The Triplets Try Tech Toys

[Annonce (AD) for Vtech toys]

The triplets are now 14 months old, and crave new challenges and stimulation all day long. So it was really about time to introduce some learning toys!

I chose to start a collaboration with Vtech toys because they are a leading company in the tech toy market with 40 years of experience. That gives trust in the products, which is important to me in the big jungle of baby products. A very important aspect for me was also that the toys would speak in Danish, because that will help the kids develop their language.

It would be too chaotic giving them all the toys at once, so I introduced one toy each day for three days. And boy did they respond to them! They found the toys super exciting, fought over them all the time, fell in love with the crawling bear and just tried their hardest to figure everything out. I filmed everything, and edited the material into a film consisting of the highlights of the first meetings and experience with the toys. So here it is! I hope you like it, and find is as cute as I do. 🙂

 

I will now make a little review of each of the three toys from Vtech that you can see in the video, and I am starting out with our new little pet, the Explore & Crawl Learning Cub. <3

(From 9 to 36 months)

Already when they saw the bear inside its package, it was immediately flooded with hugs and cuddles from all three of them. 😀 And it is understandable, because the design is super cute! It is soft and of a good size, not too big to hold. In the beginning they barely let it crawl at all, because they wanted to cuddle it. But when I showed them how to make it move forward, they also wanted to try that. First they thought they should push the blinking ladybug light, but that is only there to attract their attention and encourage interaction with the four soft buttons on its back. So I will continue encouraging them to understand that they need to press those buttons to make it crawl (while saying encouraging phrases), play songs and introduce colors and shapes. They also will have to learn to let it crawl alone and not lift it up all the time, because they have a lot of fun crawling alongside it.

This toy would be perfect to get even earlier, before the baby start learning how to move forward. Then it shows the baby how you move your arms and legs when you crawl. But we still have a lot of use of it: The songs develop their language skills and the buttons and sounds challenges them to understand the principle of cause and effect.

The next toy we introduced was the Light & Move Learning Ball:

(From 6 to 36 months)

They were thrilled getting their hands on this one, and it was a bit of a fight over it to start with – crawling after it, grabbing it from each other, losing it, yelling to each other and so on. I actually had to give them the crawling bear after a short while to loose up the tense mood. 😉

It is equipped with a sensor that makes the ball wobble and roll over on its own, to encourage crawling. And that really worked! They also hit it themselves at times, so that it rolled away and then they crawled as fast as they could after it. This was a good game two of them could do together.

It is also an educational ball, and I observed that they could sit quiet for a long time just exploring all the features, so it was clearly fascinating to them. It has lots of animal keys that can be pressed, twisted and spinner to discover shapes, numbers, animals and animal sounds, all which help develop fine motor skills.

I am sure this ball will continue to be a hit in the time to come!

And in the end we had the Musical Rhymes Book:

(From 6 to 36 months)

This is a really interesting interactive storybook, consisting of many different buttons and play pieces that can be twisted and moved, all of which build motor skills. I let them try it both on their own and together with me. When they tried it by themselves they didn’t always hold it in the right way, but I tried to show them how you are supposed to hold it and turn the pages. The blinking light-up star in the middle caught the attention first, and they were very fascinated by it. They also understood that the songs would start playing when you turn the page, so they turned the pages all the time. I tried to make them pay attention to the song that were playing and tried to sing along, but they just kept turning the pages. So patience is something we will need to practice some more using this book.

There are also several piano keys on the side that says different colors and play different instrument sounds. So there is a big learning opportunity with developing language skills in the years to come. You can choose between songs with or without lyrics, and for children of Mikael’s age it is a perfect way to learn lyrics, and after a while maybe learning to read them themselves.

Conclusion: They still have a long way to go to learn how to use the toys correctly, so it will be fun to watch their development on something this specific. It was so interesting seeing how the kids interacted with the toys, you could clearly see on their faces and expressions that they found them to be new and exciting. Mikael is also very interested in playing with the toys, even though he is a few months older than the age group that they are marked with. So these are toys that can be used for many years. There will always be new features to discover, or new songs or lyrics to learn. 😀

 

– So, where can you get these toys?

You can get them online, but if you go to a physical store you can test the toys to see which one(s) you prefer. In Denmark and Norway you can find them in the following stores:

DK: BR, Bilka, Kære Børn, Ønskebørn

NO: Extra Leker

So if you wonder which one will suit your kids or grandkids the most,  go take a look in your local store!