The kids went back to school yesterday. I will be sad to see them away from the house all day long. I do miss them even if I have the whole place to myself and can do whatever I want. Maybe even get in some reading. In our house we place a heavy emphasis on reading. Both Eva and Andrew are avid readers. I cannot even keep up with how much Eva reads. Andrew is coming along but really working on it. I still enjoy reading to the kids when I get a chance and we are lucky that Disney Publishing sends us tons of books throughout the year. I will be doing way more on books going forward and giving you recommendations of new books to enjoy with your own kids. Here are some that are back to school themed. These books have been provided to us for free in order to give our honest reviews. Continue reading Book Reviews: Back to School Reading from Disney Books→
I’m going to be totally honest here. I had never heard of the Famous Five before I was approached to review this new app based on the stories by Enid Blyton. So, I received the download code for the app as well as the first book in Enid Blyton’s twenty-one book series. The experiences and opinions are my own.
The new ‘The Famous Five’ app launched on October 18th to coincide with the 75th anniversary of ‘The Famous Five’ book series. This series and app has delighted my children ever since. I downloaded the app and started playing it first to make sure how easy and accessible it would be for the kids. I had no doubt that Eva would do well with the app because she is a voracious reader. She also has an affinity for British writers. She took to the app right away. As for Andrew, I see a spark of a reader in him, too. He saw that Eva was enjoying the app and he also gave it a try. So, both kids and myself are playing ‘The Famous Five’ on our iPads. We are all enjoying this fun game.
‘The Famous Five’ is about a group of kids who solve mysteries. In the app you can choose to play as one of the kids: Julian, Dick, Anne, George and their friendly dog Timmy. Each time that you play the game it is completely different. It changes up and so whenever you play the mystery is brand new. When you solve the mystery a custom story is written so that you can read about your adventures. Each adventure is saved so that you can read them again and again. This app has kept my kids interested and excited for a few weeks now. We ran around town last Friday and the kids played the game through the whole trip. It kept them entertained and excited. You can see a preview of ‘The Famous Five’ app created by award-winning app developer Kuato Studios in the video below.
