Electronic Learning Reviews

can't help but agree with other reviewers. our unit doesn't also recognize most of the cartridges we have here. sadly, our location is in asia and there's nothing much we can do. it frustrates the kids to keep on hearing the "ooops! that's not a leap pad cartridge!" what a waste of money...

My three kids (ages 3, 5, and 7) love these things, and it is great while it works. We are now moving on to our 5th one in 1 year. Besides just plain not turning on frequently, it also decides to say "whoops that's not a leap pad cartridge". This is NOT a toy you can leave a small child to enjoy without an adult constantly jiggling the cartridge or pen. When we called the company, who instructed us to clean the cartridges as well as the notebook, I followed what they said to do and either it doesn't work, or it will work with one but then stop working with that one a few minutes later. I've also replaced the pens half a dozen times. I tell them this and they tell me it must be defective, but how many defective ones are there and why am I finding them all? The only reason I replace it is because my children love it so much, but I am just about at the point of saying no more. After buying notebooks and dozens of cartridges to go with it and to have it work for several months, maybe it should be called the disposible leap pad notebook. It's a real shame as the overall concept and content is excellent. It is too bad that cheap manufacturing makes it basically a piece of junk. I am fed up with it, and my kids are heartbroken that their favorite toy is broken... again.

I am very pleased with this product! We have ours for almost 5 years now, and it was used in my classroom when I taught kindergarten. I now am a stay at home mommy and my son uses the same one! It was obviously used everyday when I taught and I had no problems then either. Now it gets used maybe 4 times a week, and my son can independently insert the matching cartridges with NO problems. He does that cause we took the time to teach him. I recommend it to EVERYONE! In fact, we purchased one for our cousin just last month for her birthday! Try it, and you will love it!

I love Leap Pad, but there is a catch. We've bought 3 pads (the first one broke almost immediately), and we've owned about 10 different books. Of those 10, only 3 still work. One got wet. Several were placed in toy boxes or kicked under beds. Once these books have been dropped a few times, or buried under toys, they cease to work correctly (if at all). They ARE only cardboard, after all.

The children who will get the most benefit and fun from these toys are young - say kindergarten through 3rd grade. Older kids are going to be less satisfied with the format, and will probably be happier working on an actual computer. Leap pad is particularly great for long car trips, but make sure the little game cartridges don't go missing. Also, the wire connecting the stylus to the pad can become caught when the pad is shut - and once that wire is ruined the pad is ruined too.

As I said, I think leap pad items are great. They can help a child with reading, spelling, basic math - all in a fun and stress-free venue. But these books are easily ruined by little ones. Your best bet may be to keep the leap pad books and pad out of reach of the kids when you can't be there to supervise, so that you can oversee the care and handling of the books and pad.

Leap pad is a good value, but only if you can make it last a while.

This software was easy for my 3-year-old to learn to use, and he feels rewarded by his accomplishments. The game also provides some wonderful games that help you to learn fundamental kindergarten skills without realizing that you are learning. Excellent!

My kids each recieved Leapsters for Christmas but we bought only one of each game for them to share. I had to buy another Kindergarten game because they both wanted to play it all the time! It is easy for them to navigate around the game and some of the levels are pretty challenging for them (they are 4 and in preschool).
I'd highly recommend this for kids their age! I'd highly recommend the Leapster, too!

We got this for our daughter to go with her Leapster for Christmas. I have found it to be an excellent game that teaches several skills that she has fun learning. She loves the challenge of collecting tickets by completing the activities. The tickets allow her to purchase monster parts so that she can build her own monster. Her reading skills have improved by "leaps" and bounds in just a few weeks and it's so wonderful to see her excited to learn! I look forward to purchasing other games!

The problem i find with all the toys that are translated is that the nuiances of the characters are completely gone! There's got to be actor in the world who can speak spanish AND do the voice of Scooby Doo! The characters all sound the same -- like those teach you to learn a language tapes. My son is learning spanish as his second language, and we thought it would be fun (and educational) to have his favorite leap book in spanish. He doesn't listen to it because it isn't as fun as the english version. Companies need to work on better translation books if we are going with global neighbourhoods.

My 4 yr old son keeps playing with this cartridge, perfecting his skills day by day. A great product if you have time and energy to share with your scions!

The best part about this was that Uncle J was paying more attention to it than A - he said he just wanted to know how it ended.

I bought this for my daughter when she was 7 months. She is now three years old and can finally push on the pages hard enough to make it work. She actually spends more time just looking at the pages than actually using the Little Leappad as it is intended. We now have a second daughter who is 12 months as she has experienced the exact same thing.

We do play together with the girls using this product; however both my children are quite independent and want to do this for themselves. When they can't get it to work - primarily because it requires to hard of a touch to activate - they get frustrated and move on to a new toy.

I am a huge fan of LeapFrog. However, must admit I am disappointed in this product. It is not their best. Due to our experience with this product, we have opted not to purchase the Leappad for our daughter and instead went with a competitor's product. Hopefully, we will have better luck.

This is a great investment. I just think kids need to want to sit and look at books. Our son was 18 months before he wanted to pay attention. Now he uses it daily. :)

We got this for my son when he was 9 months old. He wasn't intrested with it until he was about 20 months old; but now its great!!! He has played with it daily for about 6 consecutive months now. The noises are realistic and the voices very clear. I love that there is noise level adjuster as well.

