had a fairly modest shopping bill. Not so, somehow I’ve just spent £100 on about 9 days worth of food for three people; not including the dog. Admittedly this week I’ve bought more convenience foods than normal, because I’ve got a chest infection and I’m feeling quite poorly. I don’t have the energy or inclination to stand in the kitchen cooking from scratch every night.

Despite this, I think I’ve put together a fairly wholesome menu for the next seven days. What do you think?

Meal Planning Monday - Costly Convenience Foods

Admittedly I’ve bought in the kofta, meatballs, pie and burgers, but the rest will be cooked from scratch. I’ve tried to offset some of the convenience aspect by adding healthier sides and not beating myself up about it.

I’m veggie and I know I need to eat to get well but my appetite isn’t great at the moment. Where the boys are eating meat I’ve planned a veggie substitute. I’ve treated myself to a Linda McCartney pie for on Friday and I’ll have chopped up Quorn sausage instead of meatballs. Incidentally the Quorn meatballs are the best in the business, but sadly not yet available from Morrisons.

So that’s our menu for the week. It’s not exactly adventurous, but it should be fairly easy to prepare and keep us going until we’re all at the other side of the various bugs we’ve got.

What do you think of our menu?

Recipe: Homemade Spiced Apple Pie Cookies

Every so often I like to go to Aldi and have a look at their special deals that week. Sometimes they have themed weeks where you can buy food they don’t normally stock. In July I was browsing the shelves when I found a jar of apple pie seasoning. A germ of an idea had planted itself, which eventually turned into several batches of my homemade Spiced Apple Pie Cookies.

Recipe: Homemade Spiced Apple Pie Cookies

This recipe uses Aldi Taste of America American Style Apple Pie Seasoning. You’ll probably be able to find something similar in most supermarkets. If you do struggle to find any, it can be substituted with cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. This recipe uses two teaspoons of the spice, so I would suggest you use one teaspoon of ground cinnamon, half a teaspoon of ground nutmeg and half a teaspoon of ground allspice. Or if you don’t have those I’m sure two teaspoons of ground cinnamon would be just as delicious.

Recipe: Homemade Spiced Apple Pie Cookies

These Spiced Apple Pie Cookies are really quite simple to make. I have used thin slices of apple on the top of mine, but they’d be really good with some finely diced apple chunks sprinkled on the top before baking instead.

Homemade Spiced Apple Pie Cookies

Ingredients (makes 15 cookies)
125g butter, softened
100g soft brown sugar
125g caster sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 teaspoons of apple pie seasoning (or equivalent)
225g self-raising flour
1 apple, finely sliced or diced

Method
Preheat your oven to 180°C.

In a large bowl cream your butter and the two sugars. Once they are well combined, add the egg, vanilla and apple pie seasoning. Tip in the flour and keep mixing until it forms your cookie dough.

Take a baking sheet and either grease well or use a piece of baking parchment (I used baking parchment). Using a set of scales, take the dough and weigh into 40g balls, this helps ensure all your cookies are the same size.

Place the dough balls on the baking sheet making sure there is lots (and lots) of room for them to spread out. You might need to use two or more baking sheets. Squash each dough ball down a little with the back of a fork and place your apple slice (or apple chunks) on top of the dough. You could sprinkle a little more of the seasoning or a pinch of sugar over your apple slice if you want at this stage.

Recipe: Homemade Spiced Apple Pie Cookies

Bake the cookies in your pre-heated oven for 10 minutes until they’re just turning golden round the edges. Remove from the oven and leave them on the baking sheet to firm up for a few minutes before putting them on a wire cooling rack.

My batch of 15 cookies was gobbled up incredibly quickly. They can be stored in an airtight container if you can manage not to scoff them all in one go!

Recipe: Homemade Spiced Apple Pie Cookies

Review: Bladez Toyz Remote Control Inflatable R2-D2

We never knew we needed a Remote Control Inflatable R2-D2 until we got one. Bladez Toyz make a whole range of different inflatable characters, but we chose the classic R2-D2. Who doesn’t need a Remote Control Inflatable R2-D2 in their lives?

