Your view on battery-powered toys

[hypatia]

I was given a great toy today, and it's occured to me that my daughter has no battery-powered toys, nothing that makes noise, shakes, anything with buttons to press...
The toy I received is the Magnet-o-letters from Leapfrog and my 18y immediately understood the idea and kept switching letters while dancing along. I think this is a good buy and i'm pretty sure she'll know her letters soon.

She was also given something called Genius Baby by Vtech..something which looks like a small laptop. nice to entertain her for a few minutes but certainly not something i would spend money on. There is a tiny screen (not sure if they're meant to look at it) and it teaches a few numbers and 3 shapes. The name choice made me smile...

Do your babies have such toys and what are your views on them? Do you think (like i do) that most of them are just well marketed expensive things that babies don't need?

[nhockaday]

My son has to have those types of toys. He is a technology boy, always pressing buttons and getting things to work. He loves anything with buttons and/or lights. I honestly don't think he would stay very well entertained without electronic toys.

He has a wide variety of toys, both classic and modern, but the electronic toys hold his attention a lot longer. Some of them are a waste of time and money, but you can find good ones out there.

[hypatia]

He has a wide variety of toys, both classic and modern, but the electronic toys hold his attention a lot longer. Some of them are a waste of time and money, but you can find good ones out there.

Which ones does he/do you enjoy the most?

[laughingwater]

My daughter has a little cash register that she loves. It has tags that can be scanned and it will tell you how much you need to pay. She then has to put the correct number of coins in the slot. It also will ask her to press specific numbers or combination of numbers.

[nhockaday]

He loves cell phones. Real ones are his fave, but he also has some realistic play phones. He loves flash lights or any kinds of lights.

[DadDude]

My view about battery-powered toys is that they eat up batteries too fast and batteries are expensive. 

[Nikita]

There are great battery operated kids toys out there. Leap frog Word whammer and fridge phonics and all the alphabet/phonics desks that teach letters, words, shapes etc. Electronic keyboards are great. I buy batteries in discount stores in bulk packs though one brand leaks battery acid everywhere so best to choose wisely! Ebay and second hand stores are great places for those toys. And soft toys that say things and move are good. I have a doll that speaks chinese I got on ebay 2ndhand. I have a clown face plastic toy that teaches parts of the face, colours and shapes. They help with teaching kids to follow instructions. Press my blue eye. Press the yellow star. What letter comes after y? What letter is between e and g? How do you spell yoyo? Brilliant stuff!!

[wenjonggal]

Rechargeable batteries are the way to go.. I have both Sony and Energizer.
For electronic toys we didn’t have many when my son was small... he liked a little Giraffe toy where you put transparent blocks in the top and it goes down its neck and makes a sound each time. We also really like the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Home (I think they have a Kitchen and Farm now)... they are great as they don’t take a lot of space but can turn any doorway or room into a playhouse, complete with doorbell, working lights and radio, telling time, counting, ABC song etc... good for from perhaps 11 mos to at least 5 yrs old... just the younger ones will use it to help standing up, and motivated to reach up etc to push buttons, and the older ones will use it for makebelieve scenarios.

My son who is now 4 got a Vtech Tote And Go Laptop Plus last year, and is just now growing into having the patience to understand the instructions (“press the L” “what letter comes between these two letters?” “Which number is bigger 4 or 8?”) and carry out the commands... before he just wanted to push buttons to make noise and I don’t think he got any learning out of it at all. I think he’ll be growing into it until he is 6 or 7 yrs old.

He also has a Fisher Price “Learn Your Phone Number” Laugh and Learn telephone, which is really bad for learning a phone number (it doesn’t tell the child so the child can memorise it, it ASKS the child. When the get it wrong, it gives them one number, ie “Your phone number starts with “5”. Now what is the rest of your phone number?” As if anyone even an adult could guess a phone number if given just one number at a time. But it was very attractive to him, leading to a lot of make believe games, and also saying numbers when they are punched. Again, now at 4 yrs old he is growing into being able to play some of the learning games re numbers and letters that are included in it.

For small kids, I think the Fridge Phonics by Leapfrog are great. We have the “matching farm animals” barn one. It is bilingual English French which is fantastic here in Quebec, and has catchy songs as well as sounds and matching for kids as young as can stand at a fridge. We also now have one that is a refrigerator that opens and has food magnets that fit inside... each magnet is a food with a different letter, and it says the letter and something about the food... my son walks around saying “E. Eggs Break Easily”, which cracks me up.

