I’ve taken my time before writing up the review of RM at Home. I wanted to make sure we gave it at least couple of weeks of use before I reviewed it. I’ve posted before about how important I feel it is to keep up the learning (in lots of different and fun ways) through the school holidays.
First of all let me introduce RM at Home to anyone who, like me are new to this company.
RM at Home strives to boost your childs learning at home with fun and educational products. RM as a company has been around for nearly 40 years, and during this time supplied resources to schools. They have lots of items available to buy. Whether it is something to help children avoid the summer learning dip or items that you may need to give your child a little bit of a helping hand. We all have areas that don’t come as naturally as others don’t we?
RM at Homes’s brand ambassador is Phillipa Forrester, here is a film which explains her thoughts on RM at Home:
The items that we were sent to review, were chosen especially for Miss N. My main concern this summer, is to try to build her confidence in Maths.
Miss N was sent a Flip-It £9.59 with a set of Maths cards (Maths Skill Set 1) £36.98
Children love the Flip-It, finding it a highly engaging, motivating way to learn. Simply pick a card, place it on the Flip-It, decide on your answer and then ‘flip-it’ to see if you’re right!
Get help with these bumper value sets of Flip It cards that will help your child master a variety of essential maths skills for in and out of school. The Flip-It is interactive, self-correcting, non-threatening and has no time restrictions.
The Flip-It arrives flat pack and you can opt to decorate it yourself as it is plain cardboard, which is a nice idea, it was also really easy to build.
The Maths skills set cards seemed well thought out, each pack had 54 cards. Here are the areas covered by set one.
- Squared and Cube Root
- Place Value
- 2D and 3D Shapes
- Change from 50 and £1
- Rounding up and Down Set 1
- Evens, Primes and Factors.
There are three levels within each pack. Miss N found the first level very easy, so we used these to build her confidence before moving onto the middle set. In some of the packs, we were able to progress to the hardest level, in others not yet. Which I liked as it meant that there was still growing/learning room. The cards were described as key stage 2 & 3, which I thought was a fair assessment. She definitely grew in confidence, as she easily answered the lower level questions.
I think my only criticism would be the strength of the flip-it, I think if it’s going to be made of cardboard (which is great as its recyclable) it should be offered within the price of the maths skills set. I think that £10 is a lot of money to ask for it, if it needs replacing.
Miss N (9) really enjoyed playing it and here are her thoughts,
The game was really good. It isn’t something I would do for a long time because it can get a bit boring, but in short burst its great fun. I love that people don’t know if you’ve got your question right. Some of the tasks are easy but some I do find a bit tricky. The overall product is very good, and I think my friends would like it too.
Thank you to the RM at Home team, this is definitely something that I would recommend to other parents.
Thank you for reading
Erica Price says
Love it when toys/games make learning fun. Trying to motivate my son to do a little school work over the summer is difficult, so fun things are much more likely to be successful.
Amanda Cottingham says
I think you re right, also short bursts of different activities!
TheBoyandMe says
I’m an IT coordinator for a primary school and we always buy our equipment from RM because of the high quality and spot on educational purpose. Interesting to see them getting into the home education market.
Amanda Cottingham says
Yes, I think so too. I think there are a lot of parents out there looking for things to give their children a helping hand….so I think it will be popular. Especially so with history and experience behind them!
Sally Northen says
Dear Miss N
Thank you for this very positive report on the Flip-It. As the designer of the Flip-It and the creator of all the sets of cards, it is always interesting to hear how useful it is. I wondered if I could make the following suggestions? If you buy another Flip-It, try covering it with wrapping paper before you assemble it – which will make it much more exciting, then you could varnish it, which makes it much stronger.
Also, have you tried downloading the free worksheets? You can find them on the website http://www.tts-group.co.uk/flip-it Try making them up in to a booklet. You can decorate it and keep a record of all the progress you are making.
I noticed that you had the white side of the card on the outside? This probably meant that it was much harder to fold as it is designed to have the brown card on the outside but it looks great!
I hope you continue to make good progress with your maths and that you will try some of the other cards in the future.
Good luck!
Sally Northen
Amanda Cottingham says
Thanks Sally for coming to the blog, to add those pointers.
Yes the wrapping paper idea is a good one, not sure we would varnish it though.
Strangely we didn’t find it hard to construct, I think because the brown, looked like raw cardboard, we presumed it was white side out. Though it now has lots of stickers on it, so not much white showing LOL.
Thanks for the link, we will definitely check it out!
Amanda x (Miss N’s Mum)
Carla says
My daughter has been using the Flip it for some time now. She doesn’t like traditional bookwork and it was hard to find fun learning activities to motivate her. She uses the Flip it with the work sheets and has great fun on her own with no input from me. Her speed and knowledge has really improved as has her confidence. She often reaches for the Flip it between TV programs or when she wants some quiet time. Using the work sheets has meant that she can try to beat her previous score and that is a very positive experience! She also plays the Flip it with her friends and they seem to have great fun!