Reading the benefits #MyDisneyLife #ad

I am a DisneyLife Brand Ambassador and this post was created in partnership with DisneyLife who have provided me with a free 12 month DisneyLife membership.

We love reading at home with Baby and research has shown that reading to your children, in addition to the reading they do at school, benefits their development and learning greatly, which is not really a surprise.

Reading aloud has been shown to have far reaching benefits. Stimulating language, cognitive skills, as well as increasing curiosity, motivation and memory; all skills that are so important for our little ones development.

We recently began working with DisneyLife and one thing you might not be aware of is that the DisneyLife app actually has audio and read along books included, which really does make story time much more fun!

Obviously at three, Baby is too young to read herself, but she really enjoys having the stories read to her and listening to them. There are books from all of her favourite Disney characters, which makes reading much more fun and engaging for her. She’s totally obsessed with Frozen, so she loves the stories such as Hello Olaf and An Amazing Snowman. She also enjoys the Toy Story and Doc McStuffins stories. We read along, but we also use the audio books then we can both enjoy the story!

Last month, Baby and I were invited to a fabulous blogger event, which took place in a hotel in Worcester. We had so much fun being treated to afternoon tea, spa treatments, amazing food and the kids even had their own slumber party with a disco and movie. While we were there I found the DisneyLife app invaluable. Firstly, it meant that I didn’t have to lug multiple books in our overnight bags, as I knew all the books she would want were already available within the app on my phone or tablet. Also, it was a really exciting event for her and it was very handy to be able to have the app on me when she needed to be calm down a little. We could just break away from the group and have a few moments of reading. Giving children something ‘quiet’ to focus on is much more effective than just trying to get them to calm down. We also used the app when we were back on our room. While I was rushing round getting things ready for bed, the app kept her occupied. These are the times, when she is very overtired, that we can have tears if we don’t manage to distract her, so it was handy to be able to do that with DisneyLife.

As the app can be loaded onto multiple devices, as mentioned Baby also has it loaded onto her tablet, which is handy when we are on the move and especially for long car journeys. She loves our road trips and is always very excited to get going, but like all kids can get a little bored if the journey is too long. Having DisneyLife with us gives us a way to occupy her, when we are driving and unable to do anything very exciting.

There’s a huge range of books available, suitable for all ages and reading levels from early readers to junior novels (movie storybooks to storyettes!) and all featuring your children’s favourite Disney characters. This makes the children so much more interested than if it were characters they weren’t familiar with, as they want to see what they get up to.

The books are organised logically within the character world or by theme, so it is easy to find what you are looking for and to find other stories including the same characters. I find the app really handy to have and think it is great that it can be used by Baby on her own but that I can also get involved and read the stories to her.

DisneyLife membership is available on iOS and android, sign up for your free month then pay only £9.99 per month.