The Playskool Alphie Robot Review
Playskool has definitely created something special by reinventing one of its classic toys from the eighties, the Playskool Alphie. The new Alphie is much more interactive and fun than its more limited predecessor. His newly redesigned face now includes an LCD for the eyes that he can now change to show emotions, and he now has a wonderfully fun, playful and friendly robotic voice that kids will love and respond to.
Alphie encourages children to engage in fun learning activities by using special double-sided picture cards, which are inserted into a special slot in Alphie’s tummy. It comes with 30 ready-to-use cards that teach concepts like numbers, letters, and shapes. The cards offer learning challenges for children, who must answer specific questions or problems by pressing buttons around the card slot. Many of the challenges on the cards are cleverly designed to try to encourage children to use their problem-solving skills. In order to be successful, they must think through the problems to try to find the correct answers.
There are four booster cards available for Alphie: there is the letter pack, the animal pack, the number pack, and the music/sounds pack. These add-on packs provide many new opportunities for children to interact with Alphie and engage in new activities that encourage learning and fun.
The Playskool Alphie robot is designed to be easy to transport, with a handle on top of its head where kids can pick it up and take it with them wherever they go. It comes standard with a backpack to hold all the cards you have available to play. The durable plastic design is built to withstand the kinds of inadvertent abuse that clumsy young hands can dish out on toys. And if Alphie isn’t played with for 90 seconds, he’ll go into sleep mode and power off completely on his own, so there’s no need to worry about kids running out of batteries by leaving the little robot on when they’re not. playing with it
The kids can place the cards however they like, or they can press a button on Alphie’s head, which will cause Alphie to play a game of hide-and-seek with the kids and the cards. Alphie will ask for a card of a certain type, and the kids must search their collection of cards until they find a card with a picture that matches the description Alphie gave. Alphie compliments the children when they complete a task correctly, and she has quite a collection of phrases at her disposal to use in these interactions.
With over 350 fun interactions and challenges, the new Playskool Alphie is a wonderfully innovative little toy that will inspire a whole new generation of children to learn through laughter and play. He has a fun and playful new personality that engages children’s imaginations and helps them develop mental skills that will serve them throughout their lives. A great classic revised for a new era!
Check out our author’s chart below for a current list of the top 10 toys of the year.