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Reviews written by Flaxseed

French Nursery: Mon Ecole

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

Language-wise, fabulous. But parking is chaotic!, Tuesday, 02 January 2007

My daughter has just finished her first term in this nursery. We do not speak French at home, but to my delight, within just a couple of months of her attending the nursery, she started saying French words and phrases in the right context. She is only 2 years old, but had already started singing in French, and she also seems to enjoy talking to her toys in French!

The nursery is full of wonderful teachers who devote a lot of time and effort to the development of children, and because they only speak French (though the majority of them are Lebanese), the children -even the ones who don't speak it at home- get to hear the language for at least 5 hours each day.

The food they offer is healthy, and the materials they use are environment-friendly. There's no TV there, which seems to be in most nurseries these days. Therefore, the whole day revolves round interacting rather than being on the receiving end.

The only downside I would say is that the parking is a bit chaotic right outside the gate, and although the gate could be shut, the poorly trained security guard never alerts the parents to this vital safety measure!

There is off course another door inside the nursery grounds, but if you are looking for European standards, you might feel let down. This nursery would have my 5 out of 5 vote, if only they invest in training their security guard!

Arab Gulf Education - Book Store

Superb quality... Not the easiest place to get to, Monday, 03 July 2006

This small shop is full of Arabic and English educational books. The prices are great, but nothing is marked (you have to ask them about the price of each item), as they are specialised in wholesale. You will also see a lot of boxes in the middle of the shop for the same reason. They don't accept credit cards, so just to let you know.
The quality, however, of the Arabic story books is "superb" and for Dhs18, you can't beat that price!
I would give them full marks had the shop been somewhere central or if they'd had another branch in a big mall and with plenty of car parking spaces.

Culture & Co

Helpful Friendly Staff, Tuesday, 20 June 2006

It is a lovely shop. Everything is well-displayed and it's nice to walk around the books in peace. The shopping assistants were very helpful too. It's a great place for French books (and materials), but not for complete beginners!

COOP: Arabic Workbooks & More

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

Cheap Disposable Materials!, Monday, 19 June 2006

Prices: This supermarket has very cheap Arabic materials including toddlers' books, flash cards, jigsaw puzzles, wall posters, children's colour dictionary, sticker story books and more.

Shopping experience: It was not as pleasant as in other places. The products are not very well laid out, so be prepared to spend a long time searching and getting dusty.

Quality: The quality of the flash cards -for example- is about 5 times worse than that of similar flash cards in Magrudy's (normal printed cardboard as opposed to laminated cards with attractive picutres). However, the price was 7 times cheaper in Co-Op. On the other hand, the toddlers' books were great, and the jigsaw puzzle was not too bad at all. So, it's a bit of "hit and miss"!

All in all, excellent disposable materials, with just a few items you'd want to keep long term!

I bought lots of materials to break up the summer for my daughter, and it didn't have to cost me a fortune!

Magrudy''s Kids Language Books

Lovely, Monday, 12 June 2006

I went this afternoon to this lovely shop... Half an hour later, I came out with quite a few things. It's really worth a visit, but don't forget to take your wallet as you might find a few more nice things on top of what you intended to buy!

French Nursery: Le Petit Poucet now Le Jardin Enchante

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful

Friendly, but too small, Thursday, 08 June 2006

I visited this nursery 2 weeks ago. On the plus side, I found the staff to be friendly. Also, they encourage and teach good manners to the children. They prepare the children's snacks in their own kitchen so the kids always get freshly squeezed juices and freshly cut fruits and vegetables (with minimal processed foods). However, I find space (or lack of it) to be the biggest disappointing issue there! It is more like a villa in design than a nursery. The classes are very close to each other with a couple located on the second floor (children have to use a marbled staircase). Even the playground was too small for one class to be playing outside at one time.
I think the nursery will be great in a bigger (and better designed) place!

Muzzy BBC Kids Language Programme

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

As a helping hand...... Fantastic!, Wednesday, 07 June 2006

We bought French Muzzy on DVD last year. It comes with a PC software, a text book, a vocabulary builder DVD and an audio CD you can listen to on the go. I find it fantastic as my daughter picked up a lot of vocabulary from it. Would recommend the DVD version over the video as you can switch the subtitles on and off, or simply have the French (in our case) script accompanying the film so you can see the what the spoken words look like when they're written.
We usually listen to the audio CD in the car and try to talk about the scene we're listening to, or play a game of taking the part of different characters! I am so pleased with Muzzy, however, I think you have to create a need for your child to speak the language (e.g. have friends who speak that language) as the program might not be enough on its own.

Letters & Words - Arabic

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

All in all... I recommend it., Monday, 05 June 2006

Intended to introduce the alphabet and a small selection of vocabulary. The games (memory, jigsaw, the missing letter) all serve that purpose. Nice voices read the word for you letter by letter (which are all colour coded for easy identification). In "Find The Missing Letter" game, for example, if you put the wrong letter, but still achieve another correct word, it reads it out and explains that however it is a proper word (it gives you the meaning of it), it is not the one that corresponds with the picture on the screen. I find that feature to be bery interesting for kids when they try different combination. Although the packaging is not great, it's reasonably priced, and I would still recommend it for non-Arabic speakers, pre-school Arabic-speakers!

Dubai Distribution Library

Reasonable prices, Monday, 05 June 2006

I found this place to have a selection of Arabic materials. The quality is not great(but not too bad either). However, the prices are very reasonable!

Early Learning Centre Arabic Toys

Great quality.... only sparingly available, Monday, 05 June 2006

The wooden toddler book I bought from ELC is of great quality. The only problem is that I bought it back in December 2005, and since then I have struggled to find any more!

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