Leapster...Opinions????? 3 questions?

[daisy1234]

Hi...I just found out what those machines are that I am always seeing kids play with everywhere I go....Leapster. My son is 4...Is this a good toy for a 4.5 year old? I was thinking this may be my sanity saver for long car trips!

2. What are your favorite games?

3. What is the best price or deal on these? Should I wait closer to Christmas????

Thnak you?

[schums]

We have the Leapster L-Max (the one that plugs into the TV, costs about $100) and LOVE it. DS is in heaven when he gets to play it (he has to ask, since I don't want him becoming a video game junkie) and he's learned quite a bit from it. The Letter Factory game teaches kids all the letters (upper and lower case) and how to write them. It is by far DS favorite game. Also, we have the Number Factory (OK, but not great) and Dora. He enjoys the Dora one, but it's harder since you have to move Dora around using the arrow keys. It'll probably be easier for him in a couple of months.

We like it so much that I'm probably going to get another one for my almost 3 year old for her birthday. She always wants to play with DS, and can actually do some of the games on his.

One thing tho -- it eats batteries like you wouldn't believe. You probably want to get the rechargable battery pack that they sell seperately for about $30. You'll go through those many batteries the first month easy!!

HTH,
Sarah
Mom to Alex (3/2002) and Catherine (8/2003)

[egoldber]

I got my DD one for Hanukkah last year. She really likes it and we mainly use it as a travel/doctor's office/restaurant "waiting for food to arrive" type toy. It lives in a bag in our car.

We have the regular Leapster, not the LMax version, and I don't miss it. There are usually deals closer to Christmas, and the games go on sale periodically at places like Target and TRU for $18.

For games, we have Disney Princess, Nemo, Letter Factory, Letterpillar, and I Spy. Her Leapster has 2 built in games, one of which is a drawing pad that she REALLY likes. These games are all good. She doesn't like the I Spy one so well, but its my personal fav. ;)

[Toba]

We actually bought the regular Leapster (and like a PP, don't miss the ability to have it on the TV at all) as a "boo-boo" present for my son. He's always been *extremely* interested in all things electronics, so we bought it for him *well* before it was intended for his age. He still loved it. Played with it for quite some time, even though he had no clue what he was doing. After the newness wore off, he didn't play with it for quite a while, but in the past 2 or 3 months, he's become VERY interested in it again (he's 28 months). We have the Nemo one, the Incredibles one and Letter Factory. He loves the Nemo one a lot. But honestly, his FAVORITE one is the one that's already pre-loaded in the machine. If you don't have a cartridge in there, it still has games/activities. His favorite part is the one where you drag different shapes up to a drawing to make a pre-determined picture. I was completely amazed that he was able to actually do pretty hard puzzles with all the correct shapes (and had the dexterity to click and drag). Definitely was worth the money, and trust me, since he had it way before he was supposed to (age-wise), I can attest that it's pretty solidly built. He's dropped/thrown it on tile/hardwood floors several times and it still works perfectly.

I have seen the Leapster itself on sale around Christmas. I've seen some games actually go on clearance at Target.


~Kimberly Anne~
Noah Nevan, March 12, 2004
*the light of my life*

[g-mama]

My ds LOVES the Leapster. We bought it for his 5th birthday last year and it has been one of the best things we've ever gotten for him. We don't see a need to limit it because it is educational. He's a very, very active child and anything that will get him to sit quietly and play independently while learning is not something I would ever discourage! :)

We didn't choose to buy the L-Max version because I saw no need for that aspect of it. He loves the one called something like "Learn to
Write and Draw" the best. It's really neat and it's definitely sparked his interest in drawing actual pictures rather than just scribbling and calling it a picture. He, too, also really likes the game that comes with the Leapster itself.

Definitely a good buy and IMO, not like a video game at all.


~Kristen

Paolo 11-00
Benjamin 8-03
Marco 12-05

[Karenn]

I was just looking into this too! Thanks for asking. Do they come with headphones? I guess what I'm really asking is are they noisy enough that they'd bother other passengers on airplanes?

[egoldber]

We do use it with headphones on the airplane, but thats mainly so that SHE can hear it over the noise of the airplane. I really don't think its that loud on a plane. Its much louder in places like the doctor's office.

[Tondi G]

LOVE IT! The regular leapster

games

Kindergarten
thomas
learn to draw and write
CARS

I highly recommend it!

