Plus-Plus Big Learn and Explore Review

Have you heard of Plus-Plus?  I want to share with you a fun part of Timberdoodle's Preschool Curriculum Kit, Plus-Plus Big Learn and Explore.  You may remember our review on the Plus-Plus Mini Maker Tube Turkey a few years ago.  Just like their mini counterparts, the Plus-Plus Big pieces all have the same, identical shape.  They have a slightly "rubbery" texture and the pieces slide together smoothly with very little pressure while also coming apart without much effort.  The trick is that they stay together when locked!  You can build in any direction so your creations can be flat or 3D

What's included in our set?  There are 90 colorful Plus-Plus Big pieces, a green baseplate and a guidebook with build ideas.

 

One side of each piece has the words Plus Plus on it, while the other side does not.  I love the variety of colors in our set.

Plus-Plus sets originate from Denmark and are available in two different sizes as I previously mentioned - the Plus-Plus Mini (suited for children ages 5 and older) and the Plus-Plus Big (safer for younger children ages 1 and older).  Timberdoodle has both Plus-Plus Big sets and Plus-Plus Mini sets.  I personally think it's awesome to have both because you can build more things of various sizes.

F and G were both excited to build with this set!

 

Using the guidebook, kids can follow the easy directions to create a number of different builds including a house, a fidget spinner, a rainbow, a person, etc.

 

 Above you can see the directions for a house.

 

The boys' finished house.

Another build idea

 I love this one!

 

F with his rainbow.

Plus-Plus pieces are great for hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.  They can use the guidebook to create specific builds or they can build their own creations.  The boys like to do both!

 

F built a knight for his castle.

G's creation!

The boys built a big fidget spinner and a mini fidget spinner using both sizes of our Plus-Plus pieces.

F's robot turned out pretty cool too.

There are literally endless possibilities when it comes to these pieces and kids will have so much fun constructing their creations.  Plus-Plus Big Learn and Explore is currently included in Timberdoodle's Preschool Curriculum Kit and it is such a fun item for younger kids!

 

 

Disclosure:  Huge shout out to Timberdoodle for selecting me as a Timberdoodle Blogger.  I received Plus-Plus Big Learn and Explore in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are my own.

Farmland Math: Town & Farm Edition Review

I have a fun preschool math program to share with you today from Timberdoodle, Farmland Math (Town & Farm Edition).

What's included in this Bundle?  Our bundle includes a reversible table-top friendly mat, 72 soft rubber vehicle counters, 72 soft rubber barnyard buddy counters and a handbook with a plethora of math activities for your preschooler.  The counters have six different shapes, six different colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple) and two sizes.

 

The barnyard buddy animal counters include horses, ducks, pigs, cows, sheep and bunnies.

Above you can see the different colors and sizes of pigs.

 

The vehicle counters include tugboats, trains, cars, airplanes, buses, and fire engines.

I really like that the mat is durable, foldable and wipes clean easily.  On one side of the mat is a farm scene on which you can use the barnyard counters, while the reversible side is a town scene on which you can use the vehicle counters.

Farmland Math includes 36 weeks of math activities for preschoolers.  It covers various topics including counting from 1-5, colors, patterns, more/fewer, numerals, shapes, logic, comparing, halves, and more!  The math concepts build on each other to help children not forget as they go along.  I have been using this program with G.  I feel like he is really past this in his math ability when looking at the topics above; however, he really enjoys it.  It doesn't take long and it is great at reinforcing early math concepts and solidifying the material.  It really is fun extra practice for him and he absolutely loves the counters.  He enjoys holding them and they are excellent free play items.  Gotta love hands-on resources.  I love watching the younger boys use them in imaginative play and see what they come up with, so fun!

 

Directions for Week 12

Each week has a focused topic and includes both a farm activity and town activity.  You can see above that week 12 is focusing on counting and comparing.  You will also discuss left, right, top and bottom.

Above you can see G following my instructions for the Week 12 Farm Activity.

 

 You can see from above that in week 35, the farm activity involves understanding halves.

And here is G's finished activity after he divided all of the animals between Liam and Annie.

Farmland Math is currently included in Timberdoodle's Preschool curriculum kit.  If you are looking for a fun hands-on math program for your preschooler, this is definitely worth checking out!

 

Disclosure:  Huge shout out to Timberdoodle for selecting me as a Timberdoodle Blogger.  I received Farmland Math in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are my own.

