Blue Planet Archives - HodgePodgeDays

AD/Gifted. In 2001 Sir David Attenborough brought us the Blue Planet series. 16 years later in 2017 Blue Planet II hit our screens and it has been credited with highlighting the serious problem of plastics in our oceans and the environmental impact we humans are causing. Blue Planet II was essential viewing for our family, it’s a series which young and old can learn so much from.

After watching and loving Blue Planet II, we made a point of visiting lots of aquariums to find out more about aquatic life. My 8 year old is really quite knowledgeable about marine life, and a lot of that is due to the work of Sir David Attenborough and his Blue Planet team.

BBC Earth Blue Planet Plush Toys

This month sees the launch of the BBC Earth Plush range from Posh Paws. This is a collection of Blue Planet II and Planet Earth II plush toys. They have been made with premium plush fabrics and they are spectacularly detailed. They’re really soft and huggable and we adore them!

The range of BBC Earth plushes includes:

7″ Elephant, Panda, Tiger, Polar Bear, Penguin and Sea Turtle
10″ Blue Planet II characters – Polar Bear, Sea Otter, Shark, Sea Turtle, Octopus and Penguin
10″ Planet Earth II characters – Tiger, Elephant, Lion, Sloth, Panda and Grizzly Bear

BBC Earth Blue Planet Plush Toys

We were sent the Blue Planet II Sea Turtle, Octopus and Penguin to give a home to. The 10″ plush toys are £16.99 each and are so lovely.

First things first, lets take a look at the packaging. As you can imagine, plastic is kept to a minimum. The toys are mounted on a recyclable cardboard base. It’s impressive that the packaging is almost all recyclable and very in keeping with the ethos of the BBC Earth brand.

BBC Earth Blue Planet Plush Toys

There’s also a “Love me for life” tag, reminding people that these aren’t throwaway toys, they’re for life and if you no longer want them you can pass them on to someone who will love them again.

The plushes themselves are suitable from birth, very soft, squishy and cuddly. Each has the BBC Earth logo sewn onto them, a badge of authenticity if you will. Each creature has its own tag with interesting information about that animal. There’s also a QR code you can scan to be shown clips from Blue Planet II or Planet Earth II.

My favourite (because I do love an octopus) is the octopus. It’s got 8 legs which are slightly springy. They’ve been sewn in such a way that you can stretch them out and they spring back. The detail is terrific, the shell on the sea turtle, whilst soft, has a really detailed shell pattern, the eyes and facial features are really lifelike too. The penguin is adorable, he was my son’s favourite. He cuddled him all night and he likes everything about him.

BBC Earth Blue Planet Plush Toys

I think these BBC Earth plushes are fantastic. It’s really nice to see such good quality, true to life soft toys. They would make a great gift for an animal lover, young or old and scanning the QR code is such a good way of learning more about the cuddly creature in your care.

The BBC Earth Blue Planet Plush Toys are available from Waterstones and other retailers.

Disclosure: We were sent these BBC Earth toys for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

I don’t know about you, but Sunday evenings are Blue Planet time in our house. We all snuggle on the sofa and spend an hour being wowed by the wonders of the deep. With SEA LIFE Manchester virtually on our doorstep, we decided to take a trip and discover some of the amazing creatures who live in our oceans.

Discovering our Blue Planet at SEA LIFE Manchester

SEA LIFE Manchester is our nearest SEA LIFE Centre and as such we tend to go there quite a lot. It’s great to spend a couple of fairly chilled hours there. We’ve met most of the creatures in the centre before, but this time there had been a couple of changes.

I have my own favourites, namely the jellyfish, this time they were much smaller, so I think these were new to the centre. It was quite interesting to see their relatively small bodies floating and undulating in the water.

Discovering our Blue Planet at SEA LIFE Manchester

Te other big change was that Ernie, the huge green sea turtle has found himself a lady friend – Cammie. I think the hope is that they will find love and produce some baby turtles of their own.

Despite us being regular visitors to SEA LIFE Manchester, we did manage to experience a few things we’d never seen or done before. The boy felt brave enough to touch a starfish in the Rockpool Zone. Then I put my hand in to say hello to a shrimp. I was told the shrimp would nibble my fingers, taking away dead skin and it found a nice meal and gave my finger a bit of a tug I wasn’t expecting. I may have squealed in a most unnecessary way.

Discovering our Blue Planet at SEA LIFE Manchester

We also spent quite a lot of time talking to some of the Jurassic Rangers who were on hand to talk about fossils and show off some specimens. The boy is a massive dinosaur fan, so this was a bit of a treat for him.

Best of all, towards the end of the day we managed to catch the Ray Talk. We watched them being fed while a very knowledgeable man told us all about them. There are three species of ray at SEA LIFE Manchester including the lovely Blue Spotted Stingrays. The Ray Talk is well worth catching if you’re interested in these graceful creatures.

Discovering our Blue Planet at SEA LIFE Manchester

The boy went all around SEA LIFE pointing out creatures he’d seen on Blue Planet and telling us a bit more about them. The same is true when we’re watching the TVseries; every so often he pipes up “I’ve seen that at SEA LIFE”!

If you’re a fan of Blue Planet then a visit to your local SEA LIFE Centre is a must. It’s really helped to connect the dots for my son. Seeing things in real life that he’d seen on the TV suddenly made everything extra wonderful and real for him.