There are special offers from Great Gizmos at Amazon at the moment, and I’ll tell you a little about them here. Unless it says otherwise, they’re suitable from age 8 upwards.

• Science Museum Finger Print Kit £6.90 from £10.99

With this kit you can collect and record fingerprints and examine the prints to look for suspects. You can record important clues and make your case.

• Green Science Potato Clock £5.99 instead of £10.99

Power a digital clock using only a potato? Apparently so, with this kit, using wireds, copper and zinc strips, transparent tape ad more.

• Mermaid Doll Making Kit is down to £5.69

This 22cm doll comes with all the trimmings you need to decorate and ‘make’ your own soft toy. She requires no pins or needles and is easy to make for kids ages 5 and up.

• Intruder Alarm is reduced to £5.99

Building an alarm to fit your bedroom door, you’ll learn the science of connecting electric circuits while protecting your property from spies and intruders.

There’s loads more to see, so have a look at Great Gizmos on Amazon.

Thanks to wishihadadonkey at HUKD

They say we 'perceive' love in one of five ways - through gifts, acts of service, words of affirmation, quality time and physical affection. If your other half is of the 'words of affirmation' variety, they'll love hearing why you love them.  Click on the image - you'll find a step by step tutorial on how to make these cards.

Back pain seems to be synonymous with both pregnancy and parenthood. Unless you were an outdoors(wo)man before babies, life suddenly becomes a lot heavier when once little people enter your life. If you’re not carrying your baby in a sling, at some point or another you’re fighting commuters while you lug a pushchair up the stairs. Then your baby starts walking – but suddenly refuses to put another step in front of the other and you have to carry… normally balancing child on one side, and the week’s groceries on the other. To add insult to injury a toddler can be a force of destruction on your house* and you’ll find yourself bending over a thousand times a day to pick stuff up off the floor.

The result? An aching back and a desperate longing for the massages you took for granted in life before child.

So if you can’t get to a weekly chiropractic appointment, what can you do? Well – you could try PosturePlast. 

There are three LEGO games currently on half price offer at Toys R Us. Unfortunately all but Sunblock are out of stock for home delivery, but since that’s £4.95 you’d be better off using the click and collect facility and picking up from your local store instead.

• Lego Games Banana Balance
• Lego Games Sunblock
• Lego Games Frog Rush

Banana Balance (£3.99) comes with one buildable Lego Dice, 48 Lego pieces, one rule booklet, and one building instruction booklet and is a game for 2 – 4 players over 6 years of age. The aim of this game is to “get the monkey to help you collect the most fruit, but don’t let the tree tip over.”

Sunblock is reduced to £3.99 and comes with the buildable Dice, 80 Lego pieces a rule booklet and and instruction booklet  Game time is apparently 5 – 15 minutes, with the objective being to clear the playing board.

Frog Rush is £4.99, comes with the Dice, 107 Lego pieces and the same booklets, and game time is approximately 10 – 20 minutes. According to the description, “All of the frogs are trying to get across at the same time, hopping and jumping over each other in a crazy race towards home. Beat the others across the water, but beware of the hungry stork flying overhead!”

Thanks to leeds_united_afc at HUKD

The massive Little Tikes Inside and Outside Kitchen is reduced from £129.99 to £64.99 at Adventure Toys, and there’s a £7.50 delivery charge.  There are a few things to consider if you’re going to buy this though, so read on.

• Play inside and outside all year round

This is a massive play kitchen and has so much potential, assuming you have the space for it. It’s double sided and has a window with removalbe flowers into or out of the ‘house’.

The kitchen side has a sink, dishwasher, oven and hob that makes cooking sounds, and there are shelves, a microwave and a storage cupboard. The fridge has a magnetic door and above it is a coffee maker with a ‘magic pouring’ coffee pot – which I think means it makes sounds.

The ‘outside’ has a barbeque grill that lights up and sizzles like a grilling fire. There’s a table area to serve food up on as well as a separate bench for siting on.

The accessory pack that comes with it contains a chef’s hat, magnets (for the fridge), barbeque food, cutlery, crockery and pots.

It does require 3AA batteries and 3D batteries, and because of electronics can’t actually be left outside.

But here’s the catch: these are reduced because they are ‘seconds’ or demo models. They may have damaged boxes, and the oven or dishwasher doors may not close fully – although they do apparently stay closed and open without any problems.

