Leapfrog Frozen Favourites

All through November, Leapfrog were inviting you to vote for your Leapfrog favourites on their facebook page.  Your favourite games and books for Leappad, Leapster GS, LeapTV, Leapreader and Leapreader Junior.  The votes are now in and the nation's favourite Leapfrog content has been revealed as:-

LeapReader Junior - Disney Princesses
LeapReader - Paw Patrol
LeapPad - Frozen
LeapTV - Paw Patrol

Of course, we all have our own favourites but Holly is largely in agreement.  Right now Holly has her very own favourite Leapfrog games - the Disney Frozen games for Leappad and LeapTV.

The Disney Frozen game for LeapTV is an interactive game to be played with the Leapfrog learning games console plugged into your TV.  The game features a series of mini-games set around the Arandelle winter festive; each game which practices first number skills and rewards your child with fun activities to take part in.  The game is recommended for children aged 4-7 years old but I'm finding that Holly is eager to play and in fact, many of the first levels of each of the games is well suited to her.  In one game she has to identify from sight, numbers between 10 and 20.  In another she has to match patterns of numbers in sequence.  Some of the interactive points in the game which require strong hand-eye co-ordination (such as making Anna and Elsa skate around a rink, or selecting points on the screen) are perhaps better suited to a slightly older child but Holly absolutely loves the magic of the game.

Holly's favourite element of the game is building jewellery with the snowflakes that she has earned from her maths puzzles. Once she has chosen the layout of coloured snowflakes she can stand in front of the screen and take a photo of herself "wearing" her new jewellery creation!  We love this game and it is a brilliant opportunity for us to help her practice her counting skills while immersing herself in the wonders of Arandelle.

Holly also has a Disney Frozen game to play on the Leappad (not Leappad 1) - this is a reading learning game with simple spelling and reading skills for children aged 4-7 years.  Once again, the game is just a little advanced for Holly but she is so eager to play that she is really stretching herself.  This is wonderful to watch - Holly is just learning to read and she can quickly recognise letters but has to push herself hard to sound them out and put them together.  One particular mini-game that I've been very impressed with sees Olaf challenge you to build flower-patterns by spelling out words using the letters from a bigger word such as "ballroom" or "snowflake" (I'll forget I saw a spelling mistake in the game itself).  I'm so impressed that, using the visual clues on the screen, Holly is able to put together words and string together letters.  She doesn't realise it, but this game really is helping Holly to read.

And that is perhaps the most satisfying thing of all.  As a big Leapfrog fan, I've always sought to use Leapfrog games and books to support Lara's reading and maths skills in a fun way.  But with Holly, she has access to them much earlier in life than her big sister did and now I can genuinely see that the games and books are teaching her.  They are more than just fun ways of re-inforcing a message; they are learning tools.  What better way of helping Holly on her learning journey than through the medium of Anna and Elsa - her two favourite princesses!

The Frozen game for Leappad also includes handwriting skills for tracing letters (perfect for Holly to practice pen control) and a read-along story with which you can interact.