Showing posts with label childrens books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label childrens books. Show all posts

Thomas and Friends Story Reader 3-pk. Review

Thomas and Friends Story Reader 3-pk.
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What!!! A 90 day warranty??!! Are they crazy? This is a kids toy. We've had a Storyreader for the last year. It was great, the kids loved it. But then it started going haywire. It would start up and after a few words would suddenly stop, not to start again. Very frustrating for me and the kids. That's when I found out it only has a 90 day warranty.

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Sesame Street Music Player Board Book: 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition Review

Sesame Street Music Player Board Book: 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition
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My daughter likes this set, but each of the 4 disks only plays 1 sesame street song and the rest are common childrens songs. It only plays music, no lyrics (which are in the book) and they are a little slower than the songs from the show are. Also there is no volume control, but it isn't too obnoxiously loud. I got it for a lot less than the $49.99 they are asking and there is no way I would pay that much for it, but if you can find it cheaper, go for it (worth about 15-20$).

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Thomas & Friends Surprize Ink Game Pad with Clear Surprise Marker Review

Thomas and Friends Surprize Ink Game Pad with Clear Surprise Marker
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It's tough when you get a toy on your birthday and a main component needs to be replaced by the time you get up the next morning [besides batteries]. There are still many more pages needing the 'surprize' ink - I will now need to find a pen sold separately or buy another entire book set just to get the pen; when something is for a child it needs to be durable!

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Cranium Duck Duck 123 Review

Cranium Duck Duck 123
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This is a great first game for toddlers. I play it with my 2 1/2 year old and there are several educational benefits in my opinion. First, she is learning the concept of taking turns. Second, she is learning structure and rules (she can't just pick up and play with the little ducks, but has to wait and pick up the babies when her ducky gets to them). She could already count to 5, so I questioned the benefits of a spinner that only went up to 5, but it is good reinforcement and she still gets lot of practice with counting (could use dice to to practice higher counting). Even setting up and putting away the game is good skill to learn. It does take some fine motor skills to put the duckies on the mommy ducks back too. The only down side is that it is a little tough to wiggle the duckies into the space they go into on the mommy duck's back. And, yes, sometimes they fall out as you move around the board. The first time my little one played this, I think she was a little frustrated by that in combination with me making her follow rules. But, I could see it was just challenging and new for her. We've kept playing and she loves the game and is learning a lot from playing!
Also, I bought this from my local CVS for about $10 and I've seen it at Walmart.com for $5. Maybe I'd expect more if I had paid more.

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Vtech - Rhyme and Discover Book Review

Vtech - Rhyme and Discover Book
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We got two of these Vtech Rhyme & Discover Books for our twins last Xmas (December 2008), and they played with these at least half an hour at a time, several times a day. At 10 months later the kids (now a little over 2 years old) still play with them regularly, anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes a day, sometimes more.
The books have been smeared by sticky hands and wipe clean well, and they have been dropped countless times without damage.
Just recently, 10 months later, we have changed the batteries (two AAAs) in one of the books, and the other one is still going on the batteries that came inside it.
The pros are:
*Price (you get lots of bells and whistles for this amount of money) and batteries included
*Durability
*Cleanability
*Visually interesting (Four panels or "pages," for a total of seven different pictures/sides to look at, plus a couple of two-sided movable pieces that make sound effects, and three light-up "tab" buttons in the shape of a lamb, kitten and puppy, each with their own sound effects)
*Huge musical variety -- some songs have a couple bars of vocals and some are just instrumental
("Ring around the rosie," "Twinkle twinkle little star," "Mary had a little lamb," "Little Bo Peep," "Hey diddle diddle," "Bingo," "Three little kittens," "This is the way we ...," "Old McDonald had a farm," "The farmer in the dell," "Rockabye baby," "This old man," "London Bridge is falling down," "Three blind mice," "Sur le pont d'Avignon")
The cons:
*The on-off switch has two volume choices, but the louder option is a little too loud for young ears. The lower volume is fine, and it would be nice if toy makers would put the volume switch somewhere less accessible to the child. My kids, and the ones I've babysat, all seem to like to crank the volume to the highest setting, and the highest setting seems as though it has the potential to damage hearing over the long term. (This is a problem with many toys, and not unique to this one.)
*It would be nice to have the entire song for some musical selections (you get only part of the song and not all the lyrics either), but it's not a huge minus considering how many songs are included
Overall, based on my kids' experience with this toy, I would recommend this to my friends and/or give as a gift.
Update October 2010: These books are still in the toy box rotation and going strong in spite of many falls to the floor and some banging on the play/train table. We changed batteries again, so in total one book has had its batteries changed once and the other has had batteries changed twice. Now that the kids are 3 years old, they don't play with these books as much, so we're getting ready to hand these down to a younger cousin.

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Open a page to learning with the Rhyme & Discover Book! Combining rhythm and rhyme with seven nursery favorites, baby will delight in the fun melodies, magical moving play, three light-up characters and open ended questions that encourage play, thinking and learning.

