Fridge Words Magnetic Word Builder
by LeapFrog
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List Price: Our Price: $19.99 You Save: $8.00 (29%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $18.99 (click here) Category: Toy See more product details |
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Toys and Games Reviews of Fridge Words Magnetic Word Builder
Customer Review: Some useful info about this product and An update!
Summary: 4 Stars
Hi, I just received this item on amazon last week, just wanted to point out a few things:
1. You will notice in the product images are 2 products, the Word Whammer and the Word Builder, though this listing is for the Word Builder.
The Word Builder is the updated version of the Word Whammer.
However, when I recieved my order from Amazon they sent me the wrong product, they sent me the Word Whammer at first!
I called them and they graciously sent the Word Builder by 1 day mail, so be aware that this may happen.
2. Other then the airplane theme, someone pointed out to me that the Word Builder includes lowercase letters. I thought this meant that it has both upper and lowercase letters. It doesn't. It ONLY has lowercase letters.
I think the idea is that if you bought the Leapfrog Fridge Phonics Magnetic Alphabet set, meant for younger kids just learning letters, you would have the uppercase, then when your child is older, you get this one, the Word Builder which has the lowercase letters.
Since my child is 2 1/2 and I want the uppercase letters, I'm going to to buy this too, I guess... :(
Fyi, the Word Whammer had/has only uppercase like the LP fridge Alphabet Set.
Update: I bought the Fridge Phonics Magnetic Alphabet set also, however I found out they are not interchangeable, the uppercase letters from the Fridge Phonics set do not fit in the Word Builder.
Customer Review: Excellent!
Summary: 5 Stars
My son is now 5 and a half and has had this for a good 2 years now. He's gotten so much more use out of this than he did out of the regular letters. I have to say, I, for some reason, expected this to be compatible with the other version that is just letters, but it's not. I was really mad at first, but I'm over it. Seeing how he uses this thing, still, almost every day, and how much it has helped him and how much he has learned from it. It's the best thing I ever came across and bought for him. When he's spelling and sounding out words and asking us how to spell something, I can now ask him to go to his word builder, if it's a 3 letter word, and he pounds out words until he figures it out. Many times, if it ends in "ing" or "ed" or something like that, I tell him to focus on the "root" of the word, again, if it's 3 letters, and I tell him I will help him with the ending. It's really got him doing things on his own, thinking about the word, and learning the letters that make each sound. GREAT product! Do I wish it came with 4 letters? Absolutely! I mentioned it to my husband once and he looked at me like I was crazy. He (a math guy) said the number of possible combinations for 4 letters becomes so insane that it would be simply ridiculous for them to make it and it would lose the value that this one has of being simple and easy to use for the kids. I agree. I just didn't think of it that way at first.Customer Review: Good ideas, but needs some improvement
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this toy for my 2 1/2 year old for Christmas this year. I thought that he would love this toy. We had bought the alphabet fridge phonics when he was a year old and he played with this every day. It really helped him in learning all his uppercase letters before his second birthday, so I figured that this toy would help him in the same with recognizing how letters start to go together to make different sounds.
The first problem we ran into was that the letters are lowercase. Initially I liked this when I saw it in the store because it woule help him to learn his lowercase letters. But all it is doing is making him confused when he plays with the magnets from the first toy and mixes it in with this toy. This leaves him frusterated and unwilling to try and find the next letter.
Secondly, when you are on the word builder option (where it tells you to find the letter and put it in the spot with the blinking light) it doesn't allow enough time to find the letter.
In my house these magnets are constantly being moved around the fridge. So by the time he actually finds the letter it is asking for, the game has moved on to trying to spell another word. Which leaves him fusterated again because he has to start all over.
I am sure that eventually he will get it but these few issues make him wary to play with this toy.
Customer Review: Great toy!
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this for my 2 year old. He loves to be in the kitchen with me and previously spent most of that time putting up ABCs magnets on the frig and then scattering them onto the floor. Eventually we ended up with an abridged alphabet, as well as a not so happy Mommy stepping and tripping over letters while attempting to make dinner. This was the perfect solution. Not only does it encourage him to keep the magnets off the floor, but he actually likes to put in different letters and hear their sounds. My only complaint with this set is all the letters are lower case however I've read that other Leap Frog magnet letters work with this- and they have upper case letters.
I will caution I feel this is more appropriate for an older child- preschool age. But I figured we'd grow into it and as long as he has keeps an interest in "learning" the letters, I didn't mind. Since he isn't' able to make words on his own we play the 'find a letter' game. Initially it was tricky but thankfully I only know so many three-letter words, so he's learning the letters. We also play the color game with them- find all the yellow letters and so on. Or counting game- can you find three red letters and so on.
So while it's not necessarily geared to be a toy for a child so young in my opinion, you can easily make it a toy they can grow with if you're creative.
Customer Review: CVCs, Phonetic pronounciations
Summary: 5 Stars
It's a bummer that some of the Word Whammers need an electrician to straighten out the kinks. But I guess I got a "good one" because it works fine.
I think its sturdy, mine has been dropped several times including one trip down the stairs with no ill effects. I'm often prying the letter out the baby's mouth, so the pieces are slobber resistant.
I love the fact that when a word or non-word is placed into the word whammer it will pronounce it phonetically, albeit staccato. So "guk" is sounded out as g-uh-k. After realizing it would say "guk" for me I tried a certain rhyming word when my son wasn't around. Nope, the editors thought enough to skim over this potential word. "God," one of the words overlooked, is at least sounded out. So we can take comfort in the fact that "god" is not treated like certain swear word. Seriously tough, sounding out words even if you or your electronic toy don't recognise it, is critical in phonemic awareness.
The word whammer also helps children find certain letters with colour as a cue. I'm pleased that they thought to make all the vowels red, so I can cue my son to create simple CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words.
Overall 20-25 dollars well spent. Come on folks, its not meant to replace parents and teachers.