Bend a rainbow round into a complete circle, and you have made a colour wheel. The endless spectrum allows you to explore harmonising and complementary colours. A moveable colour wheel uses a set of rotating windows to make exploration simple and self-explanatory. Line up a set of yellows in one window and see the tints, hues and shades of orange and green that harmonise with them, and the violets that would make a startling effect if placed alongside. Now what would you get if blue is in the main window? The Colour Wheel costs pound;2.50 from the Design and Making Centre, Church Road, Pool, Redruth TR15 3PZ. Tel: 01209 719354 Email: dmcentre@cornwall.gov.uk

File under memory

Lists of teachers, autographs from friends, jokes and limericks - the ring-binder presentation file Recollections 2004 allows Year 6 children to assemble many of the things that made them feel alive, thoughtful, happy or excited during their time at primary school. The file has a hard cover that can be customised to bear the name of a school and an individual pupil.

They can add comments from their best mates, photographs of special occasions, witty remarks from adults, quirky facts about the year of their birth and - a nice touch this - anticipations of their new school.

Recollections 2004 costs pound;4.95 per book with 10 per cent discount for orders placed before May 28. Tellfax: 01452 500448

www.imperial-marketing.co.uk

Growing trend

Watch Me Grow is a new series about life cycles for younger readers. As the title suggests, the main body of text is told in the first person. A caterpillar tells us: “It’s time to shed my old skin”. Supplementary information is presented more conventionally in the third person, but the language is still sprightly and engaging. The words are reinforced by some excellent photographs, drawing on a range of scientific collections.

Close-ups show us the caterpillar’s feet, spikes and teeth, or zoom in on details of the butterfly’s wings. Watch Me Grow: Butterfly is published by DK at pound;4.99www.dk.com

Count the ducks

Five Little Ducks is a DVD featuring two dozen or so arithmetically themed songs and rhymes for young children. Numbers are added up and taken away or counted forwards and backwards. Ten Green Bottles take their place beside Three Blind Mice, while Hot Cross Buns share the table with Five Fat Sausages. The musical arrangements are cheerful and unremarkable, but the accompanying visuals are perhaps best hidden from sensitive adults. Child performers - with a marked lack of non-white faces - act out the little numerical plots with an air of slightly bemused and embarrassed enthusiasm.

Five Little Ducks (product code EL 105159) costs pound;6, also available as a video (code EL 105158) from CYP.

www.kidsmusic.co.uk