The Amazon Fire 7

The end of term is approaching and the boys are tired. When they come in from school and nursery they have taken to just flopping on the sofa or bed and wanting to watch TV or play a game. When they are well rested they are happy to run around and play, but most days at the moment they just need to switch off for a little while.

We have a tablet, but Ed uses it for work, so the boys were delighted when Amazon offered to send us a Fire 7 . It is an upgraded version of their bestselling tablet, compact and light for small hands to hold but durable and it comes with 8gb memory (that is expandable), a choice of colours (we have blue) and Alexa as well as access to the Amazon app store which has over 800,000 apps and games on offer.  It is fantastic value for money at £49.99 and I actually ordered a second one last night so that the boys can have one each.


I downloaded a few to start us off as we have a big drive coming up at the start of the summer holidays and I want to make sure there are a selection of games to keep them occupied. It was easy to turn off in app purchasing and I have added passwords so I know that when they have it in Kids mode, they can only access what I have allowed them too. They have discovered Minecraft  on Daddy's computer so I am pretty sure that is going to be our next purchase through the Amazon app store!

Our top 3 games for 4 and 5 year olds (so far) are

1) Peppa Pig : Mrs Chicken  - I wasn't expecting this one to go down quite so well, but they love the variety of little games. There are apps related to lots of their favourite shows and the Ruby and Max one has been entertaining them a lot too.

2) Cbeebies Playtime - This app is full of different games based on the different programs and it changes every so often too so there is often something new to discover. This was the first app that any of the boys tried and Dylan still enjoys it at 5.

3) Doodle Maths -  Every day they get 5 maths questions and I got to input information about the children and where they were at before we started so they are all age/ability appropriate. The questions are spoken as well as written and it has been good for helping Archie to follow instructions as well as increasing his exposure to math related terminology.

And of course I downloaded a few apps for me, my top 3 are

1) Netflix - There is always something to watch and the kids love it too. I have recently disovered that you can download certain programs from Netflix which I will definitely be doing ahead of our trip.

2) Instagram - I am a little bit addicted, I can't resist flicking through beautiful images and having a look into people's lives

3) Words with Friends - I never find the time to sit and play Scrabble anymore so I love this online version that I can pick up and put down whenever I find a minute.

I think this Fire tablet is going to be a great help with keeping the boys entertained on our summer travels.

This post is in collaboration with Amazon Appstore