Leap Frog Math Desk – It all adds up to great learning fun!
Written: May 03 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Colorful, grows with children and is durable!
Cons: None really, very nice toy!
The Bottom Line: This toy is educational, fun, helps teach numbers then basic math and challenges little ones quite a while!
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| Magick1's Full Review: Leapfrog Count and Learn Math Desk |
Leap Frog makes a decent product. We have had a number of them in our house while our babester has been growing up. Mind you, she’s only 5 years old now and I cannot believe how fast it’s going! Seems just like yesterday we brought her home from the hospital!
This item is just like the Leap Frog Writing Desk that I have written about previously. It teaches little ones the basic numbers from 1 – 20 and then helps them with their math skills on some really basic math.
The Educational Toy
The toy has a beginner level and an advanced level that you select with a button on the bottom right side of the toy. There is a volume control button to turn this on and off. The overall on off button for the game is the sliding lever that the child chooses what games they are going to play and learn with on the toy. There is learn, count, 1?3, 1+2, 4-3 and a timer.
Learn
This has a variety of things for your child to learn and grow with as they play. There is an abacus at the top underneath the carrying handle. The toy has a basic feature that allows the child to learn their numbers and how they sound. They can even practice writing the number themselves in the little box near the bottom of the toy.
Count
The child will learn how to count from 1 – 20 with a beginner mode they can press a number and the learning desk will say each number leading up to the one that was pressed down. When you are in the advanced mode, the child picks a number 10 or greater, the learning desk will proceed from that number on up.
Random Number Mode
This is a guessing game where the toy says “I’m thinking of a number that is bigger than 5” or “smaller than 5” and the child has to guess what it is. In the advanced mode, the toy then says “greater than 5 less than 10”, for example.
Addition Mode
The toy has children solve problems of math that show up on the little screen on the toy. They have to solve by writing the number in the little window and pushing the answer on the “keyboard” if you will. In the beginner mode, it will only add from 0 – 3 to a number. In the advanced mode, it will add from 0 – 9 to a number.
Subtraction Mode
Subtraction is laid out just like the addition in that the beginner mode will only subtract from 0 – 3 from a number and the advanced mode will take away from 0 – 9 from a number.
Timer Mode
In this section, the child will race against the clock to find answers to finding number or math like basic addition or subtraction questions that are shown on the window on the game. If they are in beginner mode, the children have to answer as many questions as they can in 45 seconds and in the advanced mode they have 90 seconds.
If the toy is not actively played with it will shut itself off roughly 30 or so seconds of not being used so that you don’t drain the batteries down too quickly! This uses 4 AA batteries. When the child writes in the number in the box at the bottom, there is a little erase button that helps wipe out what they have written. After a while that seems to take a number of erases to really make the slate a clean writing slate. The eraser has a fun little frog picture on it where the frog it leaping off the button!
There is a little yellow pen attached to the toy with a short cord. The tip is magnetic with a very tiny little piece of magnetic point sticking out. We have never had an issue with it falling out. It actually is kind of spring loaded to help take some of the pressure off the window where your child writes. Invariably, I find that my daughter pushes quite hard on the window. She’s getting better and fortunately hasn’t pushed hard enough to crease the plastic window that is on front of the writing space. It’s kind of like an Etch-A-Sketch for those that remember these toys!
In case your child did not hear the question that was being asked, there is a little help button to repeat what the problem was that they need to solve or the number that they need to find. There is also a little animated frog that comes in this window that cheers on your child when they are playing.
Overall Impressions
My daughter has enjoyed playing with this. She finds it quite challenging and has even started trying math problems on the morning and afternoon drive to school. She loves being able to control what she is playing, writing the numbers and erasing it easily.
I enjoy watching her interact with the toy, knowing all along that she is learning! The buttons and the abacus are colorful: blue, green, yellow, red. The animation is really basic animation, but it makes my daughter happy watching the frog move around! I enjoy having the volume control on the toy, and we always use the low volume since my daughter plays so closely to it. She’s watching for the math problems and practicing writing her numbers and the pen cord is very short.
The toy seems to last a long time on batteries and is fairly lightweight to carry it around the house. Storing it can be a bit of a bother as the pen doesn’t hold very well in the well on the toy and it always falls out. When it gets lost between other toys in the toy box and my daughter pulls on this to get it out, there always seems to be a lot of toys falling out of the box in the process. But, that’s a pretty small complaint!
Leap Frog in my experiences, makes a good, educational and durable toys for the toddler and preschool set. I enjoy the prices that they have on their games as they are not astronomical and their products last even with kids dropping them and playing kind of rough with them. If you have a toddler or preschooler, this toy is excellent in helping them with their numbers and moves with them to addition and subtraction! Therefore, you can get a lot of play for the money!
~Thanks for spending with me today!~
Leap Frog Writing Desk
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 40
Type of Toy: Educational
Age Range of Child: 3 to 5 Years
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