My son is turning 4 next month. He LOVES learning and learning type gadgets. I was thinking about getting him the the Leap Frog "Leapster". It's a handheld device with learning games. Anyone else have this? Opinions on it? Gift ideas please! : )
My daughter just turned 5 and she recently got an Innotab, by vtech. So far, she really likes it. It comes with "apps" (8 or 9), and she has 1 extra game that has several apps on it (but games are $25 each!). There seemed to be a lot of extra games to choose from. We'll see how long it holds her attention, but I think it'll last because it reads aloud (which she LOVES, even though she can read) and it has an extensive art studio, which is also one of her favorite things to do. The games she may get bored with though. Good luck!
My daughter turns 4 next month and we are getting her the Leapster Leappad. My friend's son has it and LOVES it!
We got the leapster explorer. It doesn't come with much though. The Camera application is great (extra though). but the free game that the leapster comes with isn't that great. You have to buy a game or two right away. On the leapster website there are sometimes package deals though. Otherwise my to DS' love it. They both play it as much as allowed. We have the StarWars math game (even my 4yo can play it). The starwars reading one is harder for my little one, but there is room for guessing! There are a few games that are geared more for the younger ages, I think we're going to buy one of those next. Bessings
My boys played the snot out of their Leapsters for years until they finally all went kaput. My oldest would still love many of the games and he's 9 1/2 (though there were also plenty of games for the young ones... like a 4yo). Toys R Us usually has the games buy 2 get one free around Christmas time, so plan on buying a bunch then. I'll probably buy a new one for my youngest when he's about 4.
Thank you for that info! I know the games come separately, and are 20 bucks each... Holy Moly! I looked on Amazon and the games were pretty inexpensive. I may go that rout for games at least. I want to take advantage of his willingness to learn, and I'm trying not to purchase a ton of toys... both sets of Grandparents live in town and do plenty of that. ; )
My kids LOVE the Leapster. My oldest played it til he got a DS, now my DD loves it! It is very educational too. We have a game called Animal Genius that she's learned a lot of animal facts from. Also some word games that are awesome! Get the rechargeable battery pack though--ours broke and it eats batteries fairly quickly.
We have the LeapPad and I would recommend it over the Explorer. Reasons: we figured we would end up wanting to buy the extras (camera, etc) and would end up spending the same amount anyway. And plus you can play all of explorer games on the leappad, but not necessarily the other way around. And to make the apps cheaper, we found that you can often buy the $20 app cards on Amazon for as cheap as $11 (just watch for them to go on sale) or either way, I don't think they're ever the full $20 on Amazon. And we've taken advantage of some black Friday and tru sales here and there as well.
The only issue we've found is that it's so much better than the ixl that we have, that the 2yo & 4yo still fight over it constantly. We thought we were just passing the ixl to the 2yo and replacing it for the 4yo. We were mistaken.
We ended up buying the leap pad. My son loves it but it's like pulling teeth to get him to put it down. I need to set some rules otherwise we will have done problems. Help.
Two years ago (when my dd was 5 1/2) I got the MobiGo and several games. She rarely plays it, unfortunately. I think I should have got the Leapster. When my older two were that age, they had Leapsters and loved 'em. I think the problem with the MobiGo is the games are too easy. Next time I have some extra money I might look into getting some more challenging games. If I were to do it again, I'd pick Leapster.
