Sounds Amazing Bilingual Electronic Sounds Product Review
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Smart Play sent me the Sounds Amazing bilingual electronic system which will be available in just a few weeks (I’ll let you guys know when it’s on their site!). It is geared for ages 3+. I have worked with Smart Play in the past on their Smart Projector (read my review) which we really loved so I was interested to check out their new product Sounds Amazing. Ingenio (AKA- Smart Play) is the first bilingual educational toy/game brand in the USA. They offer Spanish/English puzzles, educational games, electronic learning, and more.
Sounds Amazing is an educational tool which you use to scan and learn new sounds on bilingual flashcards. It comes with an electronic talking pen, 50 double sided cards, and a parent teacher guide- all in both English and Spanish. As you can see above the cards are color-coded based on the subject the card belongs to. The subjects are Animals, Transportation, Musical Instruments, Machinery, Nature, Sports, and Others. This would be a neat tool to have especially for children learning English or Spanish as their second language.
The Sounds Amazing electronic pen is not like other electronic pens. You actually swipe this pen across a barcode located on the subject cards as opposed to just touching the card in order for it to respond appropriately. My husband and I did not have any problems swiping the pen across the barcode to get the corresponding sound. It will not read if you scan over only part of the barcode though so you do have to be fairly exact in the way you scan it. My four year old son has a fine motor skills developmental delay and it was very difficult for him to master the skill of swiping the pen over the barcode. I spent a week or two working with him on the Sounds Amazing pen and now he can swipe it about 80% of the time without a problem. A child without motor skills issues shouldn’t have a problem using this as it is very simple to use.
When you swipe the electronic pen over the barcode you will hear the sound that the object on the card makes. Above you can see the firecrackers card. I love the idea behind this as there are a lot of interesting sounds that you find on the cards. Just a few of my favorites were boiling water, volcano, table tennis, horseriding, submarine, and harmonica! My son easily recognized the pictures on the cards and excitedly listened to the sounds from the electronic pen.
On each card is the category and subject name in both English and Spanish, as well as interesting facts about the subject in both languages. For example:
Sports Deportes
Basketball Basquetbol
Was first played on 1891, Springfield, Massachuesetts, USA.
Se jugo por vez primera en 1891, Springfield, Massachusetts, EUA.
What did we think? I loved the idea of the product. I loved that you could listen to such a unique variety of sounds! (That was my son’s favorite part!) I loved the simple pictures on the cards as well. And of course I love that they are bilingual. I felt like the number of cards you received with the set was more than ample as well and I appreciated the color coding subject catergories. What I wish, however, was that the electronic pen would actually read the subject name in English and Spanish. I mentioned this to Smart Play and they said that this enhancement is actually in the works! A young child who cannot read will need help from an adult to read these cards, and will certainly need help reading the alternative language as well.
Once my son got the hang of swiping the electronic pen over the barcodes he would sit down and go through almost all of the cards before he was finished! Considering there are 50 double sided cards I was pretty impressed! Electronics has and always will draw kids interest and I think that Smart Play has invented a new and creative product to peak kids interest in learning. Although I think that this product would reach its maximum potential with adult help to read both languages on the card, I did notice that as my son would recognize the picture and scan the sound, he would then look to the subject title and try to read it as well which I thought was really neat.
Disclosure: I was not compensated for this review. I received a product in order to form my own opinions. All opinions are 100% mine.
