The upside to Zoundz is that it is sure to please any musically inclined person; the downside is that I dont know how long that pleasure is bound to last. The sound quality isnt great (you can plug in an MP3 player, but Im not sure you would want to). Once the initial charm wears off, it has a talking clock and alarm feature that might come in handy. Buy this to win originality points, or to please the person on your list who delights in musical toys or psychedelic bric-a-brac.
Brushing to the Beat
My dentist once told me that the real benefit of the new Sonicare toothbrush craze is not the action so much as the time: Sonicares make you brush for two full minutes. If the two-minute timer is the real key to healthy teeth, ToothTunes may just be the key to getting kids to care.
Coming from an unlikely manufacturerHasbros Tiger Electronics divisionTooth Tunes broadcasts two minutes of music straight into your head using something called dentomandibular bone conduction. The experience is fascinating; a tech watcher like me sees it as proof that the next handsfree Bluetooth devices for our phones will be carried not on our ears, but in our mouths. Your kid will probably find Tooth Tunes to be a thrill, but there are a few issues: the best way to listen to the song is by holding the brush still between your teeth, and each brush only comes with one song. Mine was the Rocky theme, and other material ranges from Hilary Duff to Queen, but you may want to plan ahead and buy a few to keep around. Theyll be on sale in stores next year, but you can get them now for $10 a piece at www.toothtunes.com.
Watch and Learn
Im a big fan of LeapFrog learning toys (www.leapfrog.com), and this year the company has a bumper crop. Fans of the Colbert Report may have seen Stephen playing with the 100 Hoops basketball counting game ($25, ages 3-6); he jokingly called it a threat because it teaches kids English and Spanish. Theres another cute bilingual counting game for kids in the 6-36 month age group the Learn & Groove Counting Maracas ($15).
My favorite toddler toy this year is the Little Leaps Grow-With-Me Learning System ($40). I like it because it keeps cost down by leveraging what you already have: it looks like a game console, but its really a universal remote that controls its own educational DVD games that you play on your DVD player. Theres a bit of set-upyou have to teach the system what DVD player you havebut once you do, the remote will work just fine. Cooler still is the fact that the controller has two faces, a chunky, button-based one for babies 9 months or older, and another one, with a joystick, for toddlers 2 years and up. You just flip it over when your kid grows up, hence the grow-with-me name. (Obviously, its just as useful if you already have one or more kids in both age groups.) The videos are surprisingly interactive, working on language development, number concepts, problem solving and more. Just remember this: since the Grow-With-Me system is, in essence, a second DVD-player remote, make sure its out of reach during movie night, or else your kid might accidentally fast forward through all of the best scenes.