The Poetry Play Kit, By Kaddo - REVIEW

Nature / Type:             Learning kit 

Rating:                        ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️    

Recommended age:    6-9 year-old  

Who would love this: Kids / parents that enjoy poems and rhymes  

It’s rare to find an educational kit that dedicates to the magic of poetry. Discover “The Poetry Play Kit” from Kaddo (an imprint of Quarto). Designed by Joseph Coelho, the UK Children’s Poet Laureate 2022-2024, this kit is perfect for inspiring creativity and igniting your imagination!

Why I love ❤️ it: 

(1) 500 Word Cards + 12 Activity Cards

This kit includes 500 word cards, 12 double-sided activity cards, 28 rhyming dominoes, a poetry spinner, and a booklet filled with tips and inspiration—everything you need to hone your skills as an aspiring poet! The mini word tiles offer a rich resource for sparking creativity. Each card is color-coded: green for nouns, red for verbs, pink for emotions, and more. The activity cards present engaging prompts for crafting poems with the word cards. You can select a noun card and write a poem from the object’s perspective, create a haiku with the 5-7-5 syllable structure, or compose a one-word poem. You can also explore emotion poems using pink cards, write an acrostic where the first letter of each line spells out a word, or create a picture poem using related words.

(2) 28 Rhyming Dominoes - Discover Rhythmic Patterns!

The 28 rhyming dominoes are excellent tools for exploring the rhythmic patterns. Simply choose a domino, brainstorm some rhyming words, and craft a poem (our 5-year-old wrote about “a brown silly dog, sat on a log, and met a green frog). We also enjoyed creating a rhyme snake and played a memory pairing game with these domino tiles. 

(3) Smart Spinner - Learn About MORERAPS

I love the smart spinner—it features all the letters from A to Z, along with a MORERAPS guide to linguistic techniques that can enhance your poetry! We explored Metaphor (“the moon is a mysterious guest”), played with Alliteration (our kids created their first tongue twister: “The quiet queen quit quarrelling to quickly queued-up for a quest”), and used Personification to enrich our creative works.

(4) Booklet For More Inspiring Examples

The included booklet offers a wealth of inspiring examples, from mood-expressing riddles to action-packed poems, as well as playful nonsense rhymes. It also features a supportive guide for parents and teachers, along with useful tips for using these elements to enhance your creative journey! 

# gifted in exchange for review 

Where to buy this: 

QBD Books (Australia) 

Booktopia (Australia) 

State Library of Queensland (Australia) 

Check out more reviews of Kaddo's products here: 

• Little People, Big Dreams - Amazing Women: A Memory Game 
• Little People, Big Dreams: Who Am I
• Swan Lake Musical Puzzle 
• Find The Fairies 
• Cat Family Christmas - Lift The Flap Puzzle 
• The Nutcracker Musical Puzzle (The Story Orchestra)

Enjoy the video! 

World Safari-Premium, By Creative Educational Aids - REVIEW

Nature/ Type:            Board game / card game  

Rating:                       ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️  ⭐️ 

Recommended age:   9 year-old ++ (or all ages!) 

Who would love this: Kids and grown-ups that love travelling and learning about the world & countries 

 “World Safari-Premium” by Creative Educational Aids magically transports us around the world; from Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, back to Sydney Opera House - all in one game! We are loving it! Thank you Divisible by Zero for providing this! 

Why I love ❤️ this game: 

(1) Spin The Spinner & Identify A Country On World Map

The set includes a foldable play board and 6 play pieces - it has the classic Monopoly feel, save that now we are using an in-built spinner as dice, and there’s not much “chance” in this game (you gotta know your geographic knowledge to gain an advantage!). To play this game, spin the spinner (with 50 country names), read the country name, and shout out the country number on the world map to advance the given number of spaces on the play path. You will need to identify the exact location of Jamaica, Algeria, Argentina, Greece, and Egypt to move your pieces! Too tough? Fear not! The spinner gives a “colour clue” to narrow down the selections. For example, Japan is coded as “purple”, which matches its colour on the world map. The map also has labels showing the continents, oceans, seas for extra hints. 

(2) Fun Facts In Different Topics - Continents & Countries/ Geographic Features & More 

Of course, there is more! Each space on the path presents a challenge in 5 different topics. There are a total of 864 questions (answers provided) and 35 visual challenges. The questions cover continents and countries (eg continent with world’s largest desert ‘the Sahara’), geographic features (eg describe a hot spring), people and places (eg name the world’s largest port), general knowledge (which ocean contains the most islands), and visual challenge (where players are asked to guess a landmark site or animal from an image with brief description). I love that the questions cover a wide levels of difficulty - so all ages can play! 

(3) 50 Information Cards & 50 Country Cards - More Ways To Play!

The set also includes 50 information cards (contains facts such as capital, cities, languages, currency, flag, trivia facts of a country), and 50 country cards (with illustrated map showing surrounding nations, area in sq km, and population). There are a few suggested ways to play with these cards, including matching game, memory game, clue game, quiz game and more! 

