Educational Fun with Wicked Uncle

AD- this post is in collaboration with Wicked Uncle 

Now the girls are getting older, one of my favourite parts of the weekend is when we get to spend quality time together and simply sit and play. Growing up in a technical age, my girls love a bit of TV and Screen time just as much as the next person, but for me personally, I also think it’s really important to have good old traditional play time, just like I did when I was a little girl.

Be it board games, or building, craft activities or puzzles, Erin & Neve both have a very creative and curious mind, and I always like to find age appropriate activities that are both fun and educational.

Sometimes as a parent (or aunt, uncle or grandparent for that matter!) knowing where to buy toys that won’t break the bank, help teach your child practical and educational skills, are suitable for their age group and yet don’t leave them yawning or bored can be pretty damn tricky, but thankfully Wicked Uncle have got us all covered!

Who are Wicked Uncle?

If you haven’t heard of Wicked Uncle yet (then seriously where have you been!).

Wicked Uncle (also known as The Home of Brilliant Children’s presents) is a really easy to use toy website packed full of unique, fun and unusual presents and toys for boys and girls. You can use their handy filtering system to shop by theme based on your child’s personality (from Adventurer to Creativity, Engineer to Outdoorsy) or by gender and/or age, with toys suitable from baby to ages 15-105!

I put Wicked Uncle to the test to find some fun and educational toys for the girls to play with during half term, and here’s what we purchased!

Learning about the World…

Neve loves bath time and she also can’t get enough of puzzles, so when we stumbled across this World Map in the Tub set, it seemed like the perfect way to embrace both, allowing her to play and learn whilst still carrying out our normal bedtime routine!

Suitable for ages 3 and above (and with educational benefits for a range of ages) this bright and colourful 29 piece puzzle is made from soft foam pieces that stick to the side of the bath or tiles and even floats in water! The pieces are large enough to not get lost amongst the bubbles and are thick and chunky – so ideal for smaller hands to hold!

The World Map in the Tub shows a simplified bright and colourful map of the world with the names of the continents in English, French and Spanish, as well as showing animals and famous landmarks from each region such as the Taj Mahal in Asia and the Llamas in South America. There are lots of illustrations to explore and discover, and the girls loved chatting through what they could see in the picture.

The level of difficulty of this puzzle was perfect for Neve, as it was challenging enough that she had to really think and look at the pictures and shape of the pieces in order to try and match up the pieces. There are a few unorthodox shaped pieces, which really tested her dexterity, coordination and spacial awareness, and she was super proud of herself when she placed the final piece.

Erin and Neve often bathe together, and it was really nice watching Erin help Neve with some of the more tricky pieces or if she was attempting to fit something upside down. Erin who is 6, loved looking at all the different locations on the map, reading out the continent names and trying to spot the locations where some of our friends and family live, such as Australia and Milan.

The World Map in the Tub set retails at £12.95 even comes with a handy draw string storage bag so that the pieces can be safely stashed away or hung to dry once bathtime draws to an end.

As a child I had a map of the world puzzle which I always absolutely loved and this one appears to be just as popular with the girls. A big hit with both and something that will be a bath time favourite for a long time to come!

Time for the Clock Change

Next up, and a timely gift for the girls with the clock change fast approaching was this Learn to Tell the Time Magneti-Book from French Company Janod. We have had some products from Janod before, and they are always great quality and a little quirky – right up my street!

Erin is currently learning to tell the time at school, and we have been practicing lots to help her recognise the positions of the clock hands and key times during the day.

This adorable Tell the Time Magneti-Book is something that the girls can both play with together and comes in a handy little carry case, making it ideal for taking out and about when visiting friends and family or even to a restaurant where they need something to entertain them whilst waiting for their food!

The Tell the Time Magneti-Book comes with 83 magnetic pieces, and 8 cards featuring everyday activities such as breakfast, dinner time and bedtime.

Younger players like Neve, can look at the cards and use the magnetic characters and objects to recreate the scene, teaching them about following procedures and replicating the layouts that they see on the card in front of them. She really enjoyed rummaging through the box to find the pieces that she needed.

For older players like Erin, the Tell the Time Magneti-Book encouraged her to select both the correct digital and analogue time (moving the hands on a clock and placing the numbers on the digital clock face from a selection of number pieces) based on the activity represented on the cards.

What was really helpful in this set was that the clock face also showed the minutes around the edge of the clock face (e.g. 5, 10, 15) as Erin is still occasionally getting confused between half past and 30, quarter past and 15). I am confident that with practice and by introducing this toy along with other tell the time games and activities, her knowledge will really start to improve.

I absolutely LOVE this set and it’s been really lovely to watch the girls play and learn different age appropriate skills together.

Overall, I couldn’t be more pleased with the toys we received from Wicked Uncle, and I am not sure whether I would have stumbled across anything quite like them shopping anywhere else. Having a browse through the Wicked Uncle website helps suggest so many STEM and creative toy options which would make the perfect educational play time for my girls.

You can see the full range of gift ideas on the Wicked Uncle Website here.

*Disclosure – we were gifted items from the Wicked Uncle range in exchange for our honest review. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own*