Some of you will have seen my post at the beginning of the week about this afternoon’s twitter party to celebrate the launch of Fisher-Price’s new range of Blaze and the Monster Machine toys. Due to the time of the twitter party I decided to run the party yesterday after school so that everyone could join in but then this afternoon we settled down to watch the hour long episode of Blaze and the Monster Machines on Nick Jr. Here’s how we got on with the activities we were sent to do during our party.
Yesterday afterschool the children all settled down to have their usual snack and drink for ten minutes while I filled a bucket with water to use for one of the activities and laid everything out. We had four activities to do based on STEM (Science, Technology, engineering and Maths) My plan had been to do the activities with my youngest two and the two children I look after on a Tuesday as they are Erin’s age. However once the older two spotted what we were doing they decided they wanted to join in, so I ended up with six children doing the activities.
We started with the Science based activity: Easter Egg Surprise Sink and Float guessing game. We had been sent a bucket, some plastic easter eggs and some objects to put inside the eggs. I had filled the eggs with the contents the night before so the children wouldn’t know what was inside. Having already filled the bucket with the required amount of water we split into three teams of two ready to start. We talked about what it means to float and what it means to sink so that the younger children would have an understanding of what we were doing. I passed each filled egg around the children for them to feel how heavy they were then each group had to guess if that egg would sink or float. Then we would take it in turns placing the eggs in the water to see what happened. We found that all the items we had been sent floated so we looked around to see if we could find some other items to try and tested them too.
The children thoroughly enjoyed this activity and were excited to move on to the next one. Which was the Engineering one, Blaze and The Monster Machines Assault Course. This was a team activity and everyone had to work together. The older two decided to take the lead with the activity and help the younger ones complete the different elements. It took some doing but it was lovely to see the older two showing so much patience and encouraging the younger children.
With the assault course complete the task of maneuvering the Blaze Jet through it was given to Rowan who had been itching to get his hands on the Jet since it arrived a few days previously. He enjoyed transforming Blaze from a Monster truck into a Jet with ease and actually got quite distracted with playing with it.
Our third activity was a Maths based one which involved measuring how far the cars travelled when launched up a ramp. This time everyone had a turn with the launch car toy to see who could get it to travel the furthest. This proved a case of trial and error and to make things fair we decided to all use the same car. Eventually we got there and we had our winner, one of the children I look afer who managed to get the car to travel over a metre.
We then moved on to the Technology activity with was the Blaze Colouring and Quiz. The older two opted to sit out of this activity as felt it wasn’t fair on the younger children.
This activity allowed the younger children to take a breather and calm down a bit after the excitement of the other activities.
Then our final activity was the food based one which saw the children making their own monster wheels using Wagon Wheels. The children’s creativity flowed with this task and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
We 
We managed to finish our party with five minutes to spare before parents arrived which was perfect timing and enabled me to give out the great party bags we’d been sent. They had some delicious snacks from Kiddylicious and some colouring sheets too as well as a die-cast Blaze and the Monster Machine car each.
The children excited told their parents what we had been doing before saying goodbye. Then this afternoon we sat down at 2pm to watch the hour long episode of Blaze and the Monster Machines. All the children have been Blaze fans for the last few months but I have never had the chance to sit and watch an episode in its interaty, but now having done so I can see why they enjoy it so much.
Then after school this afternoon every one wanted to play with the Blaze transforming Jet and the Blaze Turbo Launcher. So that’s just what we did. Seeing how the children were playing with the toys enabled me to see how robust they are and that they were a huge hit with all the children, even the older two. They reenacted some of the episodes they have seen of Blaze and the Monster Machines. I can see the new range from Fisher-Price being a huge hit with Blaze fans around the country. They encourage STEM learning as well as being fun characters which also enable stunts and storytelling.
The new Blaze and the Monster Machine Toys from Fisher-Price are available from Argos and Smyths Toys Superstores. The range includes Transforming Blaze Jet which retails for £19.99, Talking Vehicles which retail at £14.99 each, Transforming Turbo Launcher with a retail price of £12.99, Slam and Go Vehicles which cost £9.99 each, Die-cast vehicles costing £4.99 each and Speedboat Blaze costing £9.99.
We all thoroughly enjoyed taking part with the Blaze and the Monster Machines twitter party with @UKMumstv and @NickJruk I hope it you managed to join in the fun this afternoon you enjoyed taking part as much as we did. We loved doing all the STEM activities and learning new things too.
Disclosure: We were sent the Blaze and the Monster Machine Toys and activities in order to take part in the Twitter Party. However the content of this post is 100% my own