I'm a full-time mummy

We had just recently reviewed "Just Me and My Cousin" and now, we have the privilege to add this story app to our collection!

* Title: Little Critter At Scout Camp
* Price: $0.99
* Category: Books
* Released: Sept 04, 2013
* Current Version: 2.3
* Size: 36 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Oceanhouse Media, Inc.
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Requires iOS 5.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Description from the product page:

"Little Critter's eager nature and inquisitive mind help him explore the great outdoors at Scout Camp. He and the other critters race canoes down the river, learn about different types of plants and trees, and make gifts for family members. Scout Camp is running smoothly until Little Critter explores a little too far and gets more nature than he bargained for! "

* It is engaging and interactive and I love that we can also touch the objects in each page on the screen and the words pop out to tell you what it is!

* I took this opportunity in this story app to teach my boy what normally goes on in a scout camp. 

* I took the opportunity in the page above to show my boy that we can learn a lot of things in a scout camp apart from making new friends

You can purchase the "Little Critter At Scout Camp " app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code by the sponsor to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"

Over 3 months ago, I received an email pitch from 3M asking whether I would be interested to review their water filter system and the first thing that came to my mind was 'Huh? 3M? Water filter system?' I had previously reviewed some products by 3M, such as their Scotch™ Premium Kitchen Scissors and Scotch™ Kids Scissors and never would have imagined they also have water filter systems in their product range. After exchanging emails to and fro between 3M representative, we decided to attend their product briefing at their Innovation Center to learn more about their products.  

For your info, we have been using our current outdoor water filter system (to be referred in this post as 'brand B') for about 5-6 years and it has a backwash feature which hubby will occasionally turn on to backwash and clear off the filter. As for indoor, we did not install any water filter system at all.

Now, before I start off with our review, I just want to share that a lot of procedures have been done in order to ensure our product review and testing is done correctly and we have results to show for it.

CHECKING THE QUALITY OF OUR CURRENT FILTERED WATER:

Prior to the installation of the 3M Water Filter Systems, one of the 3M lab staff came over to our house to collect and test our current water sample.

Anyway, back to the collection and testing of our water. The staff took the water sample from our porch outside (after filtered by 'brand B' filter) and reverted with the results to us few days later and also sent us the photo shown above (right side) with the sediments settling at the base of the container which contains our water.

INSTALLATION PROCESS:

We finally decided on a date for 3M to come over to our house with their technician to install their water filter system. I managed to take some quick shots of our 'brand B' outdoor water filter system in comparison with 3M's outdoor water filter system.

Can you see the 'brand B' one was as high as myself? And see for yourself how small is 3M's water filter in contrast? We initially was surprised and wondered too whether such a small filter is able to do the job, but fret not, 3M has a technology where their filter particles are so extremely small and fine that it does a terrific job!

Anyway, the technician immediately went on to install the 3M water filter systems.

While the technician drills and installs the 3M Drinking Water Filter System (Model: AP Easy Complete) which is located right underneath our kitchen sink (save space and looks neat outside), I let my kiddos play around with the filter cartridge. Again, a tiny little filter system, not heavy at all for my kiddos to carry! There's a sticker you can stick right on the cartridge to remind yourself when the time is up to change a new filter cartridge.

The cool thing with the 3M Drinking Water Filter System (Model: AP Easy Complete) is it comes with a built-in bypass valve which means you do not need to shut off your water pipe prior to a filter cartridge change! Such an awesome convenience! You can also view this short video on how to change the filter cartridge for AP Easy Complete here: http://youtu.be/YlePAWUosdk

AFTER INSTALLATION PROCESS:

Here's how it looks like after the 3M Whole House Filtration SYstem (Model AP 902) was set up. A neat and small water filter system that does not take much space at all! The 3M Whole House Filtration SYstem (Model AP 902) helps to eliminate sediment and rush from the piping system.

