Fisher-Price Reviews

Elmo was cute, but he didn't inspire actual potty training in my child.

I was hoping my son would want to go potty just like Elmo but instead he just love Putting ELMO on the potty (and giving him "water") Too much fun for its own good! However it did give our son something to start the process of potty training. (he could see what Elmo does, it gave him the basic idea of going potty etc)

Potty Elmo is too cute, and that's not even the best part... he trained my twin boys within days. Potty Elmo would say that he is thirty and then after your child gives him his drink, he says he's got to go potty. If you get Elmo onto his potty on time, he goes, then sings a cute song. If you don't, Elmo says, "Uh-oh" and he's going to try again next time. Simple and gets your child to go, too. How cool is that? Note: In addition to potty Elmo, I bought Elmo underwear with the baseball cap from ebay.

My son received this for Christmas and it 6 months later it has finally become a toy that my son plays with. He started playing with it around 10 months. At 6 months (suggested age for this toy) he would just sit and "dance" to the music and watch the lights when we put the balls in. It wasn't worth much at that age. Now he can do it himself so it's more entertaining for him. He likes to put the balls in backwards too--up the dinosaur foot, and up the neck slide. Great toy for now, but not sure for how much longer. Also, past the motor skills and the cognitive part of figuring out which hole leads down what ramp, I don't see any other educational value.

Items to note-
1. The orange hole that leads down the ramps in the middle: the ball frequently gets stuck by the pendulum, and if the ball doesn't have enough momentum it won't always come out of the foot. Not a problem since we just reach in and move the ball and my son just moves the pendulum himself to get the ball moving (NO entrapment problems for his arms or hands).

2. The butterfly over the tail does NOT spin like I thought it would--too much resistance with mine. If it's not in the right place, it will stop balls from coming down the tail all together. Also- the button for the music in the blue hole tends to stick in the up position after a ball goes thru making subsequent balls have no effect.

Just a few small issues, nothing major. All and all it's still a good toy.

My baby loved it at about 10 months, and now at 13 months still enjoys it. It does take up a bit of floor space and is not 'easy to store' but it's worth the space. It does not get used every day, after they discover how the balls go into the holes it loses some of it's appeal, but they return to discover new things - how it triggers the music, or how the ball causes the mouth to open, or that the balls come out at different areas. Overall, it's a nice toy and enjoyable enough. Still not as popular as the police rocker (see my reviews) or the Chicco ride-on car (my eldest started with the Chicco car at 12 mos and STILL uses it every day at 2.5 years old).

My son received this for Christmas when he was 6 months old. I think he was a bit young then; since he was about 10 months old this has become his favorite toy-it promotes hand/eye coordination and teached him cause and effect. Now, at one year, he loves to pull himself up and stand at his dinosaur to push the balls through himself...while making "roaring" dinosaur noises....! This product has also had numerous "roll-arounds" thrown at it, and it does not mark easily-very durable! Definately worth the money and fun for mom and baby!

We bought this toy for my 2 year old daughter when we realized she already knew most of her alphabet. She likes the waterfall and the tree but really has no interest in the mat. This toy gets some play but not nearly as much as the Little People doll house or the Little People ramps around garage. Interestingly, although she is addicted to the little plastic animal replicas, she really didn't show much interest in the animals in this set. If you want your kid to learn their letters and the sounds they make buy LeapFrog's "Talking Letters Factory." If you want your kid to enjoy hours of pretend play buy a different Little People set.

I bought this toy for my daughter for her first birthday even though she is below the recommended age. She loves animals and she loves lots of parts! So pulling the animals out of the bag is a lot of fun right now! She loves pushing the buttons and hearing the animal names and noises.

I love how adorable the animals are and that there is a learning feature associated with imaginative play. I think the tree and water fall are a little flimsy and easily pulled apart, but when my little one is older, that will be less of an issue.

My mat is perfectly flat and all the animal sounds work well. I wish they would have chosen different cat noises for the tiger and the lion and different noises for the Giraffe and the Koala. Other then that - no complaints. A little pricey, but you get a lot for your money. At 1 she is already interested and has sat for almost a half an hour playing on several occasions.

I recently bought this for my 21 month old. I was having a hard time finding learning activities that hold her attention. This one really does. She likes to push the letters and hear the sounds. Right now she's more into lining them up and organizing them and we count them together. They also are great for teaching about animals, they hold her attention better than flashcards do. I also think it helps to develop her motor skills because she is learning how to organize and separate the animals as well as lining them up.So it teaches more then just the alphabet. If your child is not the kind of kid that will sit still and read a book with you then this may be a better way to go. There is a lot to learn from this toy!

