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We are delighted to announce that we can now add the Giant Road Jigsaw to our long list of award-winning games and jigsaws! Our fantastic, multi-functional Giant Road Jigsaw has won a Silver Right Start award in the 'puzzles' category. Right Start award winners undergo stringent testing to ensure they offer children the best quality and play value. We're so pleased that this fantastic, best-selling jigsaw has got the recognition it deserves from a trusted parenting publication like Right Start.

Thursday 1st October was the day of the nail-biting Go Go Dragons auction, with all profits going to the amazing Break charity! Our Marketing Manager and one of Snap's very own designers April attended this event, watching and waiting to see who would bid on our colourful dragon Snap... We were delighted with the winning bidder, Chestnut St. Giles Nursery in Norwich, who bought Snap with an amazing £2,600 bid! We are so pleased Snap has gone to somewhere where he can be played with and enjoyed by children. Break do an amazing job helping local children around Norfolk, and we are so pleased that our artwork has raised money for this fantastic charity. To find out more about how we transformed Snap into the incredible beast he is, click here.

We're delighted to announce that one of our specialist games, New Baby Lotto, has been shortlisted for a prestigious Mother and Baby award! The Mother and Baby awards recognise some of the best parenting brands on the planet, and we are so delighted to be included amongst these. New Baby Lotto is a fantastic game which helps parents to prepare their little one for a new arrival. We are so pleased it has been recognised by such a prestigious publication which is trusted by parents all over the world. The awards ceremony takes place on 2nd December in London, where all winners are revealed on the night. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for us!

We're delighted to announce that one of our favourite games, Pizza Pizza, has won the 3-5 years Gold award in the Practical Pre-School Awards. These prestigious awards recognise both play and educational value, as they are directly tested by childcare professionals and of course, children themselves! This fun shape and colour matching game has got the recognition it deserves. In Pizza Pizza, players aged 3-7 attempt to make the perfect pizza by matching shapes and colours and avoiding yucky slugs and bugs! Pizza Pizza can be bought online on the Orchard Toys website or in most local toy shops.

Orchard Toys is proud to announce a brand new look for its bestselling Shopping List game and two renamed Shopping List Extras packs! Don't worry; our most popular game is still played exactly the same way. However, the Shopping List now has 2 trolleys and 2 baskets to choose from, as well as some new items with updated illustrations to accompany them. With the updated version, there are also some new-style colourful shopping lists—including one representing a tablet device — bringing the game up to date!  The booster packs are now called Shopping List Extras. There's still a Clothes and Fruit and Veg version of each with exactly the same items to choose from, but these also have updated lists, a basket, and a trolley. We love the new versions and are sure the new-look games will be as popular as ever! The updated Shopping List and Shopping List Extras are available on our website or in selected stores. Read full article

We‘re seeing stars after finding out that Orchard Toys have won a Bizziebaby ‘Silver’ award for New Baby Lotto! We are thrilled to have won this parent-voted award, especially for New Baby Lotto, which is such a unique game. The concept of New Baby Lotto is to prepare siblings for the arrival of a new baby by using simple lotto game play to introduce them to the objects, foods and toys their new brother or sister might need. It develops personal and social skills, which are vital to your little one accepting a new baby into the family!

We are pleased to announce Pigs in Pants has been shortlisted as a Best Toddler Toy in the ‘Best Baby and Toddler Gear’ awards, run by Mummii.co.uk, the online magazine for mums. Judges from Mummii and carefully selected parents will test and evaluate all the shortlisted products to decide on the gold, silver and bronze winners.  Alongside these winners, there will also be a ‘Consumer Choice’ award, in which registered members of Mummii.co.uk can vote for their favourite product. It’s always great to receive an award, but it means a lot when we know that families whose children are enjoying the game over and over again are voting for it, too! So if you are registered with Mummii.co.uk, and your children are often heard shouting “I’m going to pinch your pants!” or “No knickers!”, we’d love to receive your vote!

