Nickelodeon Experimake Superb Sea Shaped Soaps

Nickelodeon Experimake Superb Sea Shaped Soaps by Addo Play is a fun science based craft kit aimed at children aged 8-10 years.  Available from The Entertainer toy shop it is part of a bigger range of craft kits all containing various experiment type projects. This one consists of making sea shaped soaps using included moulds, colourings and fragrances.

When opening the box the contents are displayed in two cardboard trays covered in science images which was rather fun but also helped us keep all the bits neatly together.

Included are:

  • 3 sea related moulds
  • red and blue colouring
  • vanilla fragrance
  • 3 pipettes
  • stirring sticks
  • soap base
  • gloves
  • gift bags
  • gift labels

The children couldn’t wait to get started and set about making their own sea life soaps.  I gave them each a microwaveable plastic pot to which they added the soap base cubes.  They put these in the microwave for short bursts until the soap had melted and then loved donning a glove each to add their chosen colours.  They quickly worked out that they could mix the colours to create new ones so by adding a couple of drops of red and a couple of blue which created purple.  They also noted that the yellow vanilla fragrance added to the blue created a green colour.  They thoroughly enjoyed using the pipettes and creating their own little liquid soap ready to pour into the seashaped moulds.

The instructions also suggest additional ingredients you can add to the soaps to give different properties such as salt for exfolitating, oats for an oatmeal soap, dried flowers for a rose petal soap or herbs for an aromatic soap – all things you may already have at home and can add to make more inventive style soaps.

We popped the moulds into the fridge for half an hour to set and then we found them easy to pop out, although you do need to press evenly across the shape to ensure it comes out whole and doesn’t break.  The children were thrilled with the finished results and really proud of the soaps they made.  They can’t wait to use them at bedtime!

A really nice touch with this set are the included three little organza gift bags and sticky labels that you can use to give the soaps as gifts. This really finishes off the set and makes a lovely handmade gift for your child to give.  My two are currently decided who they are going to gift a soap too and which ones to keep for their own use.

Overall I think the Nickelodeon Experimake Superb Sea Shaped Soaps is a really lovely set for children to create with and it’s relatively simple to do.  Obviously due to the high heat of the melted soap pieces it is best placed with slightly older children but it’s great to bring the science element into play at home with liquids/solids, adding liquids with a pipette and colour mixing.  A great set that would make a lovely gift for boy or girl!

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the product in order to write an honest review.

A Trip to Looe Beach in Cornwall

A few weeks ago, we ventured down to Looe in Cornwall for the day.  The husband was working and the children are always itching to get out and love the beach so Looe seemed like the ideal place to go without being too far to travel.

The weather wasn’t as good as I’d hoped, a bit drizzly, but the children didn’t bat an eyelid as we parked up and walked off.  We couldn’t help but walk past a rather fun play park at the end of the car park so I let them have ten minutes to run around.

In fact the park was so good, I wished it had been nearer to home as it would be a great place to pop to for the children to have a play.  Mister B loved climbing a spider web like rope structure to be like his favourite superhero “Spiderman”.  Miss M was at home on all the ropes and swinging paraphernalia being the action girl that she is!

looe 1With swings, slides, things to climb on and lots of rope activities, they could have stayed here all day, but we soon headed down towards the beach.

looe 2The children were delighted when they saw the vast sandy beach in front of them, Miss M ran straight down to the water to fill the buckets whilst Mister B couldn’t wait to start digging in the sand.  He happily built himself a little castle and found a feather to put on top.

looe 3They both played happily in the sand before deciding to dig a hole by the sea.

looe 4The tide was coming in so they dug faster and faster eager for the sea to fill their hole, and when it did they excitedly giggled before encouraging each other to dig even quicker to make a longer river for the sea to fill.

looe 5As you can see the finished river was quite long and if it wasn’t getting a little chilly and the sea wasn’t coming in quite so fast, I think they would have been happy to stay their until bedtime!

looe 6

looe 7All in all a successful day at Looe, my children love the beach whatever the weather and being somewhere we can travel to in just under an hour, it’s a great day out that always guarantees fun and excitement.

As you can imagine, after something to eat and a hot bath, they slept soundly through the night after a day in the fresh sea breeze.

Relaxing afternoon on the seafront at Devil’s Point

With daddy working nights and sleeping all day it’s always best to leave the house and let him sleep.  With the weather still gloriously sunny my two couldn’t wait to get outdoors, although having woken up with an exceedingly sore throat and runny nose I wasn’t feeling in the best of spirits so wanted to take it easy – well as easy as you can with two highly energetic, bouncing around children!

We drove down to Devil’s Point, a secluded little spot on the west side of the city, that looks out to sea. We took a stroll around before finding a spot to lay the picnic blanket and have some lunch.  I then let Miss M and Mister B run around on a level grassed area playing with a ball, chasing each other and collecting daisy’s, oh and also the odd daffodil that Mister B insisted on picking especially for mummy.

Devils point picnic

We then took a stroll in the other direction down a little path with a wall overlooking the sea.  It was lovely to catch the sea breeze and there were lots of things to point out that were of interest to the children.

Devil's point

A lovely few hours spent away from home, even if I did come back feeling more exhausted than ever.  Just hoping that I don’t get any worse for work tomorrow.  And more importantly I hope this weather stays around as it’s nice to finally feel that summer is kind of here.