If you think that’s something your little one can live with, this is a great price.

Thanks to rapidten11 at HUKD

Early Learning Centre’s 8 Pack of Plasticine is half price at Amazon, selling for just 50p instead of £1, and free delivery to boot.

• Shape and mould for 50p

Actually, I’m terrified of this stuff – if I look at how much playdough our sofas have absorbed over the last six months, I can just imagine adding plasticine to the mix and needing a new sofa in the next six months, but I do re remember having tons of fun with plasticine as a child myself. I must ask my mother if she ever had fits over the armrests of the furniture being covered in the stuff.

The Plasticine 8-pack contains basic colours like white, black, red, yellow, green, blue and purple and but don’t worry too much about that – it’ll soon be a big grey mess!

Suitable for ages 3 – 8 years, the up side to this over play dough, is that it apparently never dries out.

Thanks to linny13 at HUKD 

These Valentines Fruit Hearts strike me as the perfect accompaniment to chocolates and sweet treats on the day of love. And they're easy to prepare too, so getting your toddler or young child involved will be a fun activity. Swap out the yoghurt for something a little sweeter - like a chocolate mousse and you have a healthy and tasty desert option too!

Don’t worry! This isn’t the first post for Christmas 2012! In fact, it’s part of Lula Sapphire’s clearance stock, and this (gorgeous) red linen Christmas stocking is reduced from £15.50 to £5.

• Get something beautiful for next to nothing

The Red Linen Stocking at Lula Sapphire is a beautiful and elegant Christmas stocking that will look fantastic hanging next to your Christmas tree.

These are generously sized at 52cm so they will fit all those Christmas goodies, and the are very stylish and not at all garish.

They’re also made of Linen, so they won’t lose shape like felt stockings do and they won’t  get things stuck in them or unravel like wool stockings do either.

These are clearance items, so stocks may be limited, although there’s no indication on the site of that.

Standard delivery takes 3 – 5 days and I suspect this is a small item, which will cost you £1.50  to have delivered to you by Royal Mail.

This really sweet looking – no pun intended – Hello Kitty Sweet Candy House Playset is reduced from £39.99 to £23.90, a 40% saving.

• Play in sweet bliss with Hello Kitty

Did you know that Hello Kitty had a twin sister? Her name is Mimmy, apparently and the sisters come together in this play set.  You can open the Sweet House, which divides into three sections and is made up of five rooms.

The large central room makes a great place for the cake shop, where you can load up the cart and take it out to sell all the pastries.

There are two rooms ideal for sleeping complete with beds and lamps.  There are stairs leading up to the balcony above the kitchen, surrounded by a railing made of plastic pretzels.

Each room is fully decorated with wall paper, and the house is apparently loaded with 35 bits of furniture and accessories.

Oh, and, as an added incentive, spend £10 or more on Toys, Games or Baby products sold by Amazon.co.uk and receive £2 MP3 credit to try out their MP3 Downloads Store.

Thanks to georgia2006 at HUKD

Play.com have this bag of pink Mega Bloks available for £9.99 instead of £14.99, saving you £5 and throwing in free delivery.

• Build a tower out of Mega Bloks

I say ‘build a tower’ because that’s what my daughter tends to want to do with her Mega Bloks. She hasn’t really realised that you can do more than that, just yet. She likes building towers and knocking them down over me. It’s great entertainment, I tell you.

I wrote a full review of these Mega Bloks a while ago – have a read for full details.

This bag has 70 bricks, all in ‘primary classic or pink’ colour scheme. In other words, white, pink, blue and purple.

These bricks can apparently be mixed and matched with other ‘Maxi’ products and is suitable for children over 1 year of age. That said there was a 10 month old visiting recently and he treated the single ‘brick’ as a dummy – and there was no way he was going to swallow it!

Thanks to chritopherguy25 at HUKD

ChoicesUK are selling the Usborne ‘My First  Sticker Book’ for £2.99 instead of £9.99  - a fantastic £7 saving. I had a look at the Usborne website, and £9.99 is the general going RRP even though Amazon has them on offer for £6.19 at the moment. Since delivery from ChoicesUK is free, this is definitely the best deal for the moment.

• Get sticking with the First Sticker Book

I really like Usborne books. They’re expensive, but they’re generally fantastic quality and worth the money, so having that quality at this price is fantastic, I think!

