I have to admit I have a slight problem with buying magazines. I don’t buy them for myself much anymore but I do tend to get the girls a magazine when we are at the shop. One of our favourite titles is Cbeebies Magazine. They love the free gifts and the fact it has all their favourite Cbeebies characters in. I really love the educational content. It is perfect for preschoolers and there is so much to do in it it really lasts the whole week which is brilliant for the price of just £2.99.

We were therefore delighted to be asked to Alton Towers for a fun day with Cbeebies magazine, especially as we had never visited the theme park before. We had a lovely morning with all the enthusiastic magazine staff and even had a story read by the editor, Stephanie Cooper. The girls all enjoyed tasting some of the foods mentioned in the story and discovered they like radish.

The girls loved all the activities and with my teacher hat on I was really impressed with how they were matched up to the Early Learning Goals. They loved making pirate hats and badges to go with Swashbuckle and it was also working on their listening skills as well as art and design and physical development.

They really enjoyed learning how to draw their favourite Cbeebies characters.

I loved the drawing Charlotte did of Jess the cat .

We were all really excited to find out who was the special guest. All we knew was that he was arriving in a van.


We had a photo with Postman Pat and Jess.
After that we went off to explore Alton Towers. We spent the day with Cat from Yellow Days and her family. First stop was Cbeebies Land and we had a great ride in Postman Pat’s van. Cbeebies Land is a lovely area of the theme park which is set up for younger children. This is so brilliant as there usually isn’t anything for this age group in theme parks or it is so spread out it is hard to find. The area is really bright and colourful and we didn’t have a long queue for any of the rides.

We took the sky ride in between areas and went for lunch at the pirate themed area. There we enjoyed burgers while watching a show full of pyrotechnics.

The racing cars were a big hit with all the children – although I’m glad the twins won’t be driving for real anytime soon as they ended up crashing.


They all loved the carousel.
The scariest ride was the Runaway train. It was really fascinating watching the twins as they both loved totally different rides. On this ride one was laughing in fear the other in delight.


I have to say roller coasters aren’t really my cup of tea as you can see in this photo which Missie Lizzie from Me and My Shadow took of me while I wasn’t looking.
When we got home the girls were thrilled with their goody bags full of Cbeebies merchandise. They were particularly pleased with the TreeFu Tom umbrellas as it had been a bit drizzly all day so they came in handy. The magazines have been a big hit with the girls especially the brand new Mister Maker Magazine which has been really useful for keeping them entertained in the holidays. they loved making a sock puppet using the craft kit on the front.
