Experimental MumScience + Children = Fun + Mess

According to a recent survey carried out by McCain’s the food producers, out of 1500  7-11 year olds questioned, 10% of them believed that potatoes came from chickens!

In a bid to educate children about our food sources they have set up an excellent website with great resource sections for kids, parents and teachers. It includes everything from recipes to lesson plans.

Throughout the month of March they are also touring schools with the Potato Bus which judging by the photos looks a lot of fun! Here is the Scottish School Itinerary – hopefully your children will be getting a visit.

McCain’s kindly sent my girls their own gardening kits and seed potatoes, which are sprouting happily by the patio doors. This ” tattie holidays” my kids will hopefully have their own crop to pick.

P.S. Here’s a definition of  the tattie holidays and here’s a very Scottish description!

Thank you to Tom at Shine Communications for sending us the brand new Nintendo DS Flips to review. Flips are a new range of interactive books designed to get children exicted about reading.

The video below gives an overview of the cool features.

We received the Cathy Cassidy Flips and here is Freya’s unedited review:

I love Flips, I think there very good.

My mum got sent a Flip for free and they asked me and my sister to try it out.

Flips is about making kids enjoy reading by the more you read the more games and puzzles you unlock, plus you probably want to play games.

Also if you’re not a big fan of reading like me Flips will help you enjoy it.

I’ve been reading Scarlet and I think it’s very good. It’s so good!!!!

My favourite bit about Flips is when you read more you unlock more games and puzzles…

My worst bit is nothing, I like all of it.

That’s why I enjoy Flips and I think they’re very good!!!!!!!!!

My Mum hopes they makes some adult ones too, she thinks they’d be cool at her bookclub!!!

Writing by – Freya Riddell (age eight)

About a hundred years ago I replied to a request on British Mummy Bloggers to put Ecover cleaning products to the test alongside some well known brand name cleaning products. Ecover have developed a range of ecosurfactants that they claim to be extremely powerful and supremely ecological. They have a cool website too, love the wipe effect!

Although I like the environmentally friendly idea of Ecover products I was sceptical that they could work as well as the petrochemical alternatives. I know it’s clever marketing but brand name cleaning products like Flash are so shiny looking and clean smelling they just “appear” as if they will work better.

Now where to start in my cleaning spree! First up was the gas cooker top and hood which was in need of a good scrub. In this test I compared Ecover Power Cleaner with Cillit Bang. I’ve always been rather wary of Cillit Bang after once leaving a permanently “clean steak” while over zealously scrubbing a plastic shower cabinet. So, I was pleasantly surprised that the Ecover product worked equally well in this test even on the greasy cooker hood. I did take before and after photos but managed to delete them seconds later. Which is probably just as well, it was pretty embarrassingly crusty!

Time for a tougher challenge…Next up was the very grotty jacuzzi bath vents. I had only just realised (after 3 years of use) that they were removable so they were revoltingly manky and I can’t quite believe I’m posting this photo! To tackle the grot I used both Ecover Multisurface Cleaner and Flash Multisurface Cleaner. Both effectively removed all the hidden grot pretty easily, in fact I had to fill the bath and run the pump to get rid of all the scale which floated away. I had a bath that night to celebrate it’s shininess! I must admit I did prefer the stronger fragrance of the Flash product, although I notice both are fragranced with Liminol. Again clever marketing makes us believe if it smells clean it is clean!

Bath - Before

Bath - After

Lastly I tackled the back door, which has a glass panel that is constantly marked with our spaniels muddy paws. This time I compared Mr Muscle Window & Glass Spray with Ecover Window & Glass Cleaner. This time Ecover won hands down, it polished the glass up really quickly and without any streaks, unlike Mr Muscle and lots of previous products I’ve used. I’ll definitely buy this one again.