Drumond Park's Gross Magic - Review & Giveaway!

With Halloween just around the corner, Drumond Park have the perfect thing to whip out at your Halloween party to impress your friends! Gross Magic (RRP £19.99) is a fun set for children 8+ featuring over 40 tricks to thrill and gross out your audience. Featuring tricks containing yucky things like cockroaches and poo, this is bound to appeal to kids of all ages!

My husband is a big magic fan and it's a love he has passed onto Elliot. We've seen the legendary Penn and Teller in Vegas and Elliot recently took part in a magic show whilst we were on holiday in Majorca! We've had magic kits before but nothing quite as gross as this and the boys couldn't wait to test it out!

The magic kit was a little too old for Elliot as he is only 3 and the tricks take a bit of reading and practising but he enjoyed helping his Daddy out. The first trick they did involved bogies - there is a literally a whole section devoted to bogey tricks and this definitely appealed to their sense of humour!!

Some of the tricks do seem quite tricky to master so I would definitely recommend having an adult to help out but there are so many tricks to try out that I'm sure as your magic skills improve, you can work up to the harder ones!

The boys have spent lots of time perfecting their tricks and I can't wait to see what they come up with next!

If you would like to win your very own Gross Magic, please see below for details on how to enter: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Drumond Park's Pickin' Chickens Game - Review & Giveaway!

Pickin' Chickens is a brand new game from Drumond Park, suitable for 2-4 players and children age 4+. It immediately appealed to Elliot - it's bright and he said it looked funny with the boys running away with the chickens!

The premise of the game is simple - you need to help Farmer Giles keep his chickens safe from the sneaky fox.

Set up was nice and straight forward and no batteries needed which is a big plus! You just pop the chicken coops onto the gaps on the round spinner (the pasture), make sure the fox is pushed down, place the chickens in a pile to the side and you are good to go. The game can be varied slightly for younger and older children but we went with the older kids version and although Elliot is only 3 (almost 4), he had no issues with this.

All players take a Chicken Card and the youngest person takes the first go. They'll need to give the pasture a good spin and then once it stops, everyone can choose a chicken coop. Once they have removed the coop it will reveal an image of a farmer or a chicken. If they get the farmer then that player will need to pick up the farmer card and place it next to their chicken card. Somebody may already have the farmer card so it can be taken from them.

If the coop reveals a chicken then that player must take a chicken from the pile, making sure they have the correct colour to match the image and then place this on their chicken card.

The game continues until the first person to collect all their chickens. Of course that would be nice and simple but what about the fox?! He's out to get the chickens so he will randomly pop up...this will make you jump!! If he jumps up then all players must lose one of their chickens.....unless they have the Farmer card in which case their chickens are safe. Once everyone has given up a chicken, Mr Fox is pushed back down and the Farmer card goes back in the middle all ready for the next spin.

This is a really fun game for children and we really enjoyed playing it. I love the anticipation of not knowing when the fox is going to jump up and it made us jump out of our skins everytime!

It's nice and simple to use and suitable for the whole family. Just beware of that fox ;)

Pickin' Chickens has a RRP of £19.99 - for more information and stockists, please visit www.DrumondPark.com.

If you'd like to win your very own Pickin' Chickens game, please follow the instructions below: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Drumond Park's Barbecue Party Game - Review & Giveaway!

We are a big fan of family games and Elliot is at the right age now where he understands rules and has the patience to play them!

We were recently sent Drumond Park's Barbecue Party (RRP £19.99) and Elliot couldn't wait to start playing!

Barbecue Party is a fun game for kids and big kids aged 4+ and for 2-4 players. It is very simple to set up (great for little ones with not a lot of patience!) and you can be ready to go within seconds.

Prior to playing for the first time you will need to stick the eyes on the vegetables but this was easy peasy and Elliot helped me with this.

To start, you need to make sure the grill is on the barbecue and have all the cards face down on the table. The youngest person starts by picking a card - the cards contains pictures of various barbecue items and that person has to place the corresponding food item on the barbecue using the tongs. If the food item is already on the grill then they can take it off and keep it. The first person to collect three food items wins.

Sounds simple but as always there's a catch! Put too much pressure on the barbecue and it will spring off!

We really enjoyed this game, it was fun to play and kept Elliot's attention the whole time we were playing. He loved the anticipation of whether he'd make the grill spring off and it reminded me of games from my childhood such as Pop up Pirate and Buckaroo!

The game doesn't need batteries so this is a big bonus, and it's so quick to set up - it also packs away really quickly so it's ideal for taking to the Grandparent's house! The pieces are sturdy and the whole game is well made. 

It was a big hit here and I'm sure it'll be a game Elliot comes back to again and again.

If you fancy winning yourself your very own Barbecue Party, please see below

Disclaimer: We received the products for the purpose of the honest review. All views are my own

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Pop! Pop! Pinata! from Hasbro Toys - Review

We're big fans of games in our house and it's something that we enjoy doing together as a family. As Elliot is only 3, we're a little limited in what we can play as although he might understand how to play it, he might not have the patience for it!

Pop! Pop! Pinata

Recently we were asked to review a brand new game from Hasbro called Pop! Pop! Pinata. I'd actually seen a few adverts for this on the Nick Jr channel and Elliot had expressed an interest in it ("We have to get that!" he said) so he was excited to start playing once it arrived.

What it is?

Pop! Pop! Pinata is a fun game for 2-4 players and is recommended for children of 4+ due to the small parts. The aim of the game is to collect the most prizes - very simple!

The game was really easy to assemble, it took just a few seconds to attach the pinatas ears and tail and the prizes were poured into the back of the pinata. No batteries are required and you don't need to use  a screwdriver to remove from the packaging! 

How do I play?!

After you have assembled the pinata and poured in the prizes, the players take it in turns to spin the pinata to mix the prizes. When it stops spinning, you hit the party button. 

The number of prizes will depend on how hard the button is pressed. If you hit the button gently, the pinata will stay closed but a few prizes will come out. If you hit it hard then the pinata will pop open and the prizes will pour out. 

It's then a mad scramble to collect as many prizes as you can in your cup - the player with the most prizes wins! 

I tried and failed to get a photo of the pinata popping but here's what it looks like!
(Photo Credit - Hasbro)

What did we think?

The game is really simple to play however I did find our games were over incredibly quickly. Once the party button had been hit hard, the pinata released the prizes and once we had collected them in our cups that game was over. The temptation for kids to hit the button hard was just too strong so pretty much every game was over in seconds! 

Elliot really enjoyed playing the game and he was very keen to collect all the pieces and reset the pinata for the next round. He is a big fan of Pop Up Pirate and I think that's why he enjoyed Pop! Pop! Pinata, there's that element of surprise and it really makes you jump when the pinata opens! 

RRP - £16.99

For more information and stockists, please visit Hasbro

Disclaimer: We received the product for the purpose of the honest review. All views are my own