This ‘My First Sticker Book’ actually contains four learning sticker books including ABC, 123, Colours and Shapes. Children can fix the pictures stickers onto the correct pages, learning as they go.

There are over 500 stickers, so should keep little ones busy for a little while at least. Not a bad plan if you’re looking for a bit of self-directed play (that you can scrape off the windows and walls later) or some travel entertainment – it’s certainly never to early to start planning your in flight entertainment if you’re jet setting this Spring or Summer!

Thanks to retail_therapy at HUKD

In the ‘reduced to clear’ isle of the John Lewis website today, you’ll find the Smash Love Skulls Case And Bottle Lunch Set that originally sold for £12 reduced to £8 and now to £5.  If you want it delivered you’ll have to add another £3 again, otherwise Click and Collect for free.

• Be bold and colourful with love and death

This is a kind of funky alternative to princesses and fairies if you have a girl in the house that prefers the Cure to Justin Bieber. The Smash Love Skulls Case and Bottle Lunch Set is reduced to clear, so I don’t suppose it’ll hang around forever,  but at the moment there’s ‘more than 10 in stock’.

The description is rather sparse, but the set contains a ‘generous sized children’s insulated lunch case with  a bold skull pattern and a handy 500ml water bottle included.’

The dimensions of H26 x W28 xD9cm I assume apply to the lunch box only, making it quite a nice size for a day’s packed lunch.

Thanks to Nicnicrees

Argos has some his (junior) and her ( also junior) snug fleeces with popular Disney branding on offer for a very reasonable £3.99, reduced from £9.99.

• Park for the night with Disney Cars
• Be cosy as a (Disney) Princess

I don’t know about you, but I just don’t seem to be able to warm up at the moment. A hot bath works for a while but by the time I’m settled in for the evening, my very bones are cold again.

As these fleeces are for children, they’re not going to help me, but if your little one has the same problem – or constantly kicks off their blankets – these wearable fleeces might be a good solution to your problem.

Apart from the fact that they are 100% polyester, there’s not much information about them, unfortunately, but  there’s one review on each, and they’re both very positive. Apparently the kids love them, so that’s not bad – and at this price they’re fantastic value too.

Argos’ delivery is really expensive for small items at £5.95, so you’d do better to check your local store for stock, and reserve it for collection.

Thanks to lucerysmum at HUKD

This is a lovely idea for both Valentines day and Shrove Tuesday pancakes, if you're okay with being a little untraditional. It'll probably take some work to get it right, but then the best things usually do, don't they? It's lovely - but may be a bit messy with syrup!

Dulux is a paint, right, and I can never see one of those shaggy Old English Sheepdogs without thinking of Dulux – which is pretty great marketing. I’m sure the man or woman who first sat in an office and said, “hey, why don’t we make our mascot a shaggy dog” would be proud.

Dulux is celebrating their 50^th anniversary this year, and they’ve released a range of trinkets that you can buy to celebrate along with them.

They sent us a sampling of their goodies – the Dulux Dog Soft Toy and the Blue Spotted Dulux dog mug – to see what we thought of them.

Well, sort of…

The Learning Resource Magnetic Alphabet and Numbers kit have been reduced from £8.99 to £4.99 at Amazon. Please not these magnets DO NOT come with the magnetic board, but if you have a magnetic whiteboard or a fridge, they’ll work perfectly on those.

• Learn through play with magnetic alphabet and numbers

My daughter’s been in the kitchen with me from, well.. birth, really.  I once had a health visitor tell me I had to put a stair gate up on the kitchen door to keep her out while I was cooking, but I wasn’t all that keen on having her roaming the house unattended while I was preparing our dinner, so I’ve just taught her about kitchen safety since before she could walk.

Something I find really helpful in the kitchen with toddlers is having distractions, so we’ve always had magnets of some description or other on the fridge – weather singing animals or letters and numbers, and they’re a perfect way to keep her busy when I have to get something out the oven.

This particular set provides the letters and numbers formed in the same way they’re taught at school – I realise writing this that ours have this “a” rather than the “a” we’re taught at school. There’s also an accurate level of relative proportions between uppercase and lowercase letters, which is useful and includes extras of the most commonly used letters.

All round, it actually seems like a pretty good learning tool!

Thanks to wishihadadonkey at HUKD

I’ve been using the By Carla Mum And Baby Support Pillow in bed at night since around 25 weeks pregnant, and it is my constant bed time companion.

