Stay tuned for more reviews!
(Interested in having me review YOUR stuff, feel free to drop me a line!)
The New Rating System:
A - Awesome B - Pretty Good C - N/A D - Pretty Bad F - Fails
What the Scores mean:
Each review describes what the product does and what a child can learn by playing with it. The scores of A through F indicate how strong a particular skill is used during play. Total Score:
This score is a combination of enjoyment and development skills.
Fun Rating Score:
Overall enjoyment of the toy. If a toy does not score high on the fun scale, there is a reasonably good chance a child will not learn from the play experience. (Aka.Collect dust)
These skills can be fine motor skills, gross motor skills or both.
Fine motor skills prepare children for coloring, buttoning, zippering, and other daily tasks.
Gross motor skills are using large muscle groups while throwing, running, crawling and climbing and are needed for a sense of balance and muscle tone.
Thinking:
Intellectual thinking skills encourage imagination, concentration and creativity.
Skills that facilitate a child to do their best, share, work with others and to be responsible are important to overall growth and help to shape whoever your child becomes.
Social Interaction:
Promoting interaction with other children and family members or encouraging a child to voice an opinion enhances participation, group activties, team-building and seeking new friendships.Whether a child interacts through speech or movement, this score incorporates how a toy can foster participation and action with another playmate, parent or caregiver.
Total Score: AFun Rating Score: C
Movement Score: B
Thinking: A
Personality: A
Social Interaction: A
A perfectly priced 2 sided easel. Its ability to collapse for easy storage was a big plus for small living or apartment dwellers. Set up is easy. A pop of 2 arms, clicking in the 4 baskets and its ready for use. To store it, just unpop the arms and it folds closed on itself.
Its solid standing and light enough to move from room to room. It comes with letter/number magnets and an eraser, so you will have to buy or already own chalk and dry erase markers to complete it. Its clasps to hold papers are pretty good although you might need tape for extra security. I highly suggest using the dry erase side for painting or other art materials as it is easier to wipe clean.
Word of advice, DO NOT leave markers out without supervision.
For the price, both boards are well made. We did manage to put a few faint scratches in our dry erase side from a little rough marker use.
I rated it low on the "fun scale" cause it really depends on the child. Some love arts and crafts, others (like mine) do not. This is a great toy to rotate and bring out on rainy days.
Alphie The Learning Toy Robot
Total Score: A
Fun Rating Score: A
Movement Score: A
Thinking: A
Personality: A
Fun Rating Score: A
Movement Score: A
Thinking: A
Personality: A
Social Interaction: C
A remake from way back when. He's a solid perfectly priced product with a convenient carrying handle. There is a card holder "backpack" in the back that holds only one set of cards at a time . The cards are well made, laminated to withhold some roughness but still can get lightly bent if too rough. Occasionally a card or two won't read for no physical reason which can be aggravating. They are also marked on top which making storage easy and avoids card mix ups.
There are a plethora of cards that come with him so no need to rush and buy a separate additional pack He comes to life w/ animated eyes and his catchy robot-related sayings keep you smiling cause they constantly change.
If left inactive it will either bait the kid to push a button ("scratch an itch"), beg for attention or it will power down on its own. Make sure to turn it off via foot though cause it will still drain the battery in inactive mode.
The games themselves range from easy to quiet challenging. Every card has a range of questions/games, rearranging them so that its not excessively repetitive.
He has a volume control and off &on button on each foot so he isn't something that will bark at you in the middle of the night or be distracting at a restaurant. He has proven to be well worth it on long car rides.
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LeapFrog Scribble and Write
Total Score: B
Fun Rating Score: B
Movement Score: A
Thinking: A
Personality: B
Social Interaction: B
Fun Rating Score: B
Movement Score: A
Thinking: A
Personality: B
Social Interaction: B
Its compact look makes it easy to shove into a purse for on demand amusement. The multiple things to do on it keep it entertaining and shows perfectly how to right letters and shapes. Since its basically a fancy magna doodle type screen, its easy to use and erase. Its easy to hold for little hands or laps. The little animations make it quirky but not overwhelming.
Overall, its a great compact learning tool. Throw it in your purse for on-hand educational entertainment.
Playgo Domino Train Set
Total Score: D
Fun Rating Score: C
Movement Score: B
Thinking: B
Personality: C
Fun Rating Score: C
Movement Score: B
Thinking: B
Personality: C
Social Interaction: A
The Maze: Following the instructions given, its easy to put up without much trouble. For a clearance item its cute and solid. They give you plenty of marbles to use, which provided a quiet some amusement. (Note: You will lose half in some unseen marble black hole)
The Domino setting Train: To fill the tower all you need to do is push down on a domino and the one side just kinda sucks up the domino. Fill, flip and put it the train. Once shown its easy for a child to do without help, unless one got "stuck" which happens. You can turn the trains wheels to go any direction and the on/off is a button on the side. It sets up dominoes pretty good, occasionally knocking over one of its own. It even makes a little "ding" as it does it. I've never used both products together yet.
Overall, unless you really enjoy the stress of dominoes, I would hold off on this one. Its a great idea but aimed for rainy days and older kids who have the patience to handle it.
Littlest Pet Shop Clubhouse Playset & Creatures
Total Score: AFun Rating Score: A
Movement Score: A
Thinking: A
Personality: A
Social Interaction: A
Thinking: A
Personality: A
Social Interaction: A
The best thing since sliced bread if you have an animal lover!
The Clubhouse is a nice basic house. It has a many things for the creatures to play with and perch. Its slim and easy to store.
The Littlest Pet Shop animals are what makes this worth every penny. Your best bet is to get the mass sets since they come with accessories so its instantly more bang for your buck. On occasion you may find some that are "head heavy" like the cows, horses, and long legged creatures which can cause some frustration. Yet they never fail to keep animals engulfed in her own little animal world. Very durable, we've had them in snow, water, "sand" and they still hold up like new.
