Hot Dots Review

We were lucky enough to be sent a Hot Dots Pen and Hot Dots Numbers and Counting Set to review.

Hot Dots make interactive activities for children from early years to key stage 2, covering ten key areas of learning and are activities that help to reinforce new skills taught in school.
As a teacher and mum, this sounded perfect for us!

Hot Dots work with a pen that you use to check your answers. The pen rewards you with different phrases when you are correct and encourages you to try again when the answer is wrong. The pen is purchased separately and comes in three different styles, original, Kat the Kitty and Ace the Dog. The bonus is the pen can then be used with any of the card sets you buy, and ranging from £6.95 to £8.95 it is reasonably priced too.

The card sets cover early skills,numeracy skills, literacy skills and science and each set has activities for different abilities. These are priced from £6.95 to £9.95 which is great value.

The numbers and counting set we were sent is aged 3-6 years. Megan who is 7 got first dabs and loved the activities and went through them quickly, counting and using the pen to answer. She also liked getting the answers wrong to see what happened! Megan then requested that we get another set of cards aimed for her age 'as these are too easy!' I pointed out that these were actually aimed at 3-6 years! After flicking through the leaflet she decided she would like the Reading Comprehension cards!

Ben who has just turned 3, then came to see what we were doing. I loved the fact that the cards can be used in different ways and I selected the simplest game which was matching the numbers. Ben quickly picked up that he had to 'find the same one' and he loved the pen praising him and kept repeating the phrases, 'way to go', 'good choice', 'perfect', 'that's brilliant', 'awesome', to name a few!

The other activities include, counting objects and matching to the written number, finding two numbers the same, number sequencing and a few others.

One other thing to mention is the cards have questions on them to help you guide your child through their learning. This is a great idea as I think these are an activity you would do together, rather than a game you let them play by themselves.
So, would I buy these cards? Yes, without a doubt, as a teacher and a mum and I will be recommending them to other mums too and my teacher friends.

Check out Hot Dots website yourself here, and pick out a set for Christmas.

Hot Dots are also running a competition on Facebook, click here to join in and win some Hot Dot goodies!
The competition closes on Friday 16th November 2012.

We were sent the Hot Dots Pen and Card Set to review but all the opinions are our own.