Our inflatable R2-D2 stands at 42cm (16.5 inches) tall and comes with an easy to use handset and real droid sound effects. He does need inflating which you can do by blowing him up with your mouth or a balloon pump. It only take a few minutes to blow him up. He also needs 6 AA batteries.

When you open the box you’ll find an inflatable R2-D2 with a drive unit, a radio remote control unit, a PVC repair patch and some instructions. You’ll need 4 AA batteries in R2-D2 and the other 2 AA batteries go into the remote control unit. You can use his inside or outside, but you probably should keep him indoors.

R2-D2 is really easy to put together and set up. If you’ve got batteries to hand you can probably be up and running in under 10 minutes from opening the box. The 2.4GHz Radio Control allows you to drive forwards and spin and has a range of 30 metres.

When R2-D2 moves he plays various sound effects, chattering, beeping and occasionally screaming as he wheels around. The sound effects are what really made this Remote Control Inflatable R2-D2 for me. He’s hilarious and has to be seen to really get how funny he is.

The Remote Control Inflatable R2-D2 from Bladez Toyz is suitable for children aged 3+ (and adults, who if they are like me will find this hilarious). This Remote Control Inflatable R2-D2 costs £24.99

The Bladez Toyz range of Star Wars inflatables is available from a number of retailers including Maplin.

We were sent this Inflatable R2-D2 for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

Review: Monster Smash Ups Remote Control Truck

Remote control toys have always been popular with children. Not just children, we love playing with them too! This week we’ve been playing with a Monster Smash Ups Remote Control Truck which has been so much fun. There are a few different Monster Smash Ups to choose from, but we went for the blue “Rhino” truck.

The Monster Smash Ups Remote Control Truck is powered by USB charge. It takes around 90 minutes to get a full charge, which gives around 20 minutes of play. The remote control unit needs 2 AA batteries, so the whole set up is quite light on batteries and won’t cost you a fortune in AA’s. I have my laptop on for at least a couple of hours most days, so I just plug it in and charge it up while I work.

Review: Monster Smash Ups Remote Control Truck

The design of the Monster Smash Ups Truck is really robust and chunky and has tilt turn suspension. It fits together a bit like Duplo or Lego and it’s designed to smash apart when you play with it. If you crash into an obstacle, like another truck, a wall or my foot then the front bumper activates the ejector seat and the driver in propelled from the truck. You can then quickly rebuild and get back to the action!

Review: Monster Smash Ups Remote Control Truck

Suitable for ages 3+ these Monster Smash Ups trucks are customisable with the pack of stickers included. The trucks are radio controlled with a 20 metre range which allows several players to battle their trucks at the same time; or one player to repeatedly ram my feet when I’m trying to cook a meal. The Monster Smash Ups trucks also come with a set of cones and flags which you can use to design a course.

The Monster Smash Ups trucks have a built-in audio speaker. When you turn it on it plays the sound of a car starting up. It then plays the sound of a roaring engine; it also plays a crash sound when it hits an obstacle. Like with all noisy toys, I wish there was a volume control to turn it down a little; but in short bursts it’s not too bad.

Review: Monster Smash Ups Remote Control Truck

I like that the Monster Smash Ups trucks are so robust, that they crash apart and are easy to rebuild. They’re suitable for ages 3+ but my nearly 7 year old has had so much fun playing with it. I can see him asking for more trucks in the range for Christmas too!

The “Rhino” Monster Smash Ups Remote Control Truck retails for around £29.99 and is available from a wide range of retailers including Amazon.

We were sent this Monster Smash Ups Remote Control Truck for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

Review: Indigo Herbs Organic Chocolate Starter Kit

AD/gifted. Homemade gifts and treats are always popular Christmas gifts. For many years now, friends and family have requested and been given anything from homemade jam and chutney to freshly baked shortbread. Always wanting to expand my repertoire, I’ve started thinking about making my own little chocolates and truffles. This week I’ve been playing Little Miss Chocolatier with this Organic Chocolate Starter Kit from Indigo Herbs.