Let's get on the, The Leap Frog Touch Magic Learning Bus, that is!
I was more than excited when I received the Learning Bus in the mail and both of my kids screamed with delight and instantly began playing the keyboard, singing, and dancing.
I, being the mom and looking for the academic benefits, went right for the manual to learn more about this bright yellow piece of sheer joy.
First of all, I love the fun images associated with each letter. Starting by pushing the star, you practice learning the letters and sounds. When you push the letter/image it tells you the letter name and image name. When you press it a second time it tells you the sound the letter makes. Then the third time you press it it says just the letter name.
My 3 year old, Everett, has seriously learned 2 new letters in the past 2 days by playing with this!
The next feature we explored was the game feature, which you arrive at by pushing the ball on top of the bus. The prompts vary:
"touch the letter 'y'"
"touch the camera"
"touch the picture that makes the sound..."
I love that it automatically mixes up the question types to keep kids on their toes and from getting bored. My favorite feature is how the bus handles mistakes a child may make. If he touches the incorrect letter, it restates the original question and adds a hint. I haven't seen a game that does that and as a teacher this is what we naturally do in a learning situation with a child. We don't just keep repeating the exact same question over and over without prompting the child for success.The learning game is building a listening vocabulary and teaching young kids the relationship between letters and sounds which is a crucial pre-reading skill.
Now, onto the super duper fun part, according to my son anyway, the song feature. You reach this setting by pushing the music note on top of the bus. Then you press one of the fun animals and he or she starts singing a catchy tune. Your child contributes by pushing other animals to add their instruments, touching the wheels to add drums and cymbals, or the piano keys. These are added into the original animals song and results in a different song every time you play! This promoting creativity, originality, and confidence which all kids need!
This lightweight game has gone with us on car trips and even took it's own trip off the kitchen table crashing onto our hardwood floor. I am pleased to report it survived and is still working just fine. Let me just say every single kid who walks in my house picks up this toy! Right there, you've got a winner. As a primary teacher and a mom, I totally endorse the Leap Frog Touch Magic Learning Bus!
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and was given free product by LeapFrog. The content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
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