Little Leaps By LeapFrog

I'll review Little Leaps, by LeapFrog, and then give you the best deals on saving money when purchasing LeapFrog Educational Toys.

Little-Leaps is a learning system that is mostly aimed at under 3 year olds, starting from about 6 months. You start with the basic controller set, which works via your DVD, then purchase software activity packages with various themes and learning outcomes. The controllers come with two sizes, so you you start with the baby size, which is big and chunky differently shaped buttons easy for a small baby to manipulate, then change it over to the controller stick, for a toddler, to encourage finer motor development.

Like all the LeapFrog educational toys, Little-Leaps has interactive activities that are designed to extend your child's learning, using cartoon animals or familiar Disney Characters to engage a toddlers attention.

Each Software game focuses on a different theme, and contains a number of different activities.

Some of the themes are:

• Music: Sounds, rhythm, poems
• Colors
• Shapes
• Matching and Sorting
• Numbers and Counting
• Words and Letters
• Feelings
• Friends
• Animals
• Opposites

Using Little Leaps

I don't have quite so many concerns with Little-Leaps as I do with some of the LeapFrog games of older children (see the links at the left for reviews of other LeapFrog Educational Toys). With the Little Leaps range, parents really have to be more involved with their child. Parents sometimes underestimate how important it is to be interacting with their children. They often tend to want them to play independently so they can get on with other activities. And that is something you want to encourage, but you do need to be involved in your child's learning, and they need to get positive interaction and feedback from a person, not a speaking toy!

So long as children - babies and older children, are given access to a wide range of activities and experiences, not just electronic toys that focus more on academic subjects, then I do believe the LeapFrog range of toys are fantastic. Kids need to be interacting with 'human beans' - not just machines! I know we live in a very high tech world and kids are very tuned in to technology, so we can take advantage of that to enhance learning. But these kinds of toys should never take the place of running around outside in the park climbing trees, jumping in puddles and eating worms with their little friends. There is increasing evidence that social development has been adversely effected for children who spend long hours using gaming machines, educational or otherwise.

So use these Little Leaps as just one of the toys and activities you do with your little one, its a big wide world out there, don't rush them to excel academically at the expense of the rest of their development.

Getting the Best Deals on LeapFrog Educational Toys

I highly recommend you checkout the prices of purchasing Little-Leaps via Auction. I recommend Ebay, as the most trusted and secure site, plus it has by FAR, the highest number of listings, particularly for babies or pre-school toys. (But really you can buy anything on Ebay, even houses!)

I've covered more of the advantages of buying LeapFrog educational toys via secure online Auctions in this general Leapfrog Games Article.

If you have not used Ebay before, it is really simple, once you click through on a listing, you can log in or register up the top. You just need an email address and user name. Placing a bid is simple too, you can place a one off bid, or put your max bid in place and Ebay will automatically increase your bid in small increments to out bid other bidders. That way you can be tracking something even while you sleep!

Compare the Ebay Auction listings below with the Amazon prices in the right hand column. In general, even new, you will find you can get a much better deal purchasing via Auction. And many of the Sellers have a buy now price, that is still often cheaper than retail. They will also often do deals with free postage if you purchase three items, for example.

I would also recommend you watch the items that are nearly ready to expire - they are listed below in that order, and are updated hourly, you would just need to refresh your page. I have often got incredible bargains at the last minute when there were not any other bidders. Just before I uploaded this page there was an entire little-leaps system with 8 software packages (pre-loved) that had 2 minutes to go and only had a bid for $5.50! Someone probably got an incredible deal!

Auction Listings for Little Leaps

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