Tell us what you think of the Haliborange Play & Learn Guide - and have the chance to win Space NK vouchers

[carriemumsnet]

We've been asked by Haliborange to review their Play and Learn Guide devised by Professor Amanda Kirby.

Please take a few minutes to have a look at the guide and let us know what you think of it. Everyone who takes the time to offer their opinion will be entered into a prize draw to win £50 of space NK vouchers.

Haliborange are also looking for 3 mumsnetters to put the guide to the test for approximately 2 weeks and then feedback directly to them. If you have a child aged 4-11 and would like to volunteer to test the guide please give us your details here. The three testers chosen to trial the guide will each receive £100 vouchers for Space NK in return for their feedback.

Professor Amanda Kirby hopes to join us in the next week or so for a webchat to answer any questions you might have about the guide and to hear what you think.

Thanks

MNHQ

I found it very patronising.
I also take exception to the farking Omega claims. The jury is still very much out. See here

so haliborange arent going to be the next mumsnet partner then, after reading our comments on their leaflet?

It's all a bit basic, isn't it?

Agree, parts of it are poorly written.

The milestones bit was OK.

I really think by the time you have at least one child of this age range, you have more than likely got all of this stuff under your belt already. And the kind of people who consider the importance of omega 3s and vitamins for their dcs do not need to be instructed on how to talk to their kids or read a bedtime story.

Also, as for the reading thing, 5 minutes is not very long to spend doing something so important and cosy and bond-forming as reading with your 4 year old dc who has been out of the house all day at school. Not nearly enough imo.

And vitamin supplements generally are crap and unproven , excepting some nice research on omega 3s and ADHD.

I don't like the way it's witten - it seems to have quite a clumsy style.

howeve, I do think the idea behind it is a good one. Many paents don't spend enough time playing 'educational games' with tehi children, often because they don't know what to do. I think that anything that gives parents ideas on how to stimulate their child is a good idea.

Actually, I like a lot of the ideas.
Yes, I do some or most of them already, but there are certainly some that are new to me which I will now try.
The wording is terrible though, almost broken English at times, down right misleading at others, eg "This develops nutritional education"

I particularly like this idea:
"Ask your child
to list 3 good things that
happened that day and 1 thing
that did not go so well."
I usually ask "How was your day?" (to DD1 aged 9) but the replies are usually "Fine" or "So-so was really annoying me.." and the conversation is often either very short, or quite negative so I feel that my attempt at positive communication has failed. So, I really like the idea of structuring the conversation to accentuate the positive, but acknowledge the negative too. I'll try it and hope it makes a difference..

It seemed quite repetitive (story before bed suggested in more than one category) and was irritating reading the same "why"s time and time again, when mostly it was pretty obvious why you'd want to do something.

Presenting it as a matrix based on skills might be alright for professoring purposes but it could be more engaging and useful to the reader if the pages were just one for each time of day, without specific reference to each learning motivation. Eg a page of things to do on the school run, another of things to do at bedtime etc. I would have thought you'd be more likely to refer to something like this for, say, ways to make shopping more interesting than be gripped with a burning desire to work on your litle darling's nutritional education throughout the day, IYSWIM.

Agree, therealsupergirl, they could do away with the "why"s altogher and it would come across better; just say something in the intro "Here are some tips blah blah.."

Ok, I've only read the 4-5 bit cos thats whats relevant to us, and tbh I couldnt be bothered to go further.

Alot of it does seem to be underpitched eg what have you been doing if you have a 4-5yr old and you still dont know that you dont take them shopping while hungry? And things like 'mealtimes are good for teaching the use of cutlery', paraphrased.

I think it'd probably be more readable printed out, but nevertheless it seems to use alot of pages to say not alot. It does remind me of the pampers things that used to come through the post telling what your baby was doing at its current age, which said not alot and went straight in the recycling.

Tell us what you think of the Haliborange Play & Learn Guide.

I actually think its quite good.

Some parents (i.e me) find it hard to think of engaging games to play with thier children especially in the 4-5 age range so i found this helpfull.

I've got a question for Prof Kirby - how conclusive is the research on omega 3's and how much fish would you have to eat to avoid taking supplements? We eat a ton of salmon - well, twice a week - is that enough?

