With Daddy being a game developer, coding is something we are really interested in as a family. We love to get the girls interested in all things technology, because really thats where the future is!
So when we were offered to try out the new Coding Critters, I jumped at the chance! Programming toys was the next topic on our list and a programming toy with buttons on top of it was a really important part of that.
What are Coding Critters?
Coding Critters come in 3 different choices; Range & Zip - Dogs, Rumble & Bumble - Dinosaurs and then Scamper & Sneaker - Cats. Each set comes with the adult coding pet and a small magnetic one too. The sets are for ages 4-10 and come complete with multiple accessories and a story book to help children to learn how to code.
The Learning Resources site says 'Meet the Coding Critters: your first coding friends! These playful kitten pets bring early STEM concepts to preschool learning through 100% screen-free coding. Kids code along with their new pets’ storybook adventure, and help the curious Scamper and sneaky Sneaker have a playtime they'll never forget! Each storybook coding challenge unfolds in the Coding Critters' fun pet playset - can you code Scamper to play hide and seek, catch the butterfly at the end of her cat toy, or catch Sneaker after a ride down the slide? In addition to following along with the storybook's coding challenges, you can also use the pet playset to design your own code games and more! The Coding Critters also double as cute interactive pets - press Scamper's nose to activate Play Mode, where you can feed, pet, and take care of your new kitten robot pal! You can even make her dance and sing a silly song!'
Our Coding Critters review
We took Scamper and Sneaker out of the box and the girls were immediately in love! I have to agree, the cats look adorable and totally something i'd have wanted to play with as a child. We set up the slide and house and put the ball, butterfly and other bits on the table.
Once I'd popped the batteries in, the girls wanted me to read the story, so we got stuck in straight away. The story book was amazing, such a great learning resource. It guided us slowly through the different areas of coding, starting with just going forward for Scamper (the big one) to chase her ball of yarn (which is magnetic!).
Each stage of the story slowly added more commands in like a left or right turn around the tree for hide and seek. The 'play mode', where Scamper doesn't move but makes noises, is also included in the story. We helped Scamper get her food and then used play mode to hear her eat it.
What the girls really loved though was Scamper and Sneaker (the little one) playing together. As they are both magnetic, Scamper can grab Sneaker and take her home. This was so much fun and putting Sneaker in different places meant the girls could really take their time working out what to do.
If they got stuck however, the set comes with really handy directional paw prints, so we could sit together and work out what order would be best to get Scamper to Sneaker.
The whole set is just adorable and fits so well into learning to code. Knowing how to put an algorithm together is really important and Scamper and Sneaker made this a really easy and fun process. The girls have already been looking at the other two sets and wondering if we could get them all to work together!
As a mum, Scamper and Sneaker are my favourite coding robots, they are screen free and really capture my children's attention and imagination!
*This is a collaborative post*
