My toddler loves this toy!
Written: Jan 22 '04 (Updated Aug 13 '04)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Improves fine motor skills, teaches alphabet, numbers, etc. Kids love it.
Cons: Cartridge slot is fragile.
The Bottom Line: You and your children will love this toy! You will not find a better product for toddlers.
|
|
|
| paytonbyrd's Full Review: Leap Frog My First LeapPad |
Introduction
There a lot of educational toys on the market. Most kids have a habit of rejecting them outright if they are too education-focused. Finding the balance between education and fun is the key and this toy is one of the best!
My daughter Mary turned two last week. We gave her this toy in October and in the last three months her hand-eye coordination (fine motor skills) have improved drastically. At first I was hesitant to buy this product because of the wand out of fear it would be too difficult for her. At first it was; for a couple of weeks she would play with it for about 5 minutes, get frustrated and put it down.
One day she decided to take her time and just practice hitting the "Go" button on the page over and over and over and over again. From an adults perspective this would be boring ad-nauseum, but for a 22 month old it was fascinating, stimulating and just plain fun, especially because she was in control!
In the two months since she really started to explore the toy she has learned how to play almost every game that it comes with.
The Toy
The Leap Frog My First LeapPad comes in a nice sturdy blue shell with a "magic wand" connected to the unit with a VERY strong plastic tether. I've personally witnessed (to my horror) the unit be twirled in the air by the wand, crash into the floor and not miss a beat. You're toddler will not break the base unit (cartridges are another story, see below).
It also comes with the book "Leap's Big Day" which has a story on one side and activities on the other. The programming for this book is built into the unit as well as a tutorial for using the unit. The story is about Leap (a frog) loosing his favorite kit and taking a wild trip to catch his kite and bring it home. The activities include games for learning the alphabet, counting farm animals, learning shapes, role playing, and more! There's not a dud in the bunch.
Having Fun!
My daughter simply loves this toy, as I've mentioned before. She can now manipulate the wand to touch the smallest images and the games are easy to follow yet challenging to a toddler. She has even found actions that can be performed that I never even thought of. The gameplay is completely open ended. If you start a game and change your mind, simply touching the GO button on any (or the same) page takes you to anywhere else in the book.
The voice acting is very good and the music is very pleasant. I'm particularly sensitive to background noise when watching TV and I don't have a problem watching TV when my daughter plays with this toy in the same room. I am also impressed that after what has to be over 40 hours of use the original batteries are still in it!
Cartridges
I do have a gripe about the unit. You can buy more books which come with their own cartridge. These cartridges hold an amazing amount of voice data and are very, very small (small enough to be a choking hazard, keep them away from babies). The other problem with the cartridges are that they protrude from the right side of the main unit with a very modest clamping force applied when inserted. My daughter dropped the unit with the cartridge inserted and now the socket for the cartridge does not always make or maintain a good connection with the cartridge. This would be the only real flaw with the product. Cartridges should have inserted deeper into the unit to prevent this kind of malady. I'm sure the idea was to make it easy for a toddler to change the cartridge, but it wasn't a good idea.
Conclusion
This is becoming my daughter's favorite toy. I'll probably have to buy another one when she's a bit older and she understands not to drop it so that all of the cartridges will work correctly. I can honestly say that any toddler will enjoy playing with "Leap's Big Day" and riding the "Alphabet Bus".
Update - 2004-08-13
My daughter has managed to destroy the wand of two different My First LeapPads. On Monday I called LeapPad about replacement wands and received two wands for free in the mail today. That's what I call customer support!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 35
Type of Toy: Educational
Age Range of Child: 12 to 36 Months
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
paytonbyrd
|
|
Member: Payton Byrd
Location: Clarksville, TN
Reviews written: 32
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.