Activity Toy Reviews

Our 3 year old quickly lost interest with this leap pad book, but found the Dr. Suess ones to keep her attention much longer.

My daughter loves the Disney princesses and she also loves her My First LeapPad. In fact, she often plays with her LeapPad in her Disney princess tent. I should also mention that she knows both English and French.

Anyway, we bought her the French version of this book, but she didn't take to it all. Then we got her the English one, since her English is more advanced than her French. She didn't take to it either. Each time, she tried the reading section a couple of times, tried some of the games, then switched it for one of the books she likes much better.

Nevertheless, we've since discovered that this is only the case when she's alone or with my wife and I. Whenever we have company, she will take it out to show off her reading skills in both French and English. So we cannot say she hasn't learned some vocabulary and reading skills from each version, but it just did not sustain her interest.

My four-year-old granddaughter enjoyed the above very much. She had fun while learning.

My son is almost 3 and received this for Christmas. He likes to pretend that he is rescuing people out of the water and the smaller figures are good for his hands. The ship doesn't do a whole lot (he enjoys putting guys in the elevator), but is good for pretend play. There was also a DVD that came with the ship.

Since Christmas, our 4 year old son has been playing with this toy almost daily...It has just enough details where there's still plenty of room for him to use his imagination. Definitely well worth the price!

I bought this game(I'm 11 years old) because I like spongebob, but when I bought it I found out it wasn't that good.All it does is just play 2 min. of an episode. I did'nt like this game that much.

I love this toy there is so much stuff you can do! If you are a kid and your reading this, please beg your mom to get it for you! It's so much fun!!

caterpillars came in about a week (we faxed the form to them). 9 out of 10 became butterflies. kids had a fun time watching them grow and go into their cocoons.the cage is huge. Its made out of nylon mesh netting and colapses up so you can reuse it. it has a zipper on the side so you can reach in and feed them when they become butterflies. it may seem a little on the expensive side but the cage is much more substantial than the cardboard box cages offered by other companies.

I ordered this product with great reservations as to if it would just be a waste of money and a big disappointment to my 6 year old son. Well, no need for those reservations! The butterflies come as small worms in a tightly sealed cup with food for them. They came the exact week that I specified that I wanted them shipped. You can actually watch them grow into big fat caterpillars. Then they go to the top of the cup and make cocoons just like the directions say. The top of the cup removes easily and is easily pinned to the side of the very sturdy pavillion. My son(as well as my husband and I) have ust loved this! It has been so neat to see all of the life cycles of the butterfly. All of my worms turned into butterflies!!!! We are getting ready to set them free but it sure has been neat. I am planning on ordering more larva and start over again!

It is a very exciting experience for my 4 year old as she watch the life cycle of Butterfly. The Butterfly housing is very durable and pleasantly colorful.

I bought this for my 13-month old son today and was disappointed. Given the title, I thought this book would have playful sing-along or dance-along type songs, but it doesn't. It isn't very musical or fun. It's not a cohesive story either...but worse, I couldn't even find a single page that I thought my son would like (after he walked away uninterested).

Setting 2 was especially boring, mostly naming objects & animals saying short phrases; setting 3 had a little more personality and maybe some really short songs. I suppose it could be educational for an older child, but I'm not keeping it to see.

A fun book that I enjoy a lot w/ my young toddler is "Rainbow Fish 1,2,3". It's much more fun and musical, even though it's actually a counting book!

The LeapPad learning system is great. Very interactive even for very young children. Highly recommend it.

I purchased these books for my neice who is 17 months to help her learn and have fun at the same time. She loves them.

My son recieved this as a gift at 6 months. Even though it's rated for 9 months and up, he enjoyed it and still enjoys it. Here's what we like about it:

1. He likes spinning the football and can do that unassisted, even while sitting. I spun it for him once and he "got" it right away. It's something he can do sitting and without help.

2. He likes the sounds/music when you put a ball through the hoop, and even though he couldn't do it seated, he loved it when we'd hold him up and let him dunk the ball.

3. He loves the bat, and though he's not able to connect bat with ball just yet, he likes banging the floor with the bat.

4. Even tough he can't hit the baseball with the bat, he likes pushing the ball and hearing the clicking noise.

5. It definitely helped with hand-eye coordination as he learned to drop the ball into the hoop or put it in the hole. It also has some cause and effect, because now he drops the ball in and knows where to look for it.

4. Unlike the roll-a-rounds toys, which we generally like, the basketballs are just the right size for him to pick up with one hand.

Here's what's not great:
1. It's fairly large, but not heavy/stable enough for him to pull himself up on or rely on for standing (now that he can). He's almost pulled it over several times trying this.

2. It was really hard to put together, even though there are no screws, etc. It basically "snapped" together, but me, my husband and his best friend all had to fight to get the pieces in place.

3. Sometimes the basketball doesn't push the lever all the way in to register a basket. While my son can't count and doesn't know that the score hasn't updated, he likes the sound, so I end up hitting it with my hand, which he has now started to copy.

Overall I give this 4 stars. He's been enjoying it for almost 3 months now, and I anticipate it will continue to be one of his favorite toys.

Like other reviewers, we got this toy as a gift. My son was only 6 months old, so we thought we'd have to wait a while for him to be able to play with it. He started playing with it right away. He'll play with it for hours. Yes, the football IS just a rattle that spins in the goalposts, but there's not much other than that that can be SAFELY done with a football. My 2-year-old daughter uses the baseball and bat part more than my son and it's really teaching her some baseball skills. As for it's size, look at the customer images. Someone placed a picture of their toddler seated playing with it. As you can see, it's roughly two feet tall. It's meant for infants and toddlers (NOT KIDS). If you want one of these for older kids, there's a great one on the market adjustable up to almost five feet.

My son got this for Christmas, even though he wasn't quite 9 months old. He liked it in the beginning and played with it, but now (at 12 months) all I do is listen to the crowd cheer. If he can't find a basketball, he'll put anything that will fit into the basket. The football used to be our favorite, but now it's less so. My son is trying to hit the baseball with the bat and lights up every time, though only once has he been able to make the ball move. I have had no problems with this and I thought it was fairly easy to assemble by myself. I've even given this as a gift to others because my son loves it so much. I especially love that it has 2 sound levels, so outside it can be louder and in return, it can be slightly quiter inside.

I like that they are in lower case. I think children are handicapped when everything is in upper case. I do not like the size of the letters and the font style because the 'd' looks like an 'a' and the 'r' doesn't look right. They are so small they don't stick very well. the slightest splash knocks them off the wall. I would recommend buying the big upper case letters because at least they stick well and there is no confusion with what each letter is.

these are fun for baby, but even if stored in a mesh toy holder, they can get mold after a while.

I was so happy to find lowercase bathtub letters! We put so much emphasis on teaching capital letters when the majority of letters we use and see each day are lowercase! As a kindergarten teacher I spend a majority of the the first months of school teaching my morning kindergarten class lowercase letter recognition and to write with lowercase letters.

I bought this set for my 2 1/2 year old. The letters are sturdy and bright but I was dissapointed to see some of the letters formed so inappropriatly. The "sticks" on the b, p and d are too short and the "curves" on the r, j, f are not pronounced enough. I noticed in one review someone commented there are not any r's in the set. Well, there are, but she probably couldn't tell they were r's! If you can find a set with more appropriatly formed letters, get it. If not, don't let it stop you from getting this one. I can't emphasize enough the importance of teaching kids those lowercase letters along with the capitals!