If like me you have a curious pre school age child and your wondering what else to get them for Christmas, as well as the dolls and big trucks, then take a look at these two toys from Leapfrog which my 4 year old munchkin has been happily testing out.
First up is Leaping letters:
I had never heard of this before and have purchased a fair few Leapfrog products. Unlike a fair few of the Leapfrog products, this one does not need batteries. It does in many ways remind me of a retro learning toy like what I had when younger which were of course the best ones.
Anyway what you get is a plastic board with spaces for all the alphabet letters. You get the 26 coloured letters too and a word card.
Now what your child needs to do is place all the letters in the correct space before the timer runs out and the board pops up and messes all the letters up.
Of course, us adults would find this easy peasy, but it’s not so easy when a 4 year old is racing against the clock. Rather than placing all the letters in, there are options to just place 2 or 3 colours of letters on the board and build up to do all the board. Izebella was not for the easy option and went straight for the full board. No she has not managed it all yet but has been 4 letters off.
Leaping letters can be fun and helps children to learn letters and short words. I think it could of done with something to store all the letters in rather than just the box as they will no doubt become lost easily.
Leaping letters costs approximately £14.99,
Next it’s the Leapband. Many parents will by now have seen this advertised and perhaps even debating on whether to get one.
Leapband come with choice of colours and they are worn round the wrist just like a watch. They do have the time on but are much more than a watch.
To use Leapband for the first time it needs connection to a laptop/pic. The Leapfrog softwares needs downloading and Leapband connecting and downloading the tracker info. This takes about 20 minutes and you will need to register for an account which is free.
With Leapband, children get their own virtual pet, Izebella chose a unicorn which she was able to customise herself. The activity bit encourages children to perform an activity and tracks how much they do. The activities for Izebella include jumping, dancing, hopping and crawling. Activities get rewarded with virtual jewels and all activity can be viewed via the software tracker.
Izebella is still getting used to how it works and which button to presss but she happily completes the activities asked and she loves the pet unicorn.
Leapband coats about £29.99 and is fine for children 4 and over.
