I am forever looking for interactive toys that still take thought, teach, and are just plain fun. Unfortunately, as we found out recent through my blog regarding Fisher Price, not all of them are made for lefties. When POINGO approached me to review their innovative new interactive pen, I jumped at the chance to test out this product and see if it was a hit in our house.

Now there are a lot of on the market toys similar. I know personally we have tried the leap frog and v-tech toys that come with books and pens and you go through the interactive areas. I have a stack of them in the closet that have all but been retired. Charlotte hasn’t even asked about them in a year. But what I liked about this idea and found uniquely different, is the pen was NOT attached to anything. Perfect for lefties AND righties and no worries about a “cord” being long enough. Score #1 in our house.

Our POINGO set came with two books and clearly Charlotte knew the characters the minute the POINGO set was opened up. The familiar faces of the Disney CARS movie and FINDING Nemo were an instant grabber for her and made it really easy for her to want to sit down and test it out.

POINGO makes the stories come to life by not only helping in reading the book, but in recreating sounds and interaction with your child during the reading. In Finding Nemo, it even offered a game you played with the pen where you took Nemo through the ring of fire. The game was a tidbit advanced for Charlotte because of her age, but the pen starts at a recommended age 3 (her age) and up to age 7, so your bound to find easier and harder games depending on your child’s age.   All the pages come complete with sound, games, the story being read from beginning to end, facts, jokes, and more (depending on the book you are reading). The pen also comes with ear buds so you don’t have to listen to the story while your child is. TOTAL BONUS! And the pen comes in more then one volume set and we have taken it on a few car rides with almost no distraction to anyone else in the car.

The pen works by an infrared chip that reads symbols on the pages. Content to most books come loaded already into the pen, but it does come with a USB cord that can quickly plug from the pen and your computer and you can have additional books “downloaded” right to it from the POINGO web page as the selection of books grows.

I have two minor complaints regarding the toy. Hey, everything can use improvement, right? My first thought  is that I wish you could let the pen read each word individually, rather then start and complete the entire page at once. I think it would help kids recognize and sound out the words as they ‘read’ along as they get older. This takes the toy from a “learning” toy, to an entertainment toy. They both have their place, but I think this has the potential to grow into both. Second, I think the pen should come with a small velcro strip on the book and pen so you can attach it back to the book when your done. Because its a loose pen, this would at least help in finding the pen after your play time. Lets face it, kids just throw things down if it doesn’t have a place to go.

Right now, the POINGO pen comes with the CARS and FINDING NEMO book, but you can also purchase Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Lion King, and Poohs Wishful Thinking which are preloaded into the pen without needing any additional downloading. Other titles available with the  free downloading option.

Overall, I am rating this toy as an “A” for a Christmas find. I would choose this over any other like product we have found for Charlotte’s age group and tested out in the past. You can purchase from Walmart, My Poingo, TRU, Target, Sams, and Costco for $34.99-$39.99.

CONTEST

Right now POINGO has generously donated another set to give to a mom out there who wants to own a POINGO of their own!

1 entry for going to the POINGO site and letting us know which title they have that your child would really love!

1 entry for entering this contest and voting for me

1 entry for carrying our banner or link on your blog!

1 entry for leaving a valid comment about our appetizer recipes post

This contest will end on Nov 28th, please make sure you read MomDots contest rules on our contest page if you have any questions