# gifted in exchange for review 

Where to buy this: 

https://littlewishestoys.com.au/products/worldsafari (Australia) 

Enjoy the video! 

KAPLA Art Book 2 - Blue, By KAPLA - REVIEW

Nature/ Type:          KAPLA building ideas book 

Rating:                     ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️  

Recommended age:  9 year-old ++   

Who would love this: KAPLA fans, especially the experienced builders 

“Now, if you want to be great in building, you need to practise, and do it again and again and again ….. “ said, my 4 year-old, a new KAPLA fan! 😉 We are extremely grateful to have received a range a KAPLA Art Books from Kapla (Australia) . Today, I’m going to share about “KAPLA Art Book 2 - Blue”, a beautifully designed hard-cover art book, containing advanced-level construction techniques for KAPLA enthusiasts! 

Why I love ❤️ this book: 

(1) 28 Pages Of Photographs & Technical Drawings - Volume 2 of KAPLA Art Book has 28 pages of exclusive KAPLA models, in colour photographs and hand-sketched technical drawings. This volume is designed for the more experienced KAPLA builders. There are some tricky techniques included in the book that require precise execution and great perseverance. I had many “oh no, I think I made a mistake” moments, and I (sneakily) did quite a few modifications to the final structures when things got a bit too challenging. This book devoted many pages showing us sketches of the building ideas at different construction stages (from setting up the foundation to the final touches). What I love about KAPLA is there is really no “right” or “wrong” way of doing it. I built a classic wooden stilt house, doing my very best to replicate the demanding model depicted in the Art Book; my four-year-old came along and decided to convert the house into a colourful “Ninja training centre”, equiped with mazes and traps. It was a “teamwork” between mumma and daughter, and I think the final result is pretty stunning! 😆

(2) 7 Advanced-Level Models - For this Volume 2, there are only a total 7 (relatively more advanced) models included, with many more pages dedicated to showing us the details and illustrated tips on how to build them successfully layer-by-layer. My personal favourites are the dump truck supported by wheels made of two intricately arranged “logs”, a throne, a gorgeous butterfly with symmetrical wings, and a fabulous sailing ship with masts. 

(3) Quality Of The Book - The KAPLA Art Books range is artistically-designed and printed. They have a quality feel, and would make great coffee table books, as well as a useful guides for KAPLA builders of different ages and levels. 

# gifted in exchange for review 

Where to buy this: 

https://kaplaaustralia.com/products/kapla-art-book-2-blue

Enjoy the video! 

Sumoku, By Blue Orange - REVIEW

Nature/ Type:          Crossword-inspired Board Game with Mathematics Theme  

Rating:                     ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 

Recommended age:  9 year-old ++ 

Who would love this: Board game lovers who are reasonably good at maths 

We love Qwirkle, we love Scrabble, and we love Bananagrams. So it’s only natural that we would love a Mathematics version of such similar game. 😊 THIS, is the colourful, summing and multiplying, “crossword” game but with a “numbers” twist. This is “Sumoku” from Blue Orange ! Thank you Leisure Learning for providing this for a review! 

Why I love ❤️ this game: 

(1) Learn Multiplication In A Fun Way - I love it as a useful and interesting tool to learn multiplication in an entertaining way. This is probably not the sort of party games that would generate laughters and silliness. The game gears more towards older kids who are familiar (or at least know the basic of) multiplication, especially the 3, 4 and 5 times-table. This game is engaging and fun, but with a slight sense of “seriousness” in it. Do we love it? Absolutely, 100%! The game comes with 96 tiles, a dice, and illustrated rules, all contained in a travel pouch. This is a unique mathematics-focused, crossword-style game that can be played in 5 variations. The game starts with the roll of dice to create a “key number” (3, 4 or 5). The aim is to create rows and columns where the digits on the tiles sum-up to a multiple of the key number (eg, 3 + 2 + 5 for a multiple of 5). Like the game of Qwirkle, each tile is in one of 6 colours, and a colour cannot be repeated in a connected line of tiles. The rules are easy to learn. We immediately fall in love with it! The game is probably a little tricky for a six-year-old (the colours limitation rule annoys the boy a bit), but I can see the full potential of this game once a player reaches a certain school age! 

(2) Great Components- The game components are fantastic. The tiles are sturdy and have a very solid feel to them. I love that the colours tiles are engraved with the numbers slightly “raised” on the tiles (in other words, no issue with painted numbers fading off over time). 

(3) Cute Pouch- I especially love the handy, cone-shaped travel pouch with zipper. The pouch is small enough to be chucked into any light carrying bag, but big enough to contain all the components. I love the portability of this game! 

# gifted in exchange for review 

Where to buy this: 

https://www.leisurelearning.com.au/ (Australia) 

Enjoy the video!