I was very excited to finally receive my parcel from Leapfrog yesterday morning. The courier arrived shortly before eleven, and I hurried to rip open the paper and confirm that My Pal Scout had safely arrived with us. I make it a rule not to open parcels in front of The Boy on the off chance that something is wrong and I have to send it back – I learned from the mistake of a good friend who brought her son a scooter at The Baby Show, when we got back to her house she told her three year old that she’d got him a scooter, showed him the box, he was thoroughly excited and then when the box was opened it was a pink scooter instead of the green one she’d thought she’d purchased! Of course by then her son was far too excited to not play with the scooter, so the pink one got used and then she couldn’t send it back for an exchange. Remembering this tale of woe, I stayed in the kitchen to unwrap Scout.
My Pal Scout is a plush green puppy (My Pal Violet is the purple version) To begin with, I like that Leapfrog have chosen green and purple as the colours, rather than the standard blue and pink options. Scout is suitable from six months to three years, with an RRP of £19.99. Scout comes with his own USB lead to plug him into your computer and personalise him specifically for your child, and the information you use is then used in Scout’s songs and in what he says to the child.
Immediately on arrival, Scout (and Violet) requires plugging into the computer for this, so if you get this as a gift I highly recommend taking it out of the packaging and doing this before the child sees it. Unfortunately where my computer is positioned The Boy can clearly see it from the front room, so as soon as I had Scout out of the box and was getting ready to plug him in, The Boy laid eyes on it.
Well, I wish I’d had the camera in my hand at that moment! The Boy’s eyes literally lit up, he gasped and smiled, stamped his feet and held both hands out reaching for Scout! He’s seen one before, a friend of his has one, and he’s always been fascinated by it whenever we’ve been to their house, so he knew the idea of Scout and couldn’t wait to get his hands on it! He had to wait, though, and that was quite difficult!
To begin with, you have to download the Leapfrog Connect Application if you’ve not already got any Leapfrog toys that require it. Depending on your system and your internet speed, downloading and applying this software varies in the time it takes to do, unfortunately for me it took a long time – half an hour of downloading software later I then faced a further forty minutes to install and begin running the software. By that point The Boy had thrown a fit about not being allowed to have Scout right away and lost interest, having wandered off to play with something else.
Once it was ready to go, I plugged in the USB cable to my PC and the other end into the box on Scout, and it registered the connection and asked for the name of the child that owns this product. Once you’ve done that you go ahead and set up the rest of the personalisation. The first screen brings up a range of names that closest match what you’ve typed in, and you go through these to get the correct pronunciation of your child’s name. Then you enter the birth month and year, and the developmental stage of the child. After that, you have to really start thinking, because it asks for the child’s favourite food, favourite animal, and favourite colour! A lot of thought has obviously gone into this part as there was a huge variety of things to choose from. I decided on cake being the favourite food as The Boy is very partial to a bit of cake (just like The Hubby!) and dog as his favourite animal purely based on how much he adores our Hairy Hounds of Hell and how excited he gets when we’re out if he sees a dog. For his favourite colour, I was stumped; he’s never shown preference to a particular colour before, how on earth should I pick? In the end I randomly selected blue! Finally you choose five daytime songs and five lullaby songs – again, this is from a very long list, so make sure you’ve got some time to sit and go through this properly! I chose daytime songs that were bouncy, funky and familiar – ABC, Babaloo, Down In Jamaica
Scout has a patch on each of his four paws. There is a pink bouncing ball patch to mark the ‘activities’ paw; a green music note for the ‘daytime songs’ paw; a blue moon and stars for the lullabies paw and a red on/off paw. Scout’s songs include a song about the child, where Scout spells the child’s name; a song about the favourite things you’ve selected (so we end up singing a song about wanting a blue dog that eats cake!) There’s a lovely song ‘Me And My Pal (child’s name)’ which never fails to bring a smile to The Boy. The voice of Scout is perfect in my opinion – clear, English speaking, gentle and childlike, it sounds friendly and encourages the child to think about responding by asking questions of the child, such as “My favourite colour is *colour* - Is that your favourite colour, too?”
Scout is a friendly puppy who likes to ask for cuddles, which The Boy is very obliging about and more than happy to provide! Scout is so brightly coloured, soft and well made that it is a gorgeous addition to any child’s toy collection, with the added bonus of being so interactive. One thing I absolutely love is that Scout’s lullaby button can be pressed once for two minutes of songs, twice for five minutes, or three times for ten minutes of lullabies. This feature is fantastic, and when he went for a nap yesterday and today and when he went to sleep last night, I set Scout to play lullabies for ten minutes and each time The Boy has cuddled up with his new friend and been asleep by the end of the ten minutes.
I will continue to write more about Scout as time goes on, but my first impressions of this product are very good and I wish I’d got a Scout for The Boy months ago. As it is advertised as suitable from six months, by the time The Boy was a year old I worried that Scout would be a bit babyish – after all, some of the stuff he has is meant to be from 6-36 months and he wasn’t interested by the time he was a year old, so I was a bit dubious, but you get out of Scout what you put in, and as the developmental stage can be changed Scout grows with your child, preventing it from being too babyish too quickly. He is already very taken with Scout, and since it arrived and I finished personalising it The Boy has had Scout by his side. I highly recommend this product for anyone with a young child not only for educational but also for entertainment, I can see Scout coming on a lot of adventures with us in the future!
Pros:
Suitable from 6-36 months – Can change developmental stage as child learns and keep track of their learning with the Leapfrog Learning Path (online)
Can be used alongside a variety of other Leapfrog products to continue encouraging your child to learn
Brightly coloured, well made plush toy – so much more than just a cuddly toy, but still nice for little people to cuddle
Very good value for money. USB lead included and nice clear instructions on how to set up.
Cons:
Took a while for me to download software and install
USB lead very short – my computer tower is floor level so this means poor Scout has to sit on the floor while he’s plugged in, so I had to put him in a plastic bag to stop him getting hairy and stop the Hairy Hounds running off with him!
The box that contains the information is a very tight squeeze to get into Scout once you've finished personalising it and want to give it to the child - it took me a while to wedge it in the gap and do up the velcro over it.
Not sure how easy it would be to personalise it for a six month old baby!
Every time Scout says The Boy’s name he smiles and claps and is utterly delighted; he seems captivated by this perky puppy, and the fact that it combines some of his favourite things together (technology, a dog, and a blue light flashing in the ‘Scout’ name tag) makes him like it even more. I think we have a new favourite toy in our household! Yay for Leapfrog and yay for Scout!
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