Hot Dots Archives - Mummy's Little StarsMummy's Little Stars

Hot Dots® BrainBox® Let’s Learn! About Our World is a great way for children to learn about other countries using an interactive pen and books that they can work through independently.

The set consists of an interactive Hot Dots pen, which requires two AA batteries, it can then be used with any books from the series. This set contains three books about countries around the world:

Flags
Capitals and Currencies
Places

Miss M who is 7, often asks inquisitive questions about countries, such as “What flag is that?” or “What country is this in?”, so I knew she would enjoy learning from this interactive experience that is both fun and educational and can also be done independently.

The books are of a great quality, having highly laminated thick pages that easily turn and sit flat due to their spiral binding at the edge. All pages are brightly coloured with plenty to look at and help maintain interest.

I think the books have been well thought out giving children a great insight into other countries. I particularly like the “Places” book which teaches the children about famous landmarks that belong to each country as well as typical animals, foods and items that come from each one. It really is a fun little book that will build a good cultural knowledge in children without them realising that they are learning.

Although Miss M could sit working through these books herself, it did encourage her to ask me questions about things and gave us talking points which was really nice and showed she was genuinely interested in what she was learning.

Due to the compact size of this set, it is not only ideal to do at home, but great for car journeys and keeping children occupied out and about.

Miss M’s really enjoyed the Hot Dots® BrainBox® Let’s Learn! About Our World set and it is something she has done again and again, sometimes remembering facts, and other times having to think what the answer might me.

There is a lot of information to take in, therefore these books will last and can be looked at many times. A great value learning resource that’s both fun and educational. We love Hot Dots!

All reviews are my own opinions and I received the products in order to write the review.

Hot Dots is an interactive learning system from Learning Resources that children can play independently. It consists of a talking pen which is used against multiple choice answers in a book to encourage learning and reinforcement of skills already learnt.

We were sent the Hot Dots – Let’s Learn! Maths set which comprises of one talking pen and three interactive work books. The pen is brightly coloured and chunky so not easily lost. Little hands love to hold it and it is used to answer questions throughout the books. The books are well made, with durable glossy pages and being spiral bound means it’s easy to turn pages, keep them flat when open and see everything on the page.

In the Maths set of Hot Dots, the three books cover Addition Subtraction and Time Telling and using just the numbers from 0-20, means they are the perfect introduction into basic Maths and great for those in their first couple of years at school. Miss M who is 5 could do the first couple of pages in these fairly easily but then they became more challenging. She did a lot of counting on fingers to work out the answers but with the repetition of doing these books again and again means that hopefully she will finally be able to carry out these sums in her head.

What I really loved about the concept of the interaction and Miss M knowing whether she was right or wrong, meant that she could sit independently and work through the books. She loved finding out whether she was right or wrong and determined to get to the right answer. If I noticed she kept getting the wrong answers, it gave me an opportunity to sit down with her and talk her through the harder sums before letting her move on through the books.

I liked the idea of the time telling book which is included in this set – it makes it a bit different. There are various pictures of clocks and you have to select the time that is showing on the clock. Miss M gets very muddled with telling the time so I’m hoping this will help her get to grips with the basics. I think we have mastered o’clock and half past now so we have had some success.

Being a handy size, the Hot Dots Maths set can be used anywhere, great for long journeys in the car, sitting in bed before night time, or just sitting at home. I’m hoping that by using these over the school holidays, Miss M will keep up with the basic Maths skills she has learnt in foundation class at school and increase her knowledge a little further before starting back in Year 1 this September.

What I also like about the Hot Dots range is that once you have a talking pen, you can buy extra sets of activity cards for children to work through covering many areas such as phonics, vocabulary, science, grammer and spelling. The age ranges vary on each set so this is something that can grow with your child and be used over many ages.

We like Hot Dots and think it is a great learning tool for children – Miss M has already packed it in her suitcase for our family holiday this weekend. I think it’s a great back up to what they learn in school and gives them the independence to learn on their own. To find out more check out the Hot Dots range on the Learning Resources website.

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions. We are not paid for reviews although we do receive the product to try out and enable us to write the review.