Leap Frog Makes Another Useless Toy

I thought I might get back to something more useful today- a review of another baby toy.  

So, the item on the chopping block today is The Leap Frog My Discovery House.

This has been the second biggest toy disappointments yet.  The first being the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn House.  The Leap Frog house is about 12 inches high and about 8 inches wide and deep.  I thought it would be perfect for carrying around from room to room because it's small and it has all the activities.  I knew that my daughter, then 6 months, was rather precocious so I thought this would be a great learning toy.

Well-

There are activities on it, but it would take an adult to figure out what to do.  For example:

1.  The front of the house has a white light shown in the picture.  The light switch for this light is on a different side of the house!  How is that a good idea?  

2.  The light switch itself is smaller than a standard house light switch and proportionally more difficult to move up and down.  How is a child who is just learning fine motor control of their hands supposed to move that switch?  The Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Kitchen, on the other hand, has a HUGE, flat, age appropriate switch that teaches the kid to operate it.

3. The birds on top move up and down, but you have to push really hard on a piece of plastic that's only an 1/8" thick to make that happen.  They only chirp.  "Tweet, Tweet, Tweet, Tweet".  That's it.

4.  When you manage to pry the front door open, you see a mirror.  Very cute, but you have to really PRY it open to get at it.  Then it won't close easily.

5.  The side with the light switch also has a little lamp and a book.  They both look like you should be able to interact with them, but only the book does anything when you press it.  You have to move that ridiculously small light switch to make the light go on and off.

6.  When you do press the tiny book, there is an excerpt of some short story that is read aloud.  The words are multi-syllabic and read WAY to fast to understand.  I had to press it several time to understand the whole thing and I'm an auditory learner!

7.  The door bell on the front of the house works.  It makes the ding-dong sound.  Then a difficult to understand child voice has a dialog about who's at the front door.  The answers are:

1. A Fireman (ok, that's age appropriate, but you can't SEE the fireman so how does that help your kid?)
2. An Astronaut (whoa, really?)
3. The Dogwalker (again, this child is just learning what a DOG is much less the activity and career of dogwalking)

8.  The other side of the house has a refrigerator door that opens and a couple of shelves that you can slide some blocks around inside.  The audio track that is tripped doesn't match up with the blocks that you just slid around; when you slide the block away to reveal the carrots, it says something about milk, and so on.

9.  On the backside of the house is a rubber duck button and a faucet screw knob.  They pretty much do only two sounds, no matter what daytime setting you have selected.  (squeak, squeak)

10.  My final comment on this lousy toy is that the sound is WAY too loud on the quiet setting.  I would say that this is a general gripe about most children's toys nowadays- everything is so LOUD!  If the toy must make a noise, does everyone in the house need to hear it?  That's not good for the baby's ears!  I haven't done a decibel reading on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's louder than I play the stereo in my car.

I would have to wonder why they thought that this toy was for anyone under the age of 3.  In my experience as an educator, I would say that the content and activities are more appropriate for the 3-6 year old, but then it's too simplistic a toy for that age.

Definitely don't waste your money.