My two oldest loved the alphabet book so much, and it's such a great learning tool, that we've kept our eye on this number one. My oldest(5) really struggles with numbers, so this is an excellent tool to help him.
This book comes with tracing paper(both in the book and a pack of extras). It doesn't take much pressure *at all* to mark on the paper. Be very careful with the extras or they could easily be ruined! You just use your Tag pen to "write". It won't write in the book, since it's just the pressure that is "writing" on the paper.
When the paper runs out, your child can still practice within the book. The paper is just a little extra.
Overall, we really like these books! We've been very pleased with their educational value AND their fun value. Highly recommended!
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I love what this product is trying to do. The combination of reading-along, number tracing, and math games is exactly what my preschooler is ready for right now. Unfortunately, it doesn't deliver.First, the voices in the stories are so corny, shrill, and overdone that even my preschooler is put off. It's a characteristic of leapfrog products that the voices, narrations, and instructions are often so overly-enthusiastic that even a dental assistant trying to cajole a 3-year-old into opening their mouth for the scary shiny sharp things would roll their eyes and suggest they tone it down a little, and this story is no different. The pacing is odd, too. For example, there's a sentence pretty early in the book like so: '"Misfire!" someone yelled.' It's read as if 'someone yelled' is a stand-alone sentence. It's strange.
Second, and this may just be a reality of the current state of technology, but the LeapReader can't tell the difference between penmanship and correctness. I don't know who was more frustrated, i or my preschooler, when he managed to correctly do the math problems only to be told by the LeapReader that he was wrong because his 3 wasn't a perfect 3. My delight at finding that he could actually do math in his head so quickly turned into anger when he was incorrectly told he was wrong. So maybe my advice here is to just tear out the pages that have the math problems on them if you're giving this to a younger child. (Oddly, other times it's very forgiving. On the connect-the-dots game, you can draw wherever you want on the paper as long as you touch the numbers in sequence.)
Related to this is what is, i'm sure, a vigorous debate about the correct way to draw some numbers. For example, does the number '5' involve one stroke or two? We're a one-stroke household here, starting at the upper-right and completing the digit in one go. LeapFrog, however, is in the two-stroke camp, advising young ones to start at the upper left, complete the bottom part of the digit, then come back up to do the cross stroke. Once again, my preschooler was doing a stellar job tracing the '5', but since he was starting in the 'wrong' place, the dang LeapReader kept chastising him.
It's worth noting that there are two different kinds of activities in this book. Some of the games are in the story itself that can be done over and over again, others are on tear-out sheets of something like carbon paper that can only really be done once. The 'practice pack' is more of the carbon-paper-y-stuff, 25 looseleaf sheets that can only be used once, can only be used with the LeapReader, and are small enough that it's hard for a kid to hold them down and write on them. I suggest a clipboard or some other way to hold the paper still.
There's certainly a huge amount of educational potential in this product, but until they find some way to allow, for example, one-stroke writing of the number 5, some subset of kids are going to have the frustrating experience of being told they're doing it wrong when they know they're doing it right.
Best Deals for LeapFrog LeapReader Writing Workbook: Learn to Write Numbers
Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program This review is for the LeapReader Writing Workbook. It works with the Mr. Pencil system.I am frankly amazed by the entire system, but I will focus on the Writing Workbook.
My 5 year old son is learning to write the "old fashioned way." He enjoys doing worksheets, etc. This workbook makes that work fun for him! There are not only games for him to play throughout the book but he also learns how to write his numbers in a way that is entertaining. The workbook includes some of the "magic" paper to practice on. Also, it helps with reading as well because he can use it to identify the words on the page in the book. I am very much impressed with this workbook.
Honest reviews on LeapFrog LeapReader Writing Workbook: Learn to Write Numbers
Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I'm amazed at how much LeapFrog continues to grow and innovate every year. My sons have each had a Tag Reader and this new LeapReader goes way beyond it. Just a note about the hardware: It's USB chargable and easy to grip. If you already have the LeapFrog Connect software, you'll need to download an update. The LeapReader works with select Tag books as well.There are lots of books/series in the new library. You can pick from early reading, read & write, read on your own and learn through reading. It also says that you can go into the listening library for more than 100 songs and audio books in the App Center on LeapFrod Connect.
The purpose of this Writing Workbook is really about learning to write and use numbers from 1-20. The story is about Dianne Inkwell, who is a reporter covering the Doodleburg Games, and some silly things that happen to her. She gets hit on the head with a foam finger, gets a plunger stuck on her head, loses her pencil and doesn't get all the scores for the mayor. It's a cute story.
I like that there are "practice pages" between the story pages, but I'm pretty sure my 4 year old is going to tear them out. (A pack of extra pages comes with the book). The practice pages include tracing numbers, math problems, drawing shapes and doing measurements.
The book shows (in photos at the front of the book) how to properly hold the LeapReader as you would a pencil. The controls are similar to the ones we're used to in Tag books (yellow triangle for a game, red stop sign to stop a game) so we were able to start playing right away.
Like the Tag Reader, you can touch on different parts of the pages for silly sounds or songs. There are games for each page which teach things like ordinals, math (which gets a little hard), shapes, measurements and patterns.
I am going, as soon as I get done typing this review, to order the Learn to Write Letters workbook to go with this. I am positive we're going to get lots of play and learning out of this system and workbook.
No comments:
Post a Comment