Please note that my review is based on my daughter's experience from 18-21 months old. It was purchased for her as a gift. As a mother and an educator, I think that this product would be better suited for an older child as it is quite hard for a child younger than the age of 2 or even 2 1/2 to sustain the attention needed to interact with the games, etc. I would recommend waiting to purchase this for your 18 month old. I am an advocate for Fisher Price products as I feel Fisher Price is pretty accurate in guiding parents to age appropriate toys. However, with this one I feel they missed the mark. In addtion, the screen is simply too dull and dark in color to really see exactly what you are pushing. For this reason, I personally would not have bought this toy.

My son is an active two-year-old who loves to run around and I was surprised by how much he was captivated by this toy. He receives hours of enjoyment and has learned so much from his Learn Through Music Plus system. He has several of the software cartridges and he likes each one, especially Dora the Explorer and Blue's Clue's Singing Playdate. However, as much as he enjoys the software cartridges, his favorite aspect of this toy is the microphone. He records himself singing along with the cartridges, saying his name and reciting numbers and the alphabet.

When visiting her older cousins, my daughter got to play with this toy, which belonged to my 3 year old nephew. He is special needs, and can be VERY hard on toys. He would drop it, throw it and step on it on an hourly basis. The fact that it still worked like a champ after at least 6 months of him owning it was a miracle in itself.

They sent us one as a gift for my daughter, 13 months, after seeing how much she liked it, and she cannot get enough of this toy!

I love that it is durable, literally - she stands on it sometimes, and it's fallen I don't know how many times. It's not too big for her to carry around or manipulate, and she figured out how to work it immediately.

For now just listening to the songs, watching the screen rotate and making noises into the microphone keeps her happy. But her older cousins love the educational games on the cartridges they have, and really get a kick out of singing into the microphone.

The cartridges are big and sturdy, and easy for a child to put in himself if they are old enough.

It would be nice if the microphone cord were longer, but I'm guessing it would be a safety hazard to make it longer. Teh speaker is REALLY loud but some clear packing tape over it muffled it enough for our comfort. A lower volume control would be nice.

Overall, I've seen it work for a 13 month old, 3 year old and a 5 year old. If it broke I would replae it immediately, only one other toy we own gets more mileage.

I bought these skates for my 3-year-old son after a trip to the skating rink. He loves them, and he wears them all over the house. They are high quality skates. Buy them with confidence because they are great.

I bought these for my boys and they love them. They have a lot of fun learning how to skate and we laugh a lot during the process. I like the way that these skates adjust to the skating level of the skater and also adjust sizes. They seem pretty durable and I don't have any complaints.

Unfortunately, of all the Little People Play sets this is one that does not fold down or close up. It takes up a lot of room. If you are pressed for storage this would not be a toy for you. My boys seem to have become somewhat bored with it also.

There is quite a bit of assembly required on this, more than you might think. My son wanted to play with it right away but I had to find a screwdriver and fuss around with it, trying to snap the pieces together. So I would suggest assembling it ahead of time if possible.
It's a fun toy, very durable. My son sat on it and tried to slide down the ramp, but the toy didn't buckle.
When you buy this you'll find the most useless button on this toy is the car wash button. It moves a brush about a fraction of an inch. it's a really dumb button.
Still, a big huge piece of plastic to cram up your house, but your kid will probably love it!

My daughter was given this for Christmas when she was 2 1/2 and she has played with it very frequently over the past six months. It is one of her favorite toys. This toy also works well when friends come over to play since it is large enough for more than one kid to play with at a time.

I only see 6 build activates not 100 tools, games and activities as it is being advertised. Their statement about number of tools, games, etc. is misleading. Many activities are very limited. This is very frustrating and I feel cheated.

"Streaming video capabilities" Ahh...This is a capability, not something you can use out of the box. You need to buy some software???

"Create your own shows with cartoon creator, video creator and scene creator software" Sounds promising. I have yet to see it.

OK, I spent 10 minutes playing with this item and I am disappointment. I paid only $10 for this and I think it is now worth it. I do not intend to buy additional cartages to get those 100 activities.

It got 3 stars for durability as I can't rate this attribute after playing with it for 10 minutes.

Hardware seems promising but the included software only allows for drawing software. The software you can buy only provides for some limited functionality with cartoon viewing. No really good educational software.

I'm 11 and i think this toy seems awesome! i'm tired of video games because they cost too much and i just can't keep up. i had the old black and white pixter five years ago and i loved it! a couple years later i had the color pixter but now its lost. =( so i think this would great to have and take on long car trips! it would also be good to play with when your just bored and need something to do. i can't wait to get it!

Ok so my son got it for christmas and here it is june and i just hooked it up. it took me all of 5 mintutes not even that to program it. the first try #4 wouldnt take so what i did is i put the toy remote on one thigh and the remote on the other so that there were almost touching and so that the "eyes" were right on top of each other. and it took straight away.