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Vehicle Memory Tiles Review

Vehicle Memory Tiles
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I like that these memory tiles are made out of wood and LOVE that they are made in the USA. They will definitely be more durable than the widely available paper sets. Of course, there are many wood tile memory sets on the market, but this set is priced very reasonably and, like I already said, made in the USA, therefore was more desirable to me... Having a little boy (13M) that loves all things that go "vroom" this set was a find ... My son's favorite vehicles are boats, trucks and buses, so I would have loved to have seen a bus included as well, but I'm sure he will not even notice the void. I was slightly disappointed when they arrived and the colors of the vehicles were not as vibrant as shown in the picture online. Overall though, I would recommend this set for the little boy (or girl) in your life.

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John Deere 12" Lights And Sounds Tractor Review

John Deere 12 Lights And Sounds Tractor
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This was one of his birthday gifts - he's two - and he loves it! It has lights and makes noises. His grandfather rides him on his tractor and he loves tractors. He pushed it all over the house and his mother says it still remains a favorite a month later.

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Leapfrog Tag Kid Classic Storybook Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Review

Leapfrog Tag Kid Classic Storybook Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
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This a great book to have in your library of Tag books. My son has several of the books for the Tag system and this is one of the favorites. He also happens to have this in the board book version, that he's had for several years. So when he got this for the Tag it made the story come to life, and his letter recognition got even better. I would recommend this book, because the story is in rhyme and has a nice beat, if they decide to dance while they are reading. In addition most of the pages have games for them to play that are all educational. Such as the first page, it may ask you to look for the "letter that spoke to B". If you know the story the first page starts off with "A told B and B told C, I'll meet you at the top of the coconut tree". This book is well worth the money, especially as a starter for the Tag system. It helps with letter recognition and learning to read.

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Read and cheer for all the letters of the alphabet, as they race each other up the coconut tree! Will there be enough room? Oh, no! Chicka Chicka, Boom! Boom! Throughout the story, play learning activities that help build reading comprehension and phonics skills. Plus, connect the Tag Reader online to the LeapFrog Learning Path to see what your child is learning.

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Crayola Color Wonder Dinosaur Train Coloring Pad & Markers Review

Crayola Color Wonder Dinosaur Train Coloring Pad and Markers
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I got a Color Wonder coloring book & markers for my 2 year old. Yes I know it's recommended for 3 and up, but, with my close supervision, I felt we could try this and it would be safer than regular markers.
Okay, these markers do color ONLY on the Color Wonder paper and that is wonderful. However, the books are designed with reactive portions of the paper. So, as you are coloring a page, if you want to color a blue sky, you are coloring and nothing happens. Then, eventually, the color appears, but not everywhere you colored. It might appear in strips or shapes. It's sort of a surprise because, "Hey, I colored this whole section blue, but got blue stripes & stars, instead." Not what I was looking for. I just wanted our toddler to color where she wanted(on the special paper) and not worry about her getting marker marks on the table.
So, I realize Crayola also makes just the paper, but I'm not sure if it's the same with parts that will show color and parts that won't, no matter what. I don't like that whole concept because I found myself(while trying to figure out what the problem was) just mindlessly dragging the marker all over the paper to figure out where it will show up. That's not what I want from an art product. There should be some clear cause & effect("Ooo, I put the marker here, scribbled, and got this design. Let me see what else I can do..."). Therein lies the other problem with this product, it takes some time for the color to appear after you have colored on a particular spot. It's not right away. This might work for older children, but older children also are more likely to know to keep it on the paper, so the age group for which a product like this(if it worked the way it should) is most helpful, can't understand it or benefit from it.
I'm sticking with Crayola Washable crayons, instead. Yes they write on everything, but also come off easily with water. And my 2 year old can happily draw balloons on plain paper with my supervision and reminders to draw only on the paper.

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CRA 75-2232 SIZE: EACH Color Wonder Dinosaur Train CRAYOLA Crayons, Drawing, Coloring & Creative Supplies CRAYOLA COLOR WONDER PRODUCTS

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Dinosaur Train Make-A-Saurus Review

Dinosaur Train Make-A-Saurus
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My 4-year-old daughter is a huge fan of Dinosaur Train and we got this to keep her occupied during a recent flight from Boston to Denver. She was excited to see it at first but got tired of it quickly--preferring to watch the JetBlue TV to playing for any longer than a few minutes at a time. Although she loves Buddy and Tiny, they aren't her favorite characters, so I think she would have gotten a lot more enjoyment had it had more options.

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Jim Henson's Dinosaur Train is a lively animated PBS Kids series that embraces the fascination preschoolers have with both dinosaurs and trains. The show introduces them to different dinosaurs with fun, educational situations. Kids love watching Buddy and his adopted Pteranodon family as they take the Dinosaur Train on adventures. Now they can play with their favorite characters with these fun activities.

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