After buying my daughter (will be 3 in one month) the Care Bears game and found that it was EXTREMELY difficult even for my 5 year old son (before he attended kindergarten), I decided to look for something with a character that is generally aimed at the 3ish age group. This game is excellent in that the 4 colored buttons are generally used instead of the joystick. The numbers sections are excellent and my daughter does really well with them. The only problem with the shapes section of the learning zone is that it really is about patterns, and not about shapes at all. The biggest problem I found is that for the letters section, Elmo assumes that your child already knows his or her letters. How many 3 year olds can actually differentiate between or identify a "b" and a "p" or a "c" and "g", etc. At this age, it's not going to help a kid to sit them down and walk away, an adult or older child needs to sit with them to help them out with the game until they have really mastered it. Overall, I definitely like this Elmo game compared to some of the other games we have. I have also heard the Barney game is similar in that the 4 colored buttons are the main controllers.

My daughter got this game when she was 2 1/2. She loves it! She can actually play it all on her own. We found that the Dora game was a little too hard for her because of all of the joystick use. A lot of the Elmo game can be played by simply using the jump button to move and the colored buttons for the small games. There are also harder levels that would be appropriate for her to grow into or for an older child. I think this game is much better suited for a child aged 2-3 than the game that comes with the Vsmile. She gets too frustrated with that one. I would have given it 5 stars, but the only flaw I see is that Elmo is very hard to understand. A lot of the times she can figure out what he is saying but no always. That's just Elmo though. He's always been a little hard to understand.

This is a good game for a 4 year old. not too easy, but not too challenging. but boy is elmo hard to understand!!! I love the music in this game, but the elmo narration could be better. i know my son doesn't understand half of what elmo is saying and he just figures out what he's supposed to do by trial and error. I love the animation - elmo runs into something and he bounces back and giggles. my son loves it and runs elmo into things on purpose just to see that. really cute. It did not get 5 stars just because the narration could and should be more clear for the little ones to understand. we love having to find the animals and then the letters.

I HAD to buy this for my daughters 3rd birthday, because it was the ONLY thing she wanted for her birthday. For Christmas or birthday, she tends to choose ONE thing, and sets her mind to it, no matter what we say. So, I really did not want to get her this game because of the reviews. I got it anyway. Basically, it's boring, BUT she laughs and thinks she's big like her brothers. I think she just likes looking at the care bears. She gets bored very quickly, however. Again, I think she just likes looking at it. She asks for it all of the time, spends 5 minutes with it, and thats it. I will tell you, it is something that she can do by herself...I like that! I give it an average rating because it's not horrible, but not one of the best. Like all of the others, the game that came with the game, is the best.

This game teaches counting, shapes and colors very well. My daughter loves this game, plays with it almost everyday and didn't get bored. Easy to understand games, decent graphics and easy to navigate.

MY DAUGHTER LOVES THIS GAME. I LOVE THE FACT THAT SHE CAN PLAY IT ON HER OWN WITHOUT NEEDING HELP. SHE IS LEARNING WHILE HAVING FUN.

I am expecting to give a 5 star review. I have not used this product yet. I just purchased it for my 2 1/2 year old daughter. She has been telling me that she wants the Easter Bunny to bring her a computer. Mommy works on a laptop all day and she is so interested in using my keyboard. I thought this looked like a real laptop and it should interest her as much as mine does. I have originally thought that this would be too advanced for her (ages 5 and up listed on my box), but after reading a few of the reviews it might just be the right challege that she needs.

Mom in Michigan

I bought this for my grandson's 6th birthday along with the case. He started using it immediately and thinks it is just like Mom's and Grandma's laptops--mouse and all! But this is kid-sturdy and educational. He loves it.

I purchased this activity notebook for my granddaughter who has scheduled a thirty minute session each night after dinner. It was her request, by the way. I like the fact that it tracks progress and has levels of difficulty that will keep her attention for years to come. As a bonus, her little brother can use it as well when he is old enough. I predict its usefulness in their household for at least the next twelve years. Its the best gift I've ever purchased for a child.

We purchsed the L-Max for our son for Christmas 2005. He is in kindergarten and has enjoyed Numbers on the Loose and Letters on the Run. He just received the Sponge Bob game for his 6th birthday and really likes that. It is repetitive, but for his age, that is a good thing since they are learning about sequencing in school and I think it has helped with that. The only problem we have is that the "B" button has become jammed. Whether he has watched his older brother playing his gamecube and tries to push the buttons too fast or what, we are not sure. So far most of the games don't necessarily need the B button and we're not sure if it's worth another $100 to get him another one. It does give him a different way to review letters and numbers then just plain old practice which after a full day of kindergarten, they are not to thrilled on doing.

WE love this product for our 4 and 6 year old. We had the original leapster, but this makes it even better when they see it on the TV screen. Leapster now offers more games...they are great!

We purchased the LMax for our 4 year old for Christmas. It was an instant hit! Plus, it helped him to feel like a big boy like his older brother who enjoys other video games. Yes, the older model is cheaper, but my son loves to be able to plug it into the TV to "show off" what he knows and can accomplish. I particularly like Letters on the Loose and Numbers on the Run. I highly recommend this product. We also purchased the battery charger so we don't have to worry about dead batteries and ruining the environment.

I thought this would be a great toy for my special needs child who is beginning to read and spell words. I was disappointed when we played with it. 90% of the time it did not recognize the correct letter and would give an incorrect sound. Not helpful for a child who is learning to read. I'm stuck with it, it was a gift. I cannot take it back.

This is such a great idea for a toy, if the toy functions correctly. We returned our first Word Whammer when we noticed that it kept calling the "Y" a "Z." On the second Word Whammer, it also seems to not recognize words that do not have a vowel as it's middle letter. For instance, we inserted the letters for "The" and it read it as "Tie." We put in the letters for "End" and it responded "E-A-D". We are so dissappointed to have return this toy again. Too bad Leap Frog can't get this one right.

I bought this for my niece when she turned 2. She loved it so much that I bought her the next level (phonics version) when she turned 3. Great buy!