Pros: Winnie the Pooh and the LeapPad -- two fantastic ideas that go great together!!
Cons: No big ones
The Bottom Line: Beloved characters in a beloved story. Teaches pre-reading skills (story comprehension, listening) along with matching, opposites, colors, and shapes. A favorite toy!
mizgnomer's Full Review: Leapfrog My First Leappad Book Pooh's Honey Tree
My 19 month old son absolutely adores his My First LeapPad. A few months ago he became thoroughly addicted to the recently released classic movie "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" -- his favorite part being the first story, "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree".
We recently stumbled upon some discounted My First LeapPad books, and due to my son's newfound love of Pooh I decided to purchase the Pooh's Honey Tree book. Upon getting the book home I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the main story was indeed my son's favorite, complete with some of the songs from the movie. Needless to say I've spent a lot of time with this book & cartridge in our LeapPad...
The Pooh's Honey Tree interactive book and cartridge can be used only with the My First LeapPad (not any of the LeapPad varieties for older children). Although one book comes pre-programmed into the LeapPad base, separately purchased books like Pooh's Honey Tree must be used along with a cartridge that is inserted into the LeapPad base. The cartridges are fairly small (an inch and a half wide by 1 inch tall), and we really don't let our toddler handle them.
Various LeapPad books emphasize different skills, with the general categories being pre-reading, pre-math, and "discovery" (which includes science, social studies, health, and safety concepts). Pooh's Honey Tree is a "pre-reading" book that teaches basic story comprehension and listening skills, as well as colors, shapes, and matching.
Pooh's Honey Tree is made of a thick paper and is held together by a large plastic spiral across the top. The front & back covers are made of a slightly thicker, shiny paper. The book attaches to the base by hooking loops of the spiral over two pegs on the base. One side of the book is the "story" side, and the other is the "activity" side -- all pages of the book have learning activities.
When you select a page to play with, you must touch the green "GO" circle with your pen. The "GO" circle is located in a different position on the perimeter of each page (touching the "GO" tells the LeapPad exactly what page you are on and it adjust its responses accordingly). My boy finally got the "GO circle" concept down at around 15 months of age -- now he's an old pro at turning to the page he wants and finding that circle first.
As with other My First LeapPad books, every page in Pooh's Honey Tree has a volume control in the bottom right corner (touching the pen to the plus or minus raises or lowers the volume). At the bottom right are bumble bee images that represent games that can be played on that particular page, and note images that represent games involving songs.
Pooh's Honey Tree Content:
The Story Side:
Half of the book is the story of Pooh following a honey bee to its tree, borrowing a balloon from Christopher Robin, and trying to trick the bees into thinking he is a "little black rain cloud" in an effort to get to their honey. The illustrations in this section have more of a whimsical, water-colorish look to them (unlike the usual cartoon-ish illustrations you find in other LeapPad books).
There are various games and activities on each page, as well as some of the story's text along the side of the page. You can touch a word to have it repeated, or touch the "word balloon" to have all of the text read again. The games on the story side are often less involved than other LeapPad books, as the illustrations are more book-like and less conducive to interactive-play. Some of the games on this side include:
~~ Understanding expressions -- given various pictures of Pooh, your child is asked to find the one where Pooh looks confused, sleepy, etc.
~~ Learning body parts -- your child uses the large picture of Pooh to point out the requested body-part (eye, nose, ear, arm, etc)
~~ A few games ask your child to look at a scene and find things, such as "something on Pooh's paw" or "leaves over Pooh's head"
~~ A few games aren't really games at all, they are just little activities to pull your child into the story, such as "tickle Pooh's tummy", or dragging the pen through the (illustrated) mud and helping to splash some onto Pooh.
There are 3 songs in this section -- some of the "Winnie the Pooh" theme song, "I'm Just a Little Black Rain Cloud", and "Rumbly in my Tumbly".
The Activities Side:
The flip-side/other half of the book are the activities pages. With our other LeapPad books the pages of activities side don't follow a particularly storyline, but in Pooh's Honey Tree the activities pages tell the story of Pooh and his friends throwing a surprise birthday party for Tigger. The pages show the characters' party preparations, and the last page shows Tigger arriving at his party. The illustrations in this section are much more cartoony and are more like the other LeapPad books.
A lot of the games in this section involve matching (shapes, colors, etc) or figuring things out from clues. There are usually 2 games per page. A few of the games/activities in this section include:
~~ Character Introductions - each character is pictured, and your child can touch them to hear them speak and learn more about them. The characters pictured are Pooh, Tigger, a Honey Bee, Gopher, Eeyore, Piglet, Owl, Rabbit, Kanga, and Roo.
~~ What Doesn't Belong - Rabbit has baskets of vegetables, and your child is asked to touch the item in each basket that does not match the other items
~~ Where did Owl Leave his hat? - various characters' homes are shown, and your child follows clues to determine which house is the one where Owl left his party hat. The other game on the page is simply a collection of knock-knock jokes.