Color Fizzers from Timberdoodle Review

Today I want to share with you a fun product from Timberdoodle, Color Fizzers!  Color Fizzers are manufactured by Steve Spangler Science and are geared for all ages.  They come in a pack of 100 with an assortments of primary colors - red, yellow and blue.  Our Color Fizzers, also known as tub tints, came with an activity guide too.  Although our fizzers are the size of a small candy, each tablet can color up to 1 liter of water.  I appreciate that they are non-toxic and don't stain hands or surfaces.  They will stain fabrics and porous surfaces though so watch out for those!

 

The tan one is the yellow fizzer, the reddish-gray one in the middle is the red fizzer, and the blue one is the blue fizzer of course.

Getting ready for Activity 1.

 

 

The guide gives directions for an activity, which is making all seven of the colors of the rainbow (ROYGBIV) using the three primary colors.  It recommended using distilled water so we did.  The younger kids really enjoyed mixing the colors and learning which combinations create the various colors.

G dropped in the tablet to make blue.

E dropped in the tablet to make red.

And F dropped in the tablet to make yellow.

Once the kids had the three primary colors made, we followed the activity guide for the various ratios to make orange, green, indigo and violet.

 

E added the colors to create orange.

It came out perfect!

F added the colors to make green.

G added the colors to create indigo.

 

I mixed the colors to create violet.

The kids with our rainbow of colors.

And a close-up of our colors.

The guide explain how our color fizzers work.  They are made with pigments, citric acid, baking soda and a binder.  Since all of these ingredients are water soluble, once in water, the citric acid and baking soda react to release carbon dioxide gas (hence the fizz) and the pigments mix creating vibrant, fun colors.

 

Our activity guide has a nice vocabulary list to help young scientist improve their knowledge and understanding of scientific terms such as absorb, citric acid, pH indicator, water soluble, etc.  We haven't tried using our fizzers in other liquids yet but I think we will do this next!

Color Fizzers are currently a part of Timberdoodle's PreK Curriculum Kit.  They are certainly a fun way to teach children about the color wheel and color mixing.

 

Disclosure:  Huge shout out to Timberdoodle for selecting me as a Timberdoodle Blogger.  I received Color Fizzers in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are my own.

Inchimals Review

I have another product to share with you from Timberdoodle, Inchimals!  Inchimals is manufactured by Fat Brain Toys and is geared for kids 3 and older or toddler through Kindergarten/First.  This fun and colorful block set is a great math introductory tool for younger learners.

What's included in our set?   There are 12 wooden Inchimals blocks, a dry-erase marker, and a spiral-bound dry-erase book containing 100 math puzzles.

Each wooden block is a different length and represents a different animal.  There is the one-inch ladybug all the way to the twelve-inch giraffe.  I really like that one end of each block has the number of inches, and the opposite end has the corresponding amount of dots.  The sides of the block have the unit measurements marked as well!

 

Above you can see one end of the blocks that has the numbers on it.

And above you can see one of the block ends with the corresponding amount of dots.

And here you can see the side unit measurements.

There are so many great things about this set.  It's very hands-on and the younger boys love to play with it.  It helps encourage creative thinking and dramatic play and the boys love to build towers and creations.

Above you can see that G created a staircase for his figurine.

The spiral math puzzle booklet helps children explore counting, number value, addition, subtraction, multiple numbers, etc.  The puzzles continue to increase in difficulty so kids will be challenged as they progress through the booklet and there is an answer key for all the puzzles.  Puzzles 1-25 use the addition of two numbers and only use the first 10 wooden Inchimals blocks.  Puzzles 26-50 are subtraction problems that likewise only use the first 10 blocks.  Puzzles 51-58 uses the addition of three numbers.  In the last few puzzles, students will find multiple ways to create a given number.  Let me show you some examples.

 

Puzzle 1

Puzzle 27

 

Puzzle 53

Puzzle 65

 

Puzzle 97

This is such a fun way to do math with young kids.  One frog plus one snake is equivalent to one ostrich.  I like that these blocks help children learn sequencing, shortest to longest.  They can also be used to guess measurements of household objects.  There are so many games you can use these for.  You can even discuss the animals on each block and learn basic zoology facts 😉.

G wanted to see how much taller all the blocks were than him!

 

Check out the Timberdoodle video on Inchimals below to see more for yourself!

 

 

Inchimals is a great hands-on resource to have in our homeschool that can be used both at home and on the go and if you can't tell we highly recommend it!

Disclosure:  Huge shout out to Timberdoodle for selecting me as a Timberdoodle Blogger.  I received Inchimals at a discount in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are my own.