Fisher Price Piggy Bank Review
- Posted On September 23, 2019
If you’re looking to surprise your young one with a new, exciting interactive toy, the Fisher Price Piggy Bank would be an excellent choice!
6 – 36 months
- Piggy Bank
- Coins
- Develops motor skills
- Teaches colors, words, counting
- Introduces the concept of money and its importance
This toy is a great choice for any parent who wants to improve their kid’s tactile awareness and motor skills. On top of that, this toy will teach your child about counting, colors, words, animals, and ultimately – the concept of money and why it is important. Therefore, it’s a good choice for a gift idea for 2-year-old girls or boys.
Fisher Price Piggy Bank Toy – The Basics
This toy would be an ideal new friend for your young one because it’s easy to use, educational, interactive, and most importantly – made of hard plastic that’s quite durable and resilient. One of the focal points of this particular toy is the 0-1-2 switch, which allows you to toggle through two languages – English and Spanish.
Furthermore, it comes with ten coins of different colors that are large enough not to be considered a choking hazard. The concept behind this interactive bundle of joy is pretty simple – upon inserting any of the ten included coins, the piggy will start counting them. One can also press the piggy’s nose, which will either trigger a song or a phrase.
The multilingual aspect of this toy is what makes it sought-after by many parents. As mentioned, activating the second mode will turn this toy into a Spanish-speaking one, teaching your child some basic things such as counting to ten in Spanish.
Another great thing about the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Piggy Bank is the fact that it comes with over 40 songs, tunes, and phrases included. Now, it’s very important to make the distinction between 40 songs and 40 tunes and melodies. Many parents overlook this particular feature, thinking that the toy comes with 40 sing-along songs, which is not the case.
What You See and What You Get
The first thing most parents will notice is the great build quality. Most toys for toddlers tend to fall apart after a while for obvious reasons – you cannot expect a child to be too caring and careful when it comes to fun and interactive toys. However, thanks to the awesome build quality, this toy can withstand quite a beating and a fair amount of falls and hits.
Even though it’s a battery-powered toy, it does not come with the usual burdens and disadvantages of such toys. In simpler terms, many other battery-powered units tend to struggle with audio quality, distortion, and other accompanying nuisances once the battery levels are low, but this one doesn’t. Bear in mind; if your unit comes with batteries included, we would recommend swapping the demo batteries with a pair of new, high-quality ones. It’s a rather affordable tweak, and it works wonders.
Another beneficial thing about this particular toy is the fact that it’s a one-piece toy that comes with ten rather large coins. In other words, it’s as child-friendly as it gets, especially when it comes to potential hazards, or rather, lack thereof. You can let your kid play and even leave them unattended for a moment without worrying about the potential lurking dangers.
How To Use
As we have already pointed out, the Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Smart Stages Piggy Bank is a rather simple yet incredibly interesting toy. Its main purpose is to teach your child how to count and save money at the same time. Pressing the piggy’s nose triggers a song or a phrase. It’s important to point out that both songs and phrases aren’t as annoying as one might expect them to be, and on top of that, they can be interrupted with a simple press of a button. This doesn’t seem like a feature that’s worth mentioning, but rest assured that interruptible melodies are an actual game-changer as you don’t have to listen through each melody for the hundredth time.
Many people are wondering how good this toy is in regards to consistency with recording and stating the numbers and songs after a few weeks of use. It’s safe to say that it’s pretty good and consistent, even though it can fall victim to confusion if the coins are inserted too fast. Once all ten coins are used, one can simply open one of two sides and take them out. Upon opening either of these two side-doors, the piggy will greet you with “Open!” or “Close!”.
If you’re looking to bring the learning part to a whole new level, you should move the Smart Switch to the second position, which will subsequently activate the Spanish features. As you can tell, this toy is a great learning tool both for simple mathematical problems and language learning.
Changing the batteries is relatively easy and requires no additional tools. The battery compartment is well-secured, so there’s no need to worry about unforeseen scenarios that include battery leaks, accidental opening of the compartment, and other potential hazards.
Buyer's Guide
PROS
- Offers hours of endless fun
- Helps develop various skills
- Introduces counting and common phrases
- Easy to use
- Good build quality
CONS
- Relatively low volume
- Repetitive phrases and songs
- No volume control
Advantages
The main advantage of this particular toy is its teaching capability. Not only is it multilingual, but it also teaches your kid about math, language, and saving money. While many parents aren’t too keen on teaching their children about money when they are of young age, it’s something that can help your kid understand the concept of money itself, rather than how to save money per se.
Another great upside of the Fisher piggy bank is how amazingly helpful it is for the development of children with special needs. Many parents who have children with special needs have praised this toy for its simplistic yet functional design. On top of that, the big colorful coins and exciting melodies are quite effective when it comes to drawing attention. If you have a child with special needs, this toy might be a good idea as it’s foreseen to hold one’s attention for long periods of time by playing cute music and squealing.
The songs, tunes, and melodies are of good quality, and the sound is pretty crisp and clear. As we’ve mentioned, audio distortion is virtually non-existent, which is a rarity in modern toys. Of course, we highly recommend that you swap the included demo batteries with a pair of new ones.
The fact that every melody or tune can be stopped and interrupted by another command is somewhat of a double-edged sword, but it’s certainly a nice advantage. It allows you to skip through the melodies that have already been played and find the ones that your kid isn’t as familiar with. However, the downside of this feature is that it can be abused by your young one, which becomes quite annoying after a while.
Disadvantages
There aren’t many downsides, to begin with, but some things should be pointed out. For example, the toy does not have any volume control. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if the toy was sufficiently loud by default, but according to some parents – it isn’t. On the other hand, some people might consider it to be too loud. Whatever the case may be, one cannot control the volume, and that can very well be a deal-breaker for some parents.
Another thing that’s worth mentioning is the repetitiveness of the phrases and tunes. In simpler terms, songs and phