My First Leap pad Educational + Entertaining ! (LeapFrog Leappad)

Member Name: The-ex-Raven

Product:	LeapFrog Leappad
Date:	06/01/08 (109 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easily portable, Lots of different books available, FUN learning toy

Disadvantages: none that spring to mind

My First Leap pad

Basically it's an interactive educational toy aimed at pre-school children aged 3-5. We started with the Leap-pad-Little-touch when the Boy was smaller and moved onto this one when he was 3.
The My First Leap Pad Learning System itself is mainly blue with a few other colours here and there, like the 'magic pen', speaker, and on off button. It's quite a compact unit with a handy carry handle to one side, it's lightweight and easy to transport so a good toy for traveling in car or taking to Granny's house and the like.

How much ?

We bought ours for just over £25 online, are available from many stores Argos, Toys 'r' Us etc and not hard to find but I would recommend shopping around online for the best deals. It comes with a book and cartridge to get you started - we got "Leap's Big Day".
It takes 4xAA Batteries and you will need to unscrew the back to get them in, is a bit fiddly getting the battery cover back on due to the curved shape of the unit but you get used to it.

There are lots of different books you can buy separately some featuring well known favorites like Thomas the Tank Engine, Dora the Explorer, Disney Pixar Cars, and Spongebob Squarepants to name just a few that we have. There are also 'Girly' titles available featuring Disney Princesses and such.
Prices on the books vary from £5-£15 depending on where you shop and which book you're after, there's also books in packs of 3 available.
Definitely recommend having a look online for cheap deals and hard to find character books, I found our Spongebob Squarepants book on eBay at under £10 buy-it-now.

How it works...

Once your batteries are in you insert the plastic cartridge in the side and clip the book onto the unit. The cartridges have a picture and title to which makes it easy to for child to recognize which one goes with what book. Simply slot into the side picture-side up.
The books all have a plastic ring type bounding - a bit like a regular notebook has but much thicker - The books simply 'click' on and are easy to line up correctly as there is a book size/shape indent in the unit. It's child friendly, easy to use and well designed.

The on/off switch is a round red button on the front of the pad that also easy for child to do themselves, no fiddly switches.
Plus the 'magic pen' is easy to get in and out of its holder at the side. The pen itself is chunky and easy for little hands to master, it's attached to the leap pad with a plastic covered chunky orange wire but the pen moves around easy and freely enough...but can never get lost - good design.

Books...

All the books are double sided, one side being a story and the other more games, puzzles and activities to play. Once the Leap pad is on it will announce the book title and tell you what to do.
To get started you need to touch the green go circle with the pen, then away you go. The thing actually tells you what to press as you go along like touching buttons with pen to play different games also explains how to play and what the aim is. It is very child friendly and fantastic for independent play.

The story sides are also great as you press the touch the button it tells you whats happening on the page and if you touch a word with the pen it speaks the word, very good for helping little readers along. It gives practice at holding and using a pen, plus some of the books have tracing activities where you follow letters/shapes/numbers with the pen so some drawing and early writing practice while playing too. There are books featuring other languages as well as the usual counting, letters, reading, writing - there's so much to learn !

The volume control buttons are on the books and you adjust by touching with the pen, you'll find buttons with a plus and minus sign at the bottom of each page ( Sometimes I wish there was a separate volume switch as volume is quite loud turned up full !! ) It eve goes 'Beep' and then tells you it's batteries are running low and need replacing !!!

Conclusion...

Of all the Learning toys we have bought or received as gifts this is the one that actually gets used and not left forgotten in a cupboard once batteries are dead. It is so easy to use and is actually fun to play. My boy loves his because its something he can work and do himself without much help from me ...though he's got so many books he sometimes needs a hand finding the right cartridge.

The range of books available for it are fantastic too, there's loads of titles to choose from and plenty of children's favorite characters to get their attention, the music and voices on the character books are same as the cartoons / films too which makes for fun play.

Boy will be 5 this year and has got alot from playing with his leap pad, I really think its helped him with learning quite a few things.
I think we may well stick with his Leap pad for another year - its lasting well with no problems even though it's been dropped a fair few times, my only suggestion is you invest in some rechargeable batteries because it's a toy that gets a lot of play-time.

Highly recommend it.

Thanks for reading

Manda. :o)

Can also be found on Ciao under the same name

(Some "My First Leap pad" book reviews coming soon...)_

Summary: If you're going to buy a 'learning toy' buy this one !!