Orchard Toys hope to bring smiles to the faces of young patients and staff at the Jenny Lind Children’s Hospital in Norwich having donated over £400 worth of their games and jigsaws. Managing Director, Simon Newbery and Marketing Manager, Ali Brown joined staff and patients to present a selection of Orchard Toys products, which will be used across several wards and waiting rooms, as well as for one-to-one therapy and for children to play with other patients. Simon Newbery said, “The hospital offers a phenomenal service to local children and their families and we hope that this donation will help the staff to make the experience of a hospital visit a little more fun.” Emma Dolman, Matron for Children’s services commented, “we are always extremely grateful for donations such as these. Play is a normal part of childhood and being able to play in hospital is a great way of distracting children from what is happening to them and helps to make them feel more settled in the hospital environment. Children are seen in a number of department across the Trust and having games and jigsaws in all these areas helps to improve the overall experience for...

We have just received the exciting news that Giant Road Jigsaw and Pigs In Pants are winners in the 2015 Right Start Awards! We don’t yet know whether the games have won a Gold, Silver, Bronze or Highly Commended award; but we are very proud to have come this far, and we will let you know as soon as we hear the results later in the year!

Staff bid a fond farewell to ‘Snap’, their colourful dragon, as he left his home at the Orchard Toys headquarters, destined for the Break charity GoGoDragons sculpture trail in Norwich. Illustrators April Nash and Rowena Cooper have been painting the company’s colourful dragon for the past 12 weeks, in between designing games and jigsaws. April and Rowena wanted to design a dragon that reflects the bright colourful characters, for which Orchard Toys has become so well known. Managing Director, Simon Newbery commented, “We liked the idea of a dragon wrapped in jigsaw pieces, but it was also important that, like the games and jigsaws we design everyday, the dragon was fun and interactive. So, the team set about creating a jigsaw style ‘Snap’ game on the dragon, using the characters from our games and jigsaws.” Each character has been hand painted by the illustrators and has a matching pair somewhere else on the dragon.  However, one character is not part of a matching pair and children will love trying to find the odd one out. April Nash, designer commented, “Row and I always had a clear vision of how the dragon would look, but due to...

With almost 200 dragons of various sizes coming to spend the summer in the streets of Norwich this year, the GoGoDragons! project certainly looks set to brighten up the city.   GoGoDragons! is an exciting project that will be enjoyed by thousands of visitors to Norwich while raising funds for the Norfolk charity Break, which supports vulnerable children, young people, and families across East Anglia. Break is a registered charity set up to change young lives. It looks after young people in care, children, and young people with disabilities. It offers family support and also provides assessment and support services to children at risk. As well as our special Orchard Toys dragon, who is being lovingly prepared by our Design team before joining his other dragon friends in the city, Orchard Toys and Break have been working together to create special GoGoDragons! products, with proceeds from every sale going directly to Break. We have GoGoDragons!, the fast-paced colour racing game for the whole family, priced at £9.50. You, too, can Create Your Own Dragon for just £3.99. You can buy both of these special products here and help Break raise...

After the success of GoGoGorillas to the streets of Norwich in summer 2013, we are very excited to be sponsoring our very own dragon, as part of the 2015 GoGoDragons event to support Norfolk based charity Break. Like GoGoGorillas, GoGoDragons will bring together a collection of stunning, individually designed dragons to Norwich city centre. Each dragon will be sponsored by a local business, and each will be unique! The event will be supported by a number of local initiatives through links with local schools and community projects, as well as raising awareness of Break. Families will enjoy spotting each dragon, which will be lurking in different parts of the city, and visitors are expected to come from all over the country to see these magical creatures. You can find our more about our Orchard Toys dragon and follow his progress on our Facebook page, as our designers bring him to life in Orchard Toys style.  To find out more about GoGoDragons and Break, visit www.gogodragons.co.uk  Read full article