Vtech V.Smile V-Motion TV Learning System

We give the Vtech V.Smile V-Motion TV Learning System a HUGE five stars! Vtech recently sent us a system to try out and review and my 3.5 year old absolutely LOVES it! We used the game which came with the system to test it and he loved the racing and dexterity games.

Some of the great features are: The system can be run by either batteries or an A/C adaptor (not included) which means it can be used in the car if you're lucky enough to have TV screens. The controller can be switched so if your child is right handed or left handed they can use it with ease. The controller is ingenius as you can either use the joystick or thumb pad, OR shake the controller to make actions happen. It's up to your child and their level of ability. It's truly a plug and play system and took about two minutes to hook up and have it running.

The only thing I can think of to criticize is that it doesn't come with an A/C adaptor, but these can be purchased very inexpensively at most electronics stores.

Within the first few minutes, my son was getting the hang of it and doing things on his own. It teaches you letters, numbers and helps with dexterity and hand-eye coordination as well. While we sat with him the first few times he played the games, he was soon choosing his own games and navigating through the options without our assistance. It's amazing how easy it is to use! We still sit with him, but now it's just to cheer him on and give him the reassurance and reinforcement he loves to hear!

This is a great idea for a Christmas gift! We've actually now purchased several new games for him as presents and can't wait to see how he does. The games themselves are smart too, utilizing characters kids are familiar with such as Thomas the Tank Engine, Dora the Explorer, The Wonder Pets and many more. Our son and my husband and I all give this a hearty FIVE STAR rating and highly recommend the product!

Thank you VTech for giving us the opportunity to review this product! Once again, VTech has come through with a quality and fun product for little kids to learn with!

You can visit VTech at their website of: http://www.vtechkids.com/ as they have a wide range of high quality products.

For a purchase option, click on the image above.

If your child likes Thomas the Tank Engine, here is the BEST investment you can make! It's called "Take Along Thomas". This series of sets includes all the tracks and stations etc. to build the whole Island of Sodor. Everything is sold separately, so you can buy just what you'd like. It's a die cast iron set which can endure anything your child throws at it!

We had a friend who gave us a bag of the trains and once we saw how much our son loved them, we purchased the Tank Engine Shed and Carnival set and made our own little island. Our son LOVES it and plays with it for hours. He re-creates all the episodes he has seen and all of his trains talk to each other! I prefer this set to the traditional wooden set as it takes a beating and the pieces are a bit smaller, less chunky. They say it's for ages 2+ although my son started playing with these at about 1.5 years old.

You can find all the sets here: www.mytoybox.com. We attached the tracks to a big piece of plywood so it would stay together and then built a table beneath it with legs on rollers so we could roll the whole thing out of the way when he wasn't using it.

Adventure Play Sets Pathfinder Wooden Swing Set

We recently purchased this swing set for our son and give it a rating of FOUR and a HALF. We have been looking at sets for the past three years trying to find just the right one at the right price. Any of the other cedar sets we found were priced in the thousands of dollars. We are hindered by a small yard, so the set we chose had to fit.

We saw this one at Wal-Mart at a price of $399.00 and our interest was immediately peaked. It has everything we wanted, a sturdy slide, sandbox, three swings, tree house and even a little table with bench which can be used like a lemonade stand.

The reason it only gets a 4.5 rating was due to the length of assembly. It took my husband and his brother 8-10 hours to put together-although it clearly tells you to expect this. Out of all the pieces which came in the box (everything you need to assemble except sand for the sandbox) only one small washer was missing. That was phenomenal! Here is a picture of what it looked like spread out in our garage prior to assembly as well as a picture of it put together.

This is a well crafted set which we expect will hold up well over time and our two sons. Time will tell, but we're very optimistic and really like this set-as does our son!!

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