~~ What goes together - Eeyore asks which items go together, such as a flower & vase, ball & bat, raincoat & hat, etc.
~~ Memory - the other game on the Eeyore page asks your child to touch items in order, adding 1 item to the list with each round (example: touch the bow, then the present, then the raincoat, then the hat, etc).
~~ Opposites - Help Pooh find opposites on the shelf (all of the opposites are items that are empty/full)
~~ Matching shapes/colors/patterns - In one game, various items are scattered around Gopher's hole, and you are asked to match up the shapes (a square picture of Christopher Robin and a square piece of cheese). Another matching game involves matching colors and patterns while matching up socks with Kanga. Yet another includes color identification with Piglet.
The song on this side of the book is the part of "Winnie the Pooh" where the other characters are identified ("...a donkey named Eeyore is his friend, and Kanga, and little Roo...").
Our Experiences:
My boy is simply crazy about Pooh and particularly the "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree" movie. The fact that this is a book of one of his favorite stories means that it is now his favorite LeapPad book. I have spent many hours with my son and this book (usually on the story side).
One thing to note that might be a bit of a negative -- although the first sentence-or-so is displayed on the page, sometimes the narrator or characters actually speak a bit longer. That means that you cannot actually follow along in the book with the words the entire time. This book is for "pre-readers" who are too young to learn to read yet, so perhaps that's why they didn't feel the need to put all the words on every page. The one annoying thing is when my boy wants to spend more time on the page -- I would like to play the entire narration over again, but the page will only re-play the words that appear on that page (unless you press the green "GO" circle again, but that makes the noise my son associates with page-turning).
Out of all of our LeapPad books, this is the only one where I've noticed some volume issues. We can be really getting into the story and songs with the volume at a nice level, but then my boy will touch the game icon and the normal LeapPad "game" sound effect will play -- entirely too loud. It is as though the story and surrounding sound effects are set at a different level than the LeapPad's normal set of sounds. It isn't a huge issue, just rather jarring to suddenly have a sound effect play much louder than what you were expecting.
I am completely thrilled with most of the voices on Pooh's Honey Tree. Pooh's voice, in particular, is quite excellent and very similar to the original Pooh (adorably voiced by Sterling Holloway). The narrator and Tigger are also extremely well done. The one voice-complaint I have is that of Christopher Robin. His voice sounds like that of a young woman, not of a little boy, and his/her quasi-British accent sounds strained (particularly when saying "Silly old bear"). The voices are nearly perfect, with the whopping-great-huge exception of Christopher Robin's.
A note on the songs -- I am absolutely thrilled that some of the songs from the movie are included with this book! My son simply adores these songs, and I love being able to turn to a page and make one play. On the down side, they are not the original recordings. Both parts of the "Winnie the Pooh" theme song are sung by a single female vocalist, rather than the full chorus from the movie. The two songs sung by Pooh are done very well and are quite close to the originals, however for some odd reason some of the lyrics to "Little Black Rain Cloud" have been changed, which I really don't like (see the reference at the bottom of this review for the exact changes -- included for those people who, like me, are sticklers for detail).
My boy, now at 19 months of age, is still a bit too young to get the most out of the majority of the games, but there actually are some he can do (such as finding the body parts), and he is starting to understand some of the color-oriented games. He simply adores the story and the songs though, so I would definitely say that he gets more out of this book than the others (although I still think his very favorite game/activity is the "Paper Piano" in the book that came with the My First LeapPad). This book doesn't try to teach kids to read so much as it tries to teach them to comprehend the story and to follow the events. It is altogether fabulous and I'm thrilled that we own it!
Quickie Summary:
Pros:
+) It's Winnie the Pooh!
+) It's the Honey Tree story from the movie/A.A.Milne book!
+) Most of the voices are excellent and sound a lot like the original voice-talent
+) Teaches story comprehension, matching, opposites, colors, shapes, and listening skills
+) Includes some of the wonderful songs from the movie!
+) Allows your child to interact and play with some of their favorite storybook characters
+) Takes something my son loves anyway and makes it educational too!
Cons:
-) Christopher Robin's voice
-) Not the original song recordings
-) Changed lyrics in "Little Black Rain Cloud"
-) Not all text is on the pages
Final Thoughts:
I got this book because my son loves his LeapPad and because he loves Winnie the Pooh. I was absolutely thrilled to discover that the story in the book was also my son's favorite Pooh story. LeapPad took a wonderful and well-loved story, included it in their product, and made it educational as well! I hope that my son can spend the rest of his life having this much fun as he learns!
Original Lyrics:
Everyone knows that a rain cloud
Never eats honey, no, not a nip
I'm just floating around, over the ground
Wondering where I will drip
LeapPad Lyrics:
You know a hungry old Pooh-cloud
Doesn't eat honey, no, not at all
I'm just floating around, over the ground
Wondering where I will fall
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