Involving your child in your daily routine is important, it’s how they learn by copying you. This is known as observational learning. Erin loves to help me and I actively encourage both the children I look after, Erin and the boys where ever I can. So if I’m dusting I give Erin a duster too or I ask her to help me bake cakes. Watching Erin then imitate me when playing with her toy kitchen or with her dolls is lovely.
So when we were asked if we would like to try the new Casdon Henry hand-help vacuum set from their Little Helpers range, I jumped at the chance. Erin is always asking to help me to Hoover but as we’ve a quite heavy Hoover it’s not always possible. But when she saw the lovely hand-help vacuum and dust pan and brush she was so excited. In fact so were the boys which was really interesting as usually the older two will shy away from the ‘home’ toys as I call them as they think they are babyish! But Erin had some competition this time for the first person to try out the hand-held vacuum. In the end she managed to have the first go while Rowan was quick to try out the little dustpan and brush.
When the children realised that the little hand-held vacuum actually worked (requires 3 AA batteries) and it really sucked up small amounts the arguments started over who’s turn it was next! I never thought a toy hand-held vacuum would cause such a fuss! We’ve now had the set about a fortnight and the boys still want to take turns using it with Erin. In fact letting the boys play with the hand-held vacuum has also led to the boys helping more with vacuuming the house, it’s amazing and if I’d realised it would have this effect I would have bought one years ago.
The set has also been a hit with the childminded children and I’ve seen a lot more ‘house’ role play over the last ten days. The Hand-held vacuum set is aimed at children aged 3-8 years old, the lovely smiley face is appealing to children and is the perfect size for small hands. The dustpan and brush is also great for aiding hand eye coordination in children. I really hope the hand-held vacuum set continues to be a hit with all the children.
I tried to get some photo’s of the children using the set but the boys decided they didn’t want to be photographed this time and Erin decided to follow suit which is quite unusual. So not wanting to cause upset I managed to grab a quick snap this morning when Erin was hovering the floor.
Casdon Little Helpers Hand-held vacuum set retails at around £12.99 and is available from toy retailers including amazon
Disclaimer: We were given the Hand-held vacuum set for the purpose of this post however the content is 100% my own.