LeapFrog Learning Drum
by LeapFrog
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List Price: Category: Toy See more product details |
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Toys and Games Reviews of LeapFrog Learning Drum
Customer Review: serious design and usability flaws
Summary: 1 Stars
I was excited to get this drum because of the great reviews, and because I love all the other LeapFrog products. However, as soon as I got the learning drum, some pretty immediate problems became obvious:
1) The drum turns itself off entirely if left alone for more than a minute or so. Thus, if the baby starts to hit it again, there's NO response at all. The only way to get the drum to be responsive is to switch it to some other setting (and back again if you want to keep it in the mode it was in). No other LeapFrog products do this, which is so weird and unexpected. Hence, you MUST be with your kid for him to play with this thing, or he'll ignore it due to its lack of responsiveness.
2) The music is annoyingly reptetitive and monotonic. There are no sing-songy tunes like all other LeapFrog products, which our baby really (REALLY) enjoys. The music here feels like one of those old video games in the 80s you play on TV. While our child loves to bang his hands to the music from the other LeapFrog products, this music entices him to do nothing. Even if he does hit the drum, the sound of the drum hit is so drowned out by the music, there's no perceived cause/effect with his strike.
3) Because of (2), we tried the mode where there is no music, and where the toy will announce the numbers and letters with each hit as they are projected on the screen. At this point, it dawned on me that 8-9 months is way too early for him to pick up on the concepts of the sound/letter/number association with the audio of visual. If anything, this concept wouldn't be understood until well after age 2, especially the attempt at communicating a SEQUENCE to the digits/letters. So, for an infant, the only real benefit he gets out of this is the fact that he hits it, and there's a sound. The light has no impression on him. Yet, just a simple tonal response is too boring to keep his attention for long.
4) The option for musical notes is probably the best of all these extremely poor options, because there is a closer association between his strikes and SOME kind of toy feedback. The problem is, it's just too brief and boring. He already has a much better experience in this regard to the Musical Learning Center, also by LeapFrog.
In the end, I would avoid this product entirely. We won't even give it to someone else as a gift.
Customer Review: Too Battery Conscious
Summary: 1 Stars
The idea of this toy is wonderful. Indeed, when I can get my 9-month-old daughter to play with it, she likes it. The problem is that she can't play with it on her own.Here's what happens: You turn it on. It's got several great modes. You can switch to alphabet mode, whereby it plays the next letter of the alphabet each time you hit the drum (or each time the drum hits the floor, the wall, the crib...). It also has number mode, pattern matching mode, and so on. As soon as you turn it on, a happy voice announces "Let's play the drum!"
At this point, you have 15 seconds to do something. If your child wanders off, as mine is prone to do, it will turn itself off after that 15 seconds. When I say this, I don't mean that the drum will stop making noise and turn off all of it's lights to conserve battery power and parental sanity. I mean that it turns itself OFF.
Invariably, my daughter returns a few minutes later and hits the drum or uses the handle to bang it on the floor, which by all accounts should bring it back to life (most of her other toys do). Not so. In order to turn it back on, you have to press the yellow star on the front or switch it to another mode.
I'm not in the least biased when I say that my daughter is the smartest 9-month-old in the universe - really, I'm not =) - but she is not yet sophisticated enough to understand that she must turn her toys on if she wants to play with them. The end result is that she can only play with the drum under supervision. Since I bought the toy for the Independent Play feature listed on the website, this does not serve my purpose - and is highly annoying in the bargain.
As far as learning cause and effect, I think this toy has been more of a hindrance than a help. She doesn't know why it makes noise because sometimes it does something and sometimes it does nothing.
Now, the Discover Ball that I bought at the same time is wonderful. She wanders over and spins it and it sings the alphabet or plays music, any time she wants to play with it. And I have yet to change the batteries...
Customer Review: Great Little Drum!
