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.