And here's how it looks like after the 3M Drinking Water Filter System (Model: AP Easy Complete) was set up. Just a tiny little faucet jutting out from our water sink, easy to lift black colored tab to turn on and off the water. The 3M Drinking Water Filter System (Model: AP Easy Complete) helps to remove 99.5% of filterable cyst, removing chlorine taste and odour, sediment and rust and also lead & parasitic protozoan cysts. You can read more on the NSF Certification for the AP Easy Complete here: PR3MNSFCert.pdf (682.84 kb).

3M WATER FILTER SYSTEMS IN USE:

After installing 3M Water Filter Systems, we felt more at ease using our water. We washed our food and cutleries with the filtered water, we even use the water filtered for our drinking water (being Chinese, we are used to boiling our water so, we do boil our filtered water first) and I also use the filtered water to make my red bean drinks.

TEST RESULTS OF THE QUALITY OF OUR CURRENT FILTERED WATER & AFTER USING 3M WATER FILTERS:

Below are the snapshots of the report sent to us after 3M tested the quality of our current filtered water:

To conclude our review, we love using 3M Water Filter Systems as we now no longer need to perform any backwash function (* Do you know that backwash function is not good for the water system actually? Drop me an email and I'll be happy to forward you the Star newspaper article to support this statement)

We feel at ease as the filtered water can be drink directly from the tap and another good thing is last time when we use the 'brand B' water filter, it came with a carbon filter that filtered away the chlorine which actually helps to prevent and counter contamination. Imagine we have been using our water without chlorine for years! Just for your info, it is not good if an outdoor filter have carbon filter because the carbon's function is to reduce chlorine and the water kept inside the water tank needs chlorine to kill bacteria and slow down the bacteria's growth inside the tank.

Maintenance wise, it is easy to change the filter cartridge for both indoor and outdoor water filter and there are also reminder systems to remind us when it is time to change the filter cartridges. Also with products produced by a well-known and trusted brand, it also adds up to our confidence level in continuing on to use the water filter systems!

You can find out more info from 3M website.

** Updates on Sept 2014 - Please search through 3M website for their products info and comparisons and for pricing info instead of sending emails to ask me as I'm not the products representative nor I get any commission or anything from doing this review. 3M staff will be more equipped to answer your questions instead of a blogger like me ;)

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the product by 3M in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.

The playgroup where I bring my 2 kiddos to since early this month have this nice system for their toys arrangement/placement. Each toys are placed in their respective containers in their respective spots in the book shelves.

When a child takes a toy to play, they can only play 1 toy at a time. It takes a while for my 2 kiddos to get used to this as they have been playing more than 1 toys at a time and to be told suddenly they can only play 1 toy at a time, to return it back to its place before they can play another toy takes a little bit time to get used to. But within half hour, they got the message. One toy at a time. Neat!

I like the idea that a child must always returned back the toy they finished playing with by following and matching the stickers on the toy's containers and its spot in the shelves. According to one of my FB page follower (Miss Jennifer Dansberger Jones who worked in a preschool for years), she said that "the labeling system was mandatory for 2 reasons, 1) easy clean up and identification 2) pre-reading skills -matching, observation, and (we labeled with the word and picture for word/object association. I feel children should have more art supplies available, and manipulatives ( puzzles, sorting beads,etc.) any problem solving and fine activities- because children are lacking those skills."

So yes, I am so going to do this to our home as well! Picture below taken on 13th Sept 2013, bought 5 cloth boxes from Ikea (after making sure it fits our Expedit bookcase) and reorganize all toys and books in our room into the appropriate boxes with labelling (words and pictures). Still pending: need to tidy up the wires and cables dangling at the back and probably fill up the rest of the shelves with the blue cloth boxes as well hehehehe...

I hope I will be able to train my kiddos to organise and clean up the toys according to the correct boxes and by matching the labels to the boxes. Wish us luck!!!

**Personal notes: Apologies but due to my paranoia of privacy and security of myself, my family and my kiddos, I am not going to reveal what is the SAHM group I'm in, the playgroup name, the area and so on. Apologies but like I said, I am really paranoid and with info like this being shown in public, I hope you can understand my reasons for doing so.