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this item for my little niece and she loves it. She has some bongo drums at home and normally hits them with all her might then, while Christmas shopping I bumped into this little gem. I found it to be the right gift for her. What baby wouldn't enjoy smacking a drum and getiing some fun and learning out of it?
There's a slide control switch on the side where you can choose from 1.off 2. ABC's 3. Counting up to 10 4. Drum tapping games 5. Music
When you slide the switch to ABC's you go through the whole alphabet, lighted up in dots of red LED lights, you also have some Spanish music in the background. When you hit the top it will say the letter "A... *electronic music in the background*" The same applies when you count from 1-10
When you slide the switch to the picture of the drum, it's a drum tapping game. You will hear a simple patter and you have to tap the same pattern that you heard. What's great about this is that even if you don't tap the right pattern it still gives you positive reinforcement and it says something like "You're great! or Great Job!" This will surely make your little one feel good.
The last little option with the music notes is just music and you can tap with the music without disturbing the playing of it. I found that my little niece who is 9-months old loved tapping on this drum a lot! Of course, she doesn't give it enough time for her to hear the alphabetical letters or numbers and it keeps repeating the same 1st syllable, but that's where you as a parent have to step in. I usually take her hand and guide it along each letter and repeat it after she hears it. She likes to grab it by the handle and set it on its side and she smacks it like Ricky Ricardo and his Babalu.
Customer Review: Taught him to sit up!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I love this toy. As a Child Psychologist, I always look for toys that will be both fun and educational. Specifically I look for toys that assist in the developmental skills that my son is currently primed to learn. When he began hitting objects with his open hand, patting everything around him, I looked for a toy that encouraged this action. I also noted that he was beginning to learn to sit up. THIS DRUM IS PERFECT for both skills. It also teaches cause and effect association. Once he realized that the noise occurred when he hit the drum, it never ended!! We purchased it when he was 3.5 mos. old and it continues to be his favorite toy today at 10 mos. The drum uses encouraging and reinforcing phrases that encourage interaction. It is VERY SENSITIVE and will make the tapping noise even when hit from the side or bottom; so many toys have to be hit a particular way and are too challenging for infants (you know what I mean, they have to turn this or twist that, you end up doing it more than the infant). It has several modes (letters, numbers, sounds, and repeat-after-me) and 2 background tunes. It has an automatic shut off and encourages the child to "hit the drum" twice prior to shut off, if the child stops playing with it. It is a bit pricey, but worth the money considering how the toy can grow with your child. My son learned to sit up by holding onto this toy and its attached handle. It has all the aspects that a learning toy should. I can't wait to see how my son plays with the toy when he is learning his numbers and letters. I absolutely love it!! I consider it a "must-have" in his toy chest.Customer Review: If it makes baby happy, it makes me happy.
Summary: 4 Stars
My son likes to bang on EVERYTHING, so we decided to purchase this for him as a christmas gift at 6 months. He liked it, banged on it and had his smiles and giggles.
He has so many toys I put it in his toy chest and forgot about it for a little while. Then about 1 month later I pulled it out handed it to him, and he looked down at it then looked up at me and just sat and gave me the biggest smile ever. Made me cry, even thinking about it makes my eyes water.
He enjoyed it more than he did a month earlier, we turned all the lights out and the lights fasinated him.
As far as what I think about the drum, it's ok. It turns off by itself to quickly then when the drum is silent he'll just move on to the next toy. It does have an easy to push button that my son knows how to push, but he doesn't yet know that the button turns it on. The lights could be brighter so we don't have to turn the lights out to get the full affect and there should also be a better freestyle drum selection.
I think this would be more suitable for older children learning thier ABCs but I think by then this is a little too babish. At first Daddy had more fun with it than baby did, but baby has warmed up to it now.
I couldn't really say I would recommend this item because I think it depends on the baby. Daddy is a producer and has his home studio that baby plays in from time to time so he has been exposed to music and different instruments from in the womb to present.
For the price I think it's a good deal.