Ok….best (educational) toy in my opinion is the Leap Frog Word Whammer.  My oldest got it when he was 2 or 3 (seems so long ago I can barely remember).  He’s almost 9 now and it still works perfectly for my 4 and 2 year olds who are constantly playing with it.  There are various learning stages including – Letter Hunt, Word Builder and Word Hunt – where the kids can simply learn the letters and their sounds, find letters to make a word that is given to them or build their own word.  For your preschooler it’s fantastic as it says each letter as well as sounds out each letter phonetically so that your child can learn not only to  identify the letters but to also recognize the sounds that each letter makes – which is an integral step to reading.   For your littler ones (who just must do what their older siblings are doing) there is also a button that just plays the ABC’s.  My daughter was singing her ABC’s by the time she was 18 months – definitely due to the fact that she listened to it on the Whammer a thousand times a day and now at 2 can identify many of the letters.

There are a couple nice features that I really like – one is that the Whammer will give your child a clue if they are having a hard time…such as if they are looking for the letters for CAT:  it will first say, “Lets hunt for the letters that spell CAT –  C-A-T”…..

then, “CAT starts with the letter C”……and if they still take a while to find the C, the next clue might be “the letter C is green” so it can narrow it down for them by color.  Another nice feature is that if your child builds a word (that is not actually a word such as B-L-V) the Whammer will still sound it out and then say “great sounds!” so even though an actual word wasn’t made, it still gives positive credit and allows them to hear the sounds again.  Oh, and I almost forgot – there are a handful of “favourite” words and if your child builds one of those – get ready for a little celebration – the Whammer sings a song and the kids are without a doubt beaming with pride.  That is definitely their favourite feature!!

I would highly recommend the Leap Frog Word Whammer.  Ours has had a constant spot on the refrigerator for the past 6 years and I believe it will continue to live there for a few more.  My kids (all of them) are constantly playing with it.  It is a toy that will definitely grow with your child from toddler all the way to Kindergarten and beyond.  And it is one (of the very few) that can survive continuous use and then can still be passed down to other kids.

Where can you find it in Kamloops??

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