you are soooo wrong! That toy is so fabulous! it's not very loud, my kid is learning words from it already, as as opposed to other *house* type toys, it's 2 dimensional nature makes it perfect for smaller spaces.

I have already told my family and my wife's family that if they want to buy our son a noisy toy that it must stay in their home and he can play with it when he comes to visit.

My son is actually loud enough without a toy ;)

We have a Chenille ABC (I have no idea what it's called in English) by Leapfrog. Lucas loves it. Adores it. The first one broke and we (against our better judgment) replaced it. Each of the feet triggers a phonetic pronunciation, a letter, a colour or a song, depending on the mode you are in.

When you leave it alone long enough (a length of time designed to make you forget it was being played with) it bellows out "Merci de choisi Leapfrog" (thanks for choosing leapfrog). 6 months on with this toy and that bit never fails to make me jump.

I don't really understand how some of these toys can be marketed as "for learning." How can the sound of a door creaking teach you about a door? Someone ought to have a rebuttal to a theory that posits sounds as a replacement for traditional manipulatives (blocks, counting objects, etc).

This reminds me of a plastic phone I had when I was little where you'd pull a string and it would play one of a number of sounds. Eventually, the only one it would play was an increasingly warbly "Say hello to my doooooggie!" I loved it, but my parents hated it. Again, totally non-educational, and yet these toys have persisted throughout the years.

mortimersmom is right! It's big, I suppose, but this toy does so many, real-world things that I can't even begin to describe them all. My father got it for the boy for xmas this year, he had a hard time finding one, but I would recommend it to anyone. This one actually teaches things and it's very cute and clever.

Let the kid have fun for chrissakes.

OK, so this has nothing to do with the Learning Home.

The Leap Frog "Chenille ABC" mentioned above by Cameron is called the "Alphabet Pal" here in the US. We received it as a Christmas gift this year. As we are not plastic toy people, we were not terribly excited, and it is truly ugly (remember "Cooties"?) But I will hand it to Leap Frog - the shear number of functions performed by the Pal is impressive.

Of course, seeing that it spelled out things phonetically, I was immediately draw to try out some, ahem, naughty words. But those Leap Froggers were way ahead of me. It inserts a giggle and a "that tickles" in between the phonetic sounds. Score one for the insect.

Also, on its back sits "Oedipus," who I gather is one of Leap Frog's signature characters. What were they thinking? Oedipus? Murders his father and marries his mother? Not what I would call a first rate choice of names for a kid's character.

Our son has not really taken to it yet, other than to keep pushing the same leg over and over, resulting in a sort of rap of the ABC song or some other sound. Makes me dive right for the off button.

My brother bought my son a mini drum set for christmas and I want to get him back! I need help finding a loud annoying toy for my brother's daughter, if anyone has any hints or ideas please email me asap