~Tondi
Mommy to Mason 7/8/01 and Aidan 5/4/05

[jhmom]

I don't mean to hi-jack this thread, but it's got me thinking. We have a regular Leap Pad we are intending to give to DS (4.5yrs) soon. Do you use the Leapster INSTEAD of a Leap Pad or in addition to? How are they different other than size? THANKS!!!

[Tondi G]

we have a My first Leap pad that DS got when he was pretty young. The Leapster gets a lot more play around our house but it is different! My DS feels like a big kid playing video games (he doesn't realize the leapster is educational... LOL)! It is a lighted screen with games they play/read. He still picks up his my first leap pad from time to time though. The leappad has books that they read and play with... flipping pages etc.!

HTH's you

~Tondi

[jasmine]

We have the leapster and DS loves it. I don't miss the L-max capability since we only have 1 TV and I don't want him to get used to the idea that it is for playing games LOL :-). We have Thomas, Dora, Letter Factory, Word Factory, Nemo and he seems to cycle through them all. I would watch for Target clearances (I got a bunch of the games around january/Feb from Target at 75% off), or TRU when they run their B1G1F deals (I think this was in Dec/Jan when parents were looking for games for the leapsters their kids got for christmas) :-).

We also have the Leappad and as the previous poster mentioned, they are different (handheld game, vs. a reading system). If we could only have 1, the leapster beats the LeapPad in terms of interest.

[Joolsplus2]

My kids never liked the Leap Pad at all...the Leapster was definitely the fave.
We skipped the L-max...my whole point of games is to get them off my television, so it wasn't right for US, but I'd imagine it'd be fun with Mr Pencil (my dd's favorite, by far!). I tried to collect all the games (till they had too many...we started back when there were only two, lol). Spongebob has always been a hit, Mr Pencil...and... um... Sigh, my kids are too old now, we've had these things since the first Xmas they came out, three years ago?
Can't go wrong with the Letter Factory or Word Factory, because they have the whole video on it, which my kids LOVE. I love I Spy, but my kids don't.
I usually see the plain leapsters on sale for $48 at Target, and games go down to 18$ there, but I buy a lot on ebay for about $12 (and sell them there, too, once the kids get bored with them...some/most of the really boring games are discontinued).

:)
Julie CPS Tech and mom to 3 in seats
http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/RFAlbum/SarahMA.aspx

[egoldber]

I want to get DD a new one for her birthday? Which one do you recommend the most for a 5 year old? Mr Pencil? She already has:

Letter Factory
Nemo
Disney Princess
I Spy
Letterpillar

[Joolsplus2]

Yeah, I probably would go with it... it teaches all sorts of fun drawing and letter formations (I don't know if my dd is naturally talented, but I'm SURE it's helped her make bubble and block letters earlier than she normally would have picked them up...because I'm kind of an art dunce, she really hasn't picked up a thing from my scrapbooking, which I don't do, rofl!). They used to have ads for a mr pencil 2, but they never have released it...we'd love it! Bratz is too old, IMO, and Kindergarten is a bit boring. My dd also plays with Spongebob more than I thought she would (depends on how much you watch it on TV, I guess) and for some reason hates Disney Princesses (???? I have no idea why...well, her best friends are all at least a year older than her, it must be peer issues).



:)
Julie CPS Tech and mom to 3 in seats
http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/RFAlbum/SarahMA.aspx

[egoldber]

OK, I have a personal issue with Sponge Bob LOL, so Mr Pencil it is!

[Momof3Labs]

DS1 has a My First Leap Pad and is loving it!! I got it when Amazon did their spend $50, get a toy free (the leap pad was the free toy); they also had many games at that time for $3-4 each. I wanted to get away from the computer screen stuff since he loves playing games on the internet; this has music and other sounds but at least they are only looking at books. The games are usually $12 each but I haven't spent more than $8 (well, I spent $9 to get the Disney Cars one); NIB ones are pretty readily available on eBay.

I figured that we'd get plenty of use out of it since DS2 can play with it too, down the road. Whether your 4.5yo would go for it, I can't say, but my almost 4yo loves it!!

[kboyle]

charlie got one for his 3rd bday and while it's hard for him to figure out the buttons & he's not too good at holding the stylus & writing letters (tracing) he does like to watch the letter factory video (we have dora, letter factory & letters on the loose, which he likes too.) dora is a bit hard for him at this age since he cant figure out the buttons too well, i'm on the search for the word factory game, i think i'm gonna have to buy online.

my neice has had hers since she was 4, at almost 8 she still play with it from time to time...the portable dvd player definately trumps the leapster.

since your son is 4.5 i'd get a few *fun* stuff like the mr pencil or i-spy & also get some kindergarten games.