Leap pad

[Sheila]

I'm thinking of getting one of these for DS (aged 3.5) - can anyone recommend them? They're expensive so I want to be sure DS will like it if I get him one. Thanks in advance for all advice.

I bought one for dd age 3 - not the first leappad but the one for 4+ as I thought this would last longer. She is really not interested - my friends 5yo loves it - prob better to wait until he is a bit older

My ds was given the 4+ one for his 3rd birthday, and he absolutely adores it. We haven't had to get a new 'book' for it yet, as he is still deeply interested in the sample that comes with. He is very advanced in his language, which might be why he loves it so much.

Could you tell us a bit more about it? My ds is 4 and has just started learning to read at pre-school but he's not very good with his letters yet. He's very good at working out the words from the pictures and remembering that certain letter patterns mean certain words but he could do with knowing more of the alphabet sounds to help him. Does leap-pad help with this? Are the letters lower or upper case - and how are they sounded?

I've only had a very quick look at the ones on display in ELC and they seem to work in a variety of ways - you can touch symbols on the page to hear a story or a musical sound, description of the object touched etc.

Don't know if this helps...

We don't have one of these, so I haven't really got any justification for my feelings. But ever since first coming across them I have been very negative about them. Are they not just a very poor substitute for an interested adult with 20 mins or even 5 mins to spend sharing a book with a child? I think they are a gimmick, designed to assuage the guilt of parents who don't spend time looking at books with their children.

So go on, shoot me down now

My oldest daughter loved hers. I have no problems with them, as long as you think of them as toys rather than something educational - a computer game, rather than a book.

We read a lot in this house so its never been used as a book substitute.

I bought the baby one for her (she was 3) and she still loves it now (about to be 4) - I have upgraded to the older version for Christmas (mainly because it comes with a Disney Princess book!) and I can see my one year old will fall greedily upon the baby one as she loves it too.

I saw them in the Woolworths catalogue today - part of their buy 3 items and get cheapest free scheme. Might be worth a look. Yes, ds is likely to get one under the Christmas tree this year.

dd has the first one , she's 2.6 , she does play with it now and again but not alot! She enjoys it when i'm playing it with her, ( which kind of blows your theory out of the water kmg1)

My cousins 5year old twin girls have them, one each, they love them, a friend from school, her 2 year old daughter has one, and I liked it so much, I'm getting one for my baby, he is now 16months old, but he is a heart baby, so I spoil him rotten anyway.

DS doesn't actually care to play with his leap-pad together with us, it's very definitely a toy for him to play with on his own. In any case, even though he adores it, he's more likely to be found wtih a 'conventional' book than with the leap-pad.

DS already knows the alphabet and recognises quite a lot of uppercase letters, as well as all the digits, but I think he's learnign from the leappad as well, because I hear him repeating things as he plays the games.

It would never have occurred to me to buy one, but I now think it's excellent and will get him more inserts in due course. In fact, I was standing in, I think, Woolies the other day, debating with myself whether to buy him one of the Thomas inserts, but I just couldn't remember whether the voice is English or American!

Ive just bought the first one although my DD is a little young at the moment. Having two older sisters though she is very quick to pick up on things so hoping its something we can sit and do together.

For anyone interested ToysRUs were doing a free leappad book with every leappad bought, although not on the first leappad as I found out!

my oldest loves his but i think its alot do do with being like daddy cos he loves anything computer related and he spends more time switching the books around than reading it.

Have to laugh kmg1 - you've seen through me! Yes I was hoping that this would amuse DS so that he'd leave me in peace for a bit longer than the 3 minutes I usually get. And before I get shot down in flames for this, let me point out that I do read to him every day but I'm also a single parent who has to change the sheets on the bed, have a poo, do the washing up etc etc without (preferably ) a small boy wanting to be in on the action.

I know I should be doing interesting, stimulating things with him all the time but I work 4 full days a week as well as being mum to DS and frankly I'm bloody knackerd. If he would play by himself even for half an hour it would transform my life!

Sorry - rant over. Feeling the heat a bit lately now the weather has turned bad.

Sorry Sheila - I'm not normally so blunt on here - must have been having a bad day! I have tremendous admiration for you - I've been a SAHM mum for 6.5 yrs, with fantastic dh too - I've just started working - only 20 hrs a week, and the kids are both at school full time, and I am still struggling to get everything done. So I take my hat off to you.