If you’re looking for a high tech learning toy this season, we high recommend Leapfrog’s TAG and TAG Junior reading systems. Both marry technology with collections of award winning books. Do they replace reading a book with your child? Of course not–but they will encourage your kids to explore and “read” books on their own.
Full review and shopping info for both
We’d skip their My Pal Scout–this is designed to be an interactive pet for toddlers. We found him to be less than huggable and the skills he’s meant to teach are better taught with real life experiences. All of the current interactive, downloadable dolls on the market pale in comparison to the old Actimates from Microsoft. Their original Barney really became Barney for little children. It was truly magical to watch kids interact with this doll. This doll doesn’t compare.
I hope you are wrong here. I took the Tag Junior back and picked up My Pal Violet for my son. Now I’m worried.
Why did you take the Tag Junior back–did you try it and not like it?
Because it was going to involve ongoing expenses in buying books for it, as well as ongoing work in loading the book onto the Tag Jr that he wanted to use, and swapping books out ahead of time, guessing what he would want. (And the books seemed very basic for Tag Jr–i like the selection better for Tag) He’s not exactly patient when he wants to play enough to choose what he wants to use then wait for us to connect the toy up to the computer and download that book’s text.
When we sit dwon to read books together, we can easily go through 3 or 4 in one sitting. (and the ones I choose are not necessarily the ones he wants to read)
PS All of this assuming he liked the Tag Jr, of course. It’s different in the store, but when he got a chance to play with a Tag Jr at the “demo board” in the store, he was having problems making it do anything and lost interest.
Whereas he loved to death (literally) his Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Puppy. And we recently had to give it a decent burial in the trash can. (complete with his heartfelt “bye bye”) — instead of replacing, I figured to pick up the Violet (Not Scout cause baby Tad and Leap are both green stuffed animals!) to replace it. I was attracted to that it said his name and incorporated that into its speech and some songs. And that I can download into its memories exactly the songs I want it to sing (assuming the Leapfrog site has them). So I can make sure it has his favorites on it.
Sounds like you made the right call. Let us know how he likes it!