[waterdreamer]

Rechargeable batteries are the way to go.. I have both Sony and Energizer.
For electronic toys we didn’t have many when my son was small... he liked a little Giraffe toy where you put transparent blocks in the top and it goes down its neck and makes a sound each time. We also really like the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Home (I think they have a Kitchen and Farm now)... they are great as they don’t take a lot of space but can turn any doorway or room into a playhouse, complete with doorbell, working lights and radio, telling time, counting, ABC song etc... good for from perhaps 11 mos to at least 5 yrs old... just the younger ones will use it to help standing up, and motivated to reach up etc to push buttons, and the older ones will use it for makebelieve scenarios.
For small kids, I think the Fridge Phonics by Leapfrog are great. We have the “matching farm animals” barn one. It is bilingual English French which is fantastic here in Quebec, and has catchy songs as well as sounds and matching for kids as young as can stand at a fridge. We also now have one that is a refrigerator that opens and has food magnets that fit inside... each magnet is a food with a different letter, and it says the letter and something about the food... my son walks around saying “E. Eggs Break Easily”, which cracks me up.

I agree with both of those. The Laugh and Learn home still has a place in my 4 year olds bedroom, though I think he is just about done with it. But i mean he got it when he was 6months old and it encouraged him to sit up, and stand to play with the higher parts of the toy.
The fridge phonics and farm are still on my fridge, we also had the word whammer that allowed him to make 3 letter words. Just watch out if your husbands friends are over that they don't spell out not nice words on the fridge and try to get the machine to say them. I believe little tykes has something similiar that allows 4 letter words, my son has that to play with at my parents, and when my younger brother tries spelling not nice words, it says in an insulted voice, "I don't know THAT word" Men!

[hypatia]

Karma to all for your suggestions.
I'm thinking of getting the fridge farm and the laugh and learn house.

[hypatia]

To those of you teaching chinese.. I purchased this audio pen a few days ago and cannot believe how good the technology is. It comes with 8 books ranking from pictures books with to texts. With my 18mo there are 3 books we look at so far considering her level. Counting, image book (complete from animals to objects to fruits etc) and english-chinese. It costs 100us which may sound like a lit but i reckon there are hours of learning in it. (there is even 1 book with dozens and dozens of stories to listen to..) Voice is loud and clear and very engaging.. best of all, you don't have to 'read' along with you pen from left to right, wherever you put the pen on the sentence or the image the whole sentence/song/story will play (worth saying as i've tried audio book before and everything was broken up..)
I purchase it on asianparent.com together with dvds to save on postage.

http://www.asianparent.com/touch-reading-pen-in-chinese.aspx

[wenjonggal]

That's really interesting... it must be a trend. I just wrote about finding the eReadbook Touch Reading pen, both on Amazon marketplace and in Canada at http://bigreach.ca and I bought one just 6 days ago.

Same thing, we are loving it, being able to read in Chinese with a touch. We have a set that comes with eight beginner books (some which are great for my 4 yr old, some which will be better later on as they are text-heavy such as a book of chinese proverbs, a book of science knowledge and a book of math questions), and we upgraded to the package that includes three books of 600 Characters each (pinyin, character, english translation, sentence, several 2 character words using that character), and also eight Classic Fairy Tales, including Little Red Riding Hood, which is what my son and I are going through now.

The reading is done by the pen using mp3s uploaded to the pen (the company did it for me before shipping the pen, though you can do it drag and drop on your computer... the cd comes with the books), and like you say, is very clear. Not computer voice, but many various voices from small children, to grown men... everyone from the bugs drawn on the pages, to little red riding hood, to the wolf, to grandmother to the hunter all have their own appropriate voices, and the reading is very well done... they speak colloquially so we really get a feel for the syntax of sentences. In the Three Little Pigs, my son was totally amused by the Big Bad Wolf running away squealing that his butt hurt!

We also have the English Chinese children’s dictionary, which is over 300 pages long, hardcover, and says the word in English, then Chinese, has chinese pinyin and character translation, sentence that reads in Chinese and English, and when you touch the pen to the illustration for each entry, it also says a pertinent phrase or sentence in both English and Chinese. This will be a good English dictionary for my son as well as a bilingual Chinese one, as it helps him read the English words too (it is alphabetized by English word, ie look up “on” to get “shang”... and sentences for both, as well as a picture)

We really love our set. If anyone is interested in getting the pen from Canada (http://bigreach.ca), you can say you were referred by Leanne (Wenjonggal’s blog), and my pen ID # is E2003-132067. Email your order to “[email protected]” and they’ll give you $10 credit on your NEXT purchase of books, and credit me $10 for refering you off MY next purchase of books.

You can read about it at my blog:
http://wenjonggal.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/ereadbook-touch-reading-pen/ and
http://wenjonggal.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/ereadbook-last-couple-days-of-free-shipping-and-happy-sharing-program/ ... at the first entry there are links to book samples and trial pages... that is what sold me, and also that this particular brand has a gazillion books to choose from.

I wish I’d had this pen three years ago when I started Chinese!

[wenjonggal]

ps, the Bigreach.ca site in Canada ships internationally: they shipped to someone in Spain who read about it on my blog!

[patreiche]

Here is another one that is bilingual with Disney books.

http://www.one2fit.com/en_2_cat236_sub274_product2643.htm

[wenjonggal]

Yes, Patreiche, that is the exact one I got. They are all bilingual, that is why they can read English and Chinese.

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