This is a pillow I can melt into. It is firm, but not rigid, and despite looking quite ‘solid’ in the pictures, it moulds into your body in a way that gives fantastic support.

It is quite a long pillow, which means that I can cuddle into it with my arms, but still have it between my knees, which is really helpful in keeping me on my left side as I tend to end up on my back through the night, otherwise.

Another exceptionally useful function is as bump protector – my toddler still ends up in my bed most of the night and performs a perfect windmill, often resulting in blows to my anatomy. With the By Carla Support Pillow firmly in place, the blows never come near me.

This pregnancy support pillow comes with a removable cover, and in a particularly forward thinking move, they’ve included a second cover, so while one’s washing and drying, the other can be in use and the pillow protected.

It also comes in a reusable zipped bag, so you can travel with your pillow, or store it when it’s not in use.

I’ve not used it as a breastfeeding or bottlefeeding support cushion yet, but it is firm enough that you could put your baby on it to protect them, and I think it would be perfect for letting them lie on too, belly on the pillow, to roll out wind and trapped air. I did that with my daughter  a lot but on a square pillow folded in half, so this is pretty perfect.

The covers are funky and the pillow is fantastic quality. I highly recommend this as a pregnancy sleep improvement strategy.

HappyHopperz have offered PlayPennies readers 20% off on their fabulous bouncy toy range.

Hop, hop, hop on a HappyHopperz toy

• Discount: 20%
• Expires: 14 February 2012
• Valid on: Everything
• Discount Code: PLAYPENNIES12

HappyHopperz are a throwback to the space hoppers of the 70’s, but perfectly suited for children. They are made with ears and horns so little ones can grip on to and they are small enough that feet remain steady on the ground.

Around Christmas time the ‘new and improved’ HappyHopperz were launched – they’re now suitable for children as young as 12 months.

Sarah wrote a HappyHopperz review way back in the early PlayPennies days and I’ve seen kids on these in playgroups – they do about go wild for them!

HappyHopperz ca be used indoors and outdoors and can be used in small spaces too. They are inflatable, so technically you should be able to take them on holiday with you too, should you want to!

The HappyHopperz cost £21.99 plus £5.99 P&P, but with the offer you’ll be paying £17.59 plus £5.99, so you’re still saving £4.40.

There’s a massive 75% off of the Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom Magical Laptop from Inspiration Works at Amazon today. The RRP is £24.99, but they’re selling at £6.25, which is a fantastic £18.74 saving.

• Learn as you play with Ben And Holly

The Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom Magical Laptop is illustrated with four game modes and comes with a special ‘magic wand’ to answer the questions.  You can hear the voices of Ben and Holly and all their friends and listen to music too.

There are four reviewers on Amazon for this product and they’ve all given it 5 stars saying that it is a robust toy, safe with no sharp edges, easy to pick up and handle and very durable.

According to one of them, it has ‘great sounds and many functions’, which is always useful and while the guide says suitable for children over three (probably because of the wand), recipients from the age of two and up to the age of four seem to love it.

It seems to be a great buy for any Ben and Holly fan.

Thanks to wishihadadonkey at HUKD

Tesco have a number of bedding options on offer at the moment, with some specifically great deals for children.

• Disney Mickey Mouse Duvet Set for £7 instead of £14
• Hello Kitty Candy Stripe Duvet Set for £6 instead of £12
• Ben 10 Single Duvet and Fleece Set £9.50 instead of £19

Redecorating doesn’t have to be terribly expensive with these offers from Tesco Direct.

The Disney Mickey Mouse Duvet Set features Mickey Mouse against a black background with a graffiti-style detail saying ‘I hate mornings’. It is made of polyester and cotton and has a button detail finish. It is machine washable and can be tumble dried.

Hello Kitty comes in candy stripes and a soft pink with the floating Hello Kitty, spots and the text ‘Hello Kitty’ dotted around. It comes with an equally cute candy striped and bow-decorated pillowcase and matches any other Hello Kitty paraphernalia you might have.  It is machine washable and can also be tumble dried.

Finally, bring on Ben10  with a duvet and fleece – and there’s a picture of a pillow cover, but there’s no mention of one in the description. 100% Polyester, this set is machine washable and can be tumble dried, but not ironed.

That's just to name a few. There are loads more to choose from if you click on the image above.

Thanks to wishihadadonkey at HUKD