Fun to Learn First Friends Magazine

Whenever we go into a supermarket the small boy always heads for the magazine stand and spends some time weighing up his options before choosing a children’s magazine to take home. When he was younger I used to have to hide it away until we got home or he’d trash it in the car, but these days he sits beautifully in the back of the car pouring over the contents and deciding what he’s going to colour in or put stickers on when we get home.

This month a brand new children’s magazine has been launched by award winning pre-school publisher, Redan Publishing Ltd. They publish a whole range of kids magazines which you will be familiar with, such as Peppa Pig Magazine, Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom Magazine as well as Friends Magazine and Favourites Magazine – all of which we’ve bought and read a number of times.

The new publication, Fun to Learn First Friends Magazine, is aimed at pre-school children aged 2-4 years. It contains stories and activities featuring popular children’s TV characters including, Elmer, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Spot, Woolly & Tig, Abney & Teal amongst many others.

Fun to Learn First Friends Magazine

This lovely magazine encourages learning through play, with easy to follow stories and fun activities, including early learning crafts, letters, counting, making, matching, puzzles, colouring, all of which are great for a spot of stealth learning and for sparking a bit of creativity.

The first edition of the monthly Fun to Learn First Friends Magazine costs £2.99 and is published on 8th July. It comes with a free gift of a Very Hungry Caterpillar Tea Set, 33 stickers, an Elmer height chart, a Spot the Dog poster and the chance to win a Gruffalo Trunki.

Fun to Learn First Friends Magazine

As you can see, the small boy really enjoyed Fun to Learn First Friends Magazine, he loved the activities, especially the colouring in. He liked the Spot the Dog poster and he really, really loved the little free gift of a tea set. It was the perfect activity for an afternoon stuck in the house.

Review: Room on the Broom at The Lowry

We’re on half term this week and next and it can be quite difficult to find things to do to entertain a small lively child. Thankfully I had the foresight to get some tickets for us and a couple of his school friends to see Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson at The Lowry in Salford Quays.

Julia Donaldson is a real legend and a fantastic author, her stories are great to read out loud so it’s no surprise that they work so well on stage. Her most famous book, The Gruffalo is brilliant and we went to see the theatre adaptation last year, it was a Tall Stories’ production and we were all transfixed from start to finish.

Room on the Broom

Room on the Broom is a lovely story of a good witch and her cat who whilst off on an adventure lose a hat and gain a dog, lose a bow and gain a bird and lose a wand and gain a frog. The witches broom is soon overloaded and snaps, leading to a dangerous encounter with a dragon and with a decent bit of teamwork and a sprinkling of magic the dragon is sent packing and a new, luxurious broom appears.

It was a wonderful, colourful story brought to life incredibly well by the four talented actors, with some lovely puppetry, funny voices and some great songs which we had in our heads all the way home. There was a genuinely funny moment when one of the actors used the wrong funny voice and all the actors corpsed and the audience fell about laughing, but they recovered well and earned a deserved round of applause.

The show lasts a little under an hour and is suitable for children aged three and above, my four year old and his friends loved it, especially the animals. There’s some nice audience interaction, great songs and enough little snippets of fun to keep the grown ups happy (quoting sections of Bohemian Rhapsody etc). It’s fun, it’s lively and it’s a lovely thing to do over half term.

It’s a great show and well worth catching if you get the chance. It’s on at The Lowry in Salford Quays until Sunday 12th April. More dates in other theatres are on the Tall Stories’ website.

Note: We were given complimentary tickets to see Room on the Broom at The Lowry for review purposes. All opinions are our own.