Also what foods/ additives should you avoid if you're trying to help your child concentrate - a big bugbear in our house is aspartame, sorbitol - all the artificial sweeteners. I'm sure i've read that in some children Aspartame can cause behavioural problems or even cancer - yet it seems to be added to lots of "healthy" options? What's your view?

I think it uses a lot of common sense and hopefully the majority of parents on here will be doing most of those things anyway. But it's useful to have a reminder and some of the ideas are good ones, such as getting your child to find 3 things whilst out shopping with them. I've heard these ideas before but you forget so reminders are useful.

It's all very well saying "it's a load of old tosh" if you are already doing these things, but some parents may not be. For them the guide would be full of useful ideas and games to play with their children. If it encourages parents to become more involved with their kids then it's a good idea.

This seems to be teaching most of us to suck eggs. I scanned the section for 4 year olds and realised that most of this is what I already do with my not yet 3 year old.

I agree with the earlier comment that the author perhaps needs to consider her audience more. Parents who are buying vitamins for their children or feeding them omega3 rich foods are likely to be the ones who engage like this with their children anyway.

If I received a guide like this, i'm sorry to say that it would go straight into the recycling tub.

It needs a really good proofread, apart from typos like the "ewdo not like fisha" there are grammatical mistakes and meaningless sentences in various places - like "Contain fears... to a minimal" (p16).
Also didn't like the pictures much, especially page 3 where the kids are running away in terror from the evil apple that is obviously chasing them!
Some of the milestones are a bit weird too, characteristics maybe but hardly milestones - e.g. "your child is ABLE to...dislike the opposite sex intensely" or "display anger through physical fights, slams doors and kick" (sic). Not sure I would celebrate when they reach those "milestones"!
I did agree too with the comments above about who would actually use this. I am not convinced this would be particularly valuable to the type of people likely to read it.

so, my opinion!
there's good and bad, i agree with somne of the comments made here already but think some are phrased a bit stronger than i would have put it.
the site is well laid out although frustrating that you have to wait for each page (hopefully this will be on a website so easily read?).
i like the way it is laid out in a table format, but think some more colours for the what and why parts to break up the reading would help.
the ideas are good but sometime unrealistic e.g. on a busy school run
and i think the targets are good but could be cross refernced with the foundation stage for example as i don't think it all tallys (i used to teach)
a good idea would be to add some links for futher info
obviously mentioning their fish oils is going to happen but i think it makes you skeptical of the advice offered

hope that helps

a section for younger kids would be good too, input before school age makes a BIG difference

Again a lot of what is said is obvious & lots of parents are probably doing these things without even realising their educating their children.

Thought the activity for 9-11 yr olds where they are asked to put away their clothes at bedtime & timed to see how quickly they do it could be done with children a lot younger. Thought it was quite patronising an 11yr old is in first yr senior school. Don't think i'd have liked my mam timing me to put clothes away at that age!

A bedtime activity for 4-5yr olds suggests reading to your child for 5mins each night & timing this so your child knows when time is up. I don't think it's a good idea to rush bedtime stories as this is the time when a child relaxes & unwinds if this time is rushed how is a child mean't to do this.I think it would be better to do this earlier in the day perhaps at homework time or while reading school reading book eg getting your child to read to a particular page by the time the timer rings. This would encourage a better understanding of time & what can be done within set limits.

Some of the explanations as to 'why' activities should be done don't give enough information.

On a more positive note the graphics are bright & colourful & the developmental milestones are spot on for 5yr old

I found the writing style quite wordy- obviously produced by an academic. It needs to be cut down and written in plain English. The "Why" bits I found sometimes unconvincing and repetitive. The activities sound fair enough, most of them.

I would be interested in Amanda's views of the "Bad Science" take on fish oils. Like Nickytwotimes, it annoys me when these things are taken for granted.

what custardo said.

also, not sure about the advice on giving tuna sandwiches - tinned tuna loses most of its omega 3 in the cooking process, no?

It's a nice idea but it does seem to state the obvious, I'm sure most parents do a good part of this already so they could come up with a few more "out-of-the-ordinary" ideas that nobody has already thought of