Leapfrog Review
Leapfrog Tag System and Interactive World Map Game
Reviewed by Glen Wilson and Family
Recently we received the Leapfrog Tag Reading System for our two girls Holly and Megan age 5 and 7 years. They both enjoy reading and discovering so it looked like a good Idea. On arrival we had to unpack the tag system and we did notice how easy this was to do. Generally especially at Christmas parents are all too aware of the complicated over packaging and plastic ties everywhere that take an eternity to undo! Anyway nothing like this, the packaging was well presented and the colours, feel of the product all felt of good quality and well thought out. Some may say the pen is a little over sized but as a parent I feel if it was similar to the size of a regular pen young children may struggle with the necessary motor skills and most important it may become lost too!
Initially you have to install a CD-ROM disk of the software necessary needed to install future games/books onto the tag pen. The software also monitors your child development and keeps a record of everything they have learnt so far.
Both our children love reading so we wanted to encourage this and Leapfrog does just that, a point to mention is the installation isn’t hard but also is not idiot proof either, following the instructions you do seem to be left on a page on the system set up wondering what to do next. However with a little searching we discovered how to set up and sync the Pen to the new game “Interactive World Map.”
The initial book that comes with the Tag pen is a taster if you like of a few stories to get an idea of how it works. With toys like this I fond sometimes the software is a bit flimsy or un- responsive and the child gets frustrated as does the parent if at the time the parent is doing something else but have to constantly stop to reset or do something for the child to operate the toy.
As so it was nice to discover the quality of the book is excellent and compares to anything you would buy of the shelf from the Disney store or book store outlet. The Tag pen is used to read the words by pointing the pen along the words on the page. Now this is where I was waiting for no response or the wrong word etc. To my amazement and my daughters! We discovered how clear and accurate the pen was. My 5 year old used it first and she had no problem what so ever using or navigating the pen around the page to read the story. The sound was clear, accurate and my daughter was able to easily do it fast enough due to the quick response of the pen to keep track of the story plot. It actually does sound like the pen is reading the story. My younger daughter Is always trying to do what the elder sister can do so she is very interested in learning to read new words etc and as so the pen helps here to by confirming what she has read to be right. If she is wrong then the pen will tell her what the word should be and so on a few attempts she will remember and learn the new word or sentence. Additional books can also be bought for this product which is a huge positive and a must for the longevity of this toy. In the past we have had toys that don’t come with the back up of spares or additions to keep the interest of the toy and so the child gets easily bored.
There is a link on the disk software to purchase these books or you can get them from various online retailers on the Web. Cost is average with some good bundle deals, some books can be a little on the expensive side but there is still a choice of reasonably priced one too. Every new book or game you purchase you need to download the necessary files to the tag pen to make it read the new book. This is easy and going through the step by step process using the CD-ROM is fairly straight forward. Once you have a library of books you can which between then without having to re download every time which is much quicker. Another good point to mention is not only does the tag pen read the story but the child can point to anywhere on the book to discover how various characters or objects feel or what else they might be doing or saying. This means each page contains a lot of information for the child to discover which was both interesting and fun for our two girls. Some sounds are simply action sounds whilst some characters may read their part of the story, the whole idea brings more imagination we believe to our daughter when she was reading it.
At the bottom of each page there are several icons to discover and learn even more. For example in the spider man book you can choose an option to let it just read the whole story, in the tinker bell story you have to associate a picture with a sound in order to help them make tools, from a leapfrog story you can learn how to spell a word, how the word sounds and how to say it too. There are also games and discovery sections too on various pages of the story books. Every new book has something different to give. On succession of topics or games the child is rewarded and printouts to colour and hang of their story on their bedrooms doors. Another point to mention which I thought was good is in the past the child gets bored wants to change book or game and has to unplug a cartridge or something like this to play the next game. Not so with this , they can swap and change intermittently as much a the want and the pen will respond. This saves huge amounts of time and patience so this is a big plus for Leapfrog’s pen.
In summary: a great learning tool that can be used simply to read your child stories or teach them to read, spell, sound out words, discover new characters and worlds, feelings and more.
The unit is solid and responsive and only uses 2 x AAA batteries so running costs are a minimum too.
For more information and where to buy click here.
Interactive World Map game used with Leapfrog Tag pen system
To go with the above software and for our older child we received this interactive world map game but we soon found out this great for all ages and my younger daughter 5 and Holly of 7 equally enjoyed it. This is completely different from the books and comes as a large board game you can put out on the floor, on one side it’s a geographical discovery and the other is more political and understanding different ways of living and customs, what people eat in various countries for example. Our girls learnt continents, countries, what different people in different countries eat for breakfast, different oceans and more. On the bottom of each side of the board there are various topical games such as “Let’s Get Started” where they choose a country to discover, get a nick name and discover the animals there too. Other games include “What Is A Map”, “Map Legend” which is a key code to help the child understand the various symbols and asks them to do things in order to make sure they understand. “Let’s Explore” teaches them about various animals and areas and geographical locations such as rain forests. There are more games such as “kids like me” where the child can learn about different cultures and ways of living, what they eat, learn different languages, music and habitats. This was an excellent addition to the system and teaches our children loads, we take it on holiday with us for in the evenings and they love it. Maps may come across a bit boring but this is nothing of the sort. Children want to learn, discover and understand what’s going on where we and other people come from and how things are different to our ways to theirs. Leapfrog Interactive world map does exactly that and comes in a threefold very colourful well laid out and easy to operate board game that is of an excellent quality. We would have no hesitation recommending this or the leapfrog Tag Pen system to anyone wanting their child to develop and learning alongside them too.
For more information and where to buy click here.
I highly recommend both item.