Leapfrog Holiday Playdate Party
Because everyone needs something else to do over the holidays - I decided to add to the madness and host a Leapfrog Holiday Playdate Party 3 days before Christmas. The timing was perfect as the kids were out of school and us moms needed activities. Courtenay stepped up and co-hosted because she has the most fabulous house with a kick-ass playroom that can hold us all - we ended up with 15 moms and 20+ kids (ranging in age from 4 weeks to 7yrs old).
As part of my role as a Leapfrog Mom I was given some of their best selling toys to share with my mom friends and their kids. The Holiday Playdate Party was the venue I chose to share the toys - allowing people to check them out and play with them and then pick their favourite to take home. The party was hopping, with the working moms off work and kids out of school, we had the best turn out for "coffee" in a long time. The pictures tell a lot - the kids and moms alike loved the tag junior and the tag read along books. They help with reading skills and associations between words and pictures with a huge selection of books you can upload and program easily on your computer.
The Text and Learn was maybe the biggest hit amongst the moms - lucky for me many of the moms already had one or had purchased for Christmas gifts - so the couple I had to give away went to the few people who didn't already have them. For the youngest kids The cuddly green puppy named "Scout" and the AlphaPet Explorer were big hits. Once you set up Scout on the computer and program your childs name in he sings songs and interacts with your child by name and incorporates favourite colours/animals and foods into conversation - very cute. Scout also sings lullabies for 2, 5 or 10 minutes and turns off automatically when finished for a great way to help your little one drift off. My daughter Kate (2yrs) is a big fan and has renamed Scout "Kate Bear" as he always calls her by her name.
Another great thing about many of the Leapfrog toys (especially if you have multiple kids) is that they can be used together with parents or independently. It's great to see how engaged kids get when interacting with the talking toys - it's like you can see the learning happening! This has helped me out on more than a few occasions as I learn to juggle 2 kids!
As a mom of two pre-schoolers I appreciate the expertise on age appropriate learning toys to help me guide their development. Check out the Leapfrog Learning Path - an online tool set up to help you see your child's play and learning progress.