Its really fun for my 4 year old my 10 year old got bored. my only suggestion is that there needs to be a bigger choice of games. they are so similar that my 4 year old changes games quite a bit.

i am actually having trouble finding games for it now.

its great and if they are going to be in front of the TV might as well be learning. he also hase VSMILE which is a little bit better if you can afford the 60$ for the game unit and 20$ for the games. (grandma and grandpa got ours for us with games) so it wasnt bad for us.

read with me DVD is good though, i really enjoy playing it and listening to the stories!

The Read With Me DVD is a wonderful tool to add to a list of many items that will help children learn to love reading. Programming the remote is not too difficult. My son got this for Christmas when he was almost 3 (January Birthday) and we waited to program it until he was taking a nap so he was not frustrated while trying to set it up. It only took about 10-20 minutes to program, but I would still recommend waiting until the child is asleep or busy.

My son figured out how to work it very quickly and at first it was more about reading comprehension. The questions are about the story and the children select the correct answer. We also got him a couple other stories like Green Eggs and Ham and The Little Engine That Could (we now have all but one story). Although the words are highlighted quickly, they are at about the same pace as if you were reading the story, he was still able to pick up many words. My son is fascinated with words and within a few weeks of using this he was able to read the book Green Eggs and Ham by himself. We thought he had memorized it, but he actually corrected mistakes and knew words if I pointed to them individually.

He is now 3 years 5 months and has had the DVD system for 6 months and is now reading at a level 1 or 2 (My First Reader Books) and is reading at the same level as his 5 year old sister. He loves to play his "video game" and I have to say that I am happy to let him play it.

Recently he has even started asking to have the words on when watching a movie (closed caption subtitles) and as he's watching a movie he will listen and point to the words at the bottom of the screen.

I would recommend this toy to anyone with children 3 and up. Again it is just one tool that should be used to help a child learn to read, comprehend what they are reading and begin to enjoy reading. It is not by itself necessarily going to teach a child to read but used with other items can help. I would recommend that you buy the actual books to go with the DVD's, we already had most of them but that way they can have the story read to them slower, or be able to work on learning the words with the parent's help. My son always takes his books to bed with him and reads using the light from his nightlight.

For learning how to sound out words and basic reading concepts check out the website starfall.com it is another wonderful tool.

We purchased the read with me DVD system for our 3 year old son for Christmas.Ok, so first, setting up the remote took all of mabey 10 minutes. Then you simply pop in one of the DVD's and your good to go! This system is so much fun, it really brings these familiar stories to life. My son had previously been familiar with the titles offered as we have them in the traditional book form (nothing should replace reading aloud with your children), I hope they come out with more titles soon. The illustrations are the same as the ones you will find in the books but they are animated, that is reallly entertaining. The narrators voice is very clear and nice to hear. The words along the bottom of the page light up to correspond to what the narrator is saying. The $15 dollars you will spen on each DVD is a bargain considering each dvd comes with 4 different play modes and tons of questions you and your little one can answer . My son will play with the system often and it will usually have his attention anywhere from a half hour to an hour.As someone who is studying to be a teacher I like some of the other educational aspects of the system other than just the reading benefits. When you answer a question that is wrong it will prompt you to give another answer , rather than immeadiately give the right answer. When you answer the question correctly it goes further and explains why the answer is right. This a good tool to use in conjunction with daily reading to your children. Fisher price definitely got it right!

We bought our son the Shake 'n Go Raceway when he was 17 months old. It has been a very fun family activity. We just bought Mater and Lightning McQueen today and he has already played with them for hours. They are fun with or without the racetrack, but I highly recommend the racetrack (they go faster and are confined to one area of the house). He loves to shake them and make them go. It is very fun for him because he can do it all by himself!!!! Fun for kids 1 to 101!!!!

This little car is wonderful. My son loves it and won't put it down. We also have to Lugi car. He plays with them together and absoulutly loves it. I would recommend it for anyone. He is almost two and it safe for him to play with.

This toy was given to our daughter when she was 14 months old-she started walking right around then. She didn't really use it at first, because she couldn't lean on it to walk-it would fall, unlike her push walker she was used to. She took to it fairly quickly, though, and still loves it now. We say "pop, pop, pop" when she uses it and she's started saying "pop" when looking for it. The toy helped her learn to walk balanced as well as working on her talking skills!

Are you kidding me??? This is THE classic toy for toddlers!! Sure it can be annoying for us parents with the noise, but take it outside with them. Every child should get one on their 1st birthday! It's a must!

I should have purchased this toy when my son learned to walk... instead I bought it today and he's already 18 months old, but he LOVES it. He's been playing with it all day. He pushes it, pulls it, and picks it up and walks around with it. He gets a kick out of watching me roll it to him as well. Just a really basic, got-to-have child's toy.