Review: Pop Goes Your Name – Personalised CD

We have recently been sent a personalised Pop Goes Your Name CD to listen to and review. It’s a collection of fun and upbeat songs, personalised with the small boy’s name, which makes it extra special for him. The CD, which is written for children in their early years features a selection of musical styles, with catchy melodies and sing-along lyrics. There’s a little bit of rock, a little bit of pop and a little bit of hip-hop etc.

The small boy loves music. Since he figured out how to use his Dad’s iPod we’ve been regularly treated to his own personal musical style and constant demands for us all to have a dance. Dance Mummy, dance! We love this and it’s only to be encouraged, even if his music taste isn’t particularly small boy appropriate. Rage Against the Machine anyone?

We had a small family disco to see if we liked the Pop Goes Your Name CD, we did. From the moment it started he was dancing, he danced all the way through. We danced a bit too, there were some seriously good toe-tapping tunes on this CD for toddlers.

What I liked about it was that it wasn’t toe-curlingly twee. It wasn’t sickly sweet nursery tunes, but proper, actual songs that you could listen to and enjoy. We have listened to it several times now and it’s not worn thin or got annoying. And the small boy absolutely loves it, which is always the true test. You know with a child that if a toy, game, CD or whatever is good they keep asking for it, and he does.

The Pop Goes Your Name CD costs £12.95 and you can choose from the top 800 children’s names. I think at that price it’s a great present idea for a small child, ideal for birthdays and Christmas. It’s a lovely gift and one we’ll enjoy together on our little disco nights and on car journeys.

Note: We have been sent the Pop Goes Your Name CD for review purposes, all images and opinions are our own.

Crafts: Making Valentine’s Day cards with toddlers

This week I volunteered to run the crafts table at playgroup. It’s not something I’ve done before because the room is full of people much more creative than I could ever be. I figured we could make Valentine’s Day cards and that wouldn’t be too difficult.

I got my husband, who has a printers and stationers in Didsbury to cut and score some blank cards for us, and I cut out several hundred red and pink hearts. Throw in some glitter pens and some PVA glue and you have the ingredients for toddler fun.

Crafts: Making Valentine's Day cards with toddlers — Setting up – hearts and glue

I really enjoyed making these Valentine’s Day cards with the children. I think they enjoyed it too, it’s always good to share the love, whatever age you are.

Toddler Fun Learning Videos on YouTube

I hate this time of year, if you’ve got a poorly toddler and the frozen rain (otherwise known as sleet) is lashing against the window; you’re less inclined to go out and about for ambles round your local park. Poorly toddlers are notoriously narky and difficult to entertain, which can result in some delightfully epic tantrums (not always his).

This afternoon it was particularly nippy and the toddler was particularly grumpy, so we decided to snuggle in mummydaddysbed™, drink hot chocolate and check out the YouTube videos from Toddler Fun Learning.

Toddler Fun Learning is a family-run British production company who produce videos for toddlers that look fantastic, but help your little loved ones with their counting, spelling, vocabulary and lots more. I was all over this concept because the boy is obsessed with YouTube, plus he has hearing problems which means his speech is a tiny bit behind, so if this can help then all the better.

We watched a selection, including Twinkle Twinkle, Learn to count on Number Farm and The Wheels on the Bus. He loved them all. We watched them together (I’m very firm that the iPad is NOT a babysitter) and we sang along and chatted about what we saw; a cow; a hopping rabbit; a red tractor etc.

He watched some of them several times over but particularly fell in love with “Lets Build a Steam Train: Learn about train parts“. He adores everything train related and this video showed all the pieces of a train with the words, I left the room briefly and returned to find him watching it for about the eighth time and reciting the words, which for me was brilliant I was so pleased.

He seemed to love all the videos, was engaged with them, laughed and got excited by them. We loved that the farm cartoons were mixed up with real footage of animals, he got so excited by that. I think the videos are great and a lovely learning tool for parents to enjoy with their toddlers.

NB. In a toddler nod to Hitchcock an orange cat appears somewhere in each of the videos. There’s no bonus prize if you spot it, but it is kinda fun.

The Toddler Fun Learning YouTube channel can be found here.