My 3 year old was having trouble remembering the "ABC song" until she got this toy for Christmas. After playing with it for a fewweeks, she could sing her ABC's. Her little brother now knows all theletters of the alphabet by sight, and I think this toy helped him withthat.
The letters are very bright, the toy is really pretty and theplastic is nice and shiny. The letters are affixed, so there aren't anypieces to lose. Attached to it is a sort of a pen (not sharp, the point israther rounded) which is used to write the letter on the little writing pad(it's magnetic no ink!) There is also a little display where the computerdirects the child as he or she writes the letter -it will say,"A" then the letter "A" is written in the display, sothe child can see HOW to write it. You can choose upper or lowercase.
There are several levels here just touch a letter and the voicesays it's name and writes it for you. Or the voice says the letter, and youhave to find it and push it. The voice is very pleasant, as well.
We arevery happy with this toy, but the writing pad has become difficult to use,but honestly, we have 6 kids here and no toys last forever. We had this oneabout 6 months before the writing pad got messed up, and it has been playedwith a great deal.
All in all, I think it's a wonderful product. The onlything I would complain about is that it doesn't do letter SOUNDS at allonly letter names, hence the 4 stars for educational value.
We bought this toy 3 Christmas's ago, for Joseph our 2 1/2 year old (He is now 5 1/2).He had personally asked for the Phonics Writing Desk and he has played with it for hours on end. I think it was an assest in his ability to read before going to Kindergarten.He now has renewed interested in it since his 3 year old brother Benjamin is constantly playing with it.Ben especailly loves it that he can write his name BEN with it and then it actually says his name.He has learned to write about 30 three letter words in the past two weeks.Some of his favorites include; Mom, Dad, jet, jam, eye, ear, hid, and bed.Ben has learned how to write a lot of his letters from watching the toy.The place to write on has been ruined for quite a while but he tries it on paper after watching the machine show how to form each letter.
From a mother of 5 boys
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This toy was an enjoyable gift for my daughter who is currently engrossed in learning to write her letters and spell anyhow and likes toys withbuttons in general. My only complaints are that the toy often turns itselfoff before she has a chance to complete writing her word-it does not reallyprovide enough time for a beginning writer to complete this task. Also ittalks to her non-stop while she is working on it which she finds annoying.
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My son (just turned 3) has been using this for about six months now. I originally bought it as he knew his upper case letters, but couldn't seem to understand that the lower case were the same letters. Now he has that (calls them Mommy letters and Baby letters), knows both upper and lower case letters, can spell EAT, MOM, BUG, HUG, BUS, BIG, and CAT, and he is beginning to actually write letters with it! His OT (occupational therapist) had been urging us to get him to work more on his writing and drawing at home, but we couldn't seem to grab and hold his interest for more than a few minutes. Now I just say, "Hey, let's do some ABC's," and he RUNS to get this out! I draw the same letter on a piece of paper next to him while he works on the little screen for up to forty-five minutes. I cannot tell you how happy we are with this! Even my mother, who LOATHES electronic toys, can't get over how great this one is! I look forward to graduating to future Leapfrog products as he gets older.
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This toy is wonderful. The item description provided is exact. It teaches letters, phonics, spelling, and writing. It even teaches BOTH lower case and upper case letters! Especially neat; when your child presses a letter, for instance D, it says the letter D than the phonics sound (if you have the switch set to phonics) and then the little screen clearly shows just how to write the letter properly. I plays a couple song notes as it shows the first line being drawn downward then up and into the curve for the letter D. Then, it invites the child to write the letter D in the writing space below. As the child writes, it continues to display the correct motions to write the letter D properly so that the beginner child can easily copy the motion. My 3-year olds first attempt was definately messy but you could see her concentrating on copying the screen and you could see the 'rough outline' of the attempted letter. This is a great toy. Traditionally, these electronic toys have not been taken out much at our home. However, I feel this will be used. And I have recently discovered that the electronic toys like this that fit on a lap work perfect in the car. They don't have to compete there with trucks and little 'busy toys', your child is occupied and learning something without much to divert him/her, and you can travel in peace-for a time. You simply can't go wrong with this toy.
This globe is satisfactory in my opinion. It is very vibrant with color and looks great. Some reviewers had problems with the sturdiness, which is somewhat true, but I still think it's sturdy enough. If you want the old school medal framed globes that were unbreakable from your days at school, this is not for you, but I've had no problems in this category.If you are looking for a ultra accurate globe I will say that this does have some issues when regarding the locations of destinations matching the correct lines of latitude and longitude, although I didn't run into any huge discrepancies. It's still fairly accurate, but again, this may not be desirable for advanced geography students. If you are looking for extreme detail out of your globe than I would say shell out the extra $50 though.To be fair though, it is accurate for the most part. Plus you are likely to find even the smallest of cities on this map. I think it's pretty on spot for the price. If your looking for a globe that helps educate kids on general locations of destinations and displays ocean bodies, than this a is great globe.I would recommend this globe.
