By Sherman Isaacs
As most people having a pre-schooler would tell you, just about all youngsters between the ages of 2 and 5 exhibit certain particular character traits: they are energetic beyond belief (the Energizer bunny has nothing on them); they don't like to eat their vegetables; and they like to write - predominantly on the walls. With regard to the 3rd item, assuming that you have actually desired that their writing be fruitful rather than merely aimless, the Leapfrog Scribble and Write may be just what the doctor ordered (as well as a cool toy and gift).
As many of you with smaller kids probably already know, Leapfrog is actually a company that develops gadgets which merge teaching with entertainment. Whereas I couldn't actually swear that each and every individual product of theirs lands on the mark, a decent variety of them do, and the Scribble and Write is just such an item.
The Scribble and Write is really meant for teaching the alphabet, and it presents four techniques for doing so: drawing; tracing upper-case characters; tracing lower-case letters; and guessing characters. It accomplishes this basically by presenting certain geometric forms and alphabetic letters, formed by scarlet dots, which are displayed on a traceable writing surface. Following the verbal commands received from the Scribble and Write - which comes with an interactive speech module - a stylus (also included) may then be utilized to outline the particular item which appears. (The stylus pen, mercifully, is affixed to the Scribble and Write, thus there's little anxiety about losing it.)
Turning now to drawing, the goal is to make your little tot more comfortable with drawing the lines, and also the curves, that make up the letters of the alphabet. Bearing that in mind, various shapes - circles, lines, zigzags, and so forth - appear on the writing area for your child to trace.
The tracing of capital as well as lower-case letters functions in the same manner, except that your little tot is actually able to decide the letter of the alphabet he/she would like to draw. (The letters all appear on small buttons on the face of the toy.) Plus, the Scribble and Write slowly and methodically describes how the character is to be sketched. As an illustration, it clearly shows how the letter "L" is usually drawn by stating that you start at the very top and draw a line straight down, and then make a line across. Upon completing any tracing task, your child presses the "paw" button (there's a cute little pup shown on the Scribble and Write) and is notified whether he accurately traced the character or not. During the very last teaching method, the Scribble and Write draws characters and asks your little one to correctly determine what they are by pushing the right button.
In brief, the Scribble and Write can probably be viewed as learning by repetition (which is probably how many of us were taught), and I don't find anything particularly wrong with that. As a parent with two young children, I think it's an absolutely terrific educational instrument, and a pretty cool toy or gift for kids. Furthermore, our young ones really enjoy using it, and don't really have an inkling that they're having fun and learning at the same time.
As many of you with smaller kids probably already know, Leapfrog is actually a company that develops gadgets which merge teaching with entertainment. Whereas I couldn't actually swear that each and every individual product of theirs lands on the mark, a decent variety of them do, and the Scribble and Write is just such an item.
The Scribble and Write is really meant for teaching the alphabet, and it presents four techniques for doing so: drawing; tracing upper-case characters; tracing lower-case letters; and guessing characters. It accomplishes this basically by presenting certain geometric forms and alphabetic letters, formed by scarlet dots, which are displayed on a traceable writing surface. Following the verbal commands received from the Scribble and Write - which comes with an interactive speech module - a stylus (also included) may then be utilized to outline the particular item which appears. (The stylus pen, mercifully, is affixed to the Scribble and Write, thus there's little anxiety about losing it.)
Turning now to drawing, the goal is to make your little tot more comfortable with drawing the lines, and also the curves, that make up the letters of the alphabet. Bearing that in mind, various shapes - circles, lines, zigzags, and so forth - appear on the writing area for your child to trace.
The tracing of capital as well as lower-case letters functions in the same manner, except that your little tot is actually able to decide the letter of the alphabet he/she would like to draw. (The letters all appear on small buttons on the face of the toy.) Plus, the Scribble and Write slowly and methodically describes how the character is to be sketched. As an illustration, it clearly shows how the letter "L" is usually drawn by stating that you start at the very top and draw a line straight down, and then make a line across. Upon completing any tracing task, your child presses the "paw" button (there's a cute little pup shown on the Scribble and Write) and is notified whether he accurately traced the character or not. During the very last teaching method, the Scribble and Write draws characters and asks your little one to correctly determine what they are by pushing the right button.
In brief, the Scribble and Write can probably be viewed as learning by repetition (which is probably how many of us were taught), and I don't find anything particularly wrong with that. As a parent with two young children, I think it's an absolutely terrific educational instrument, and a pretty cool toy or gift for kids. Furthermore, our young ones really enjoy using it, and don't really have an inkling that they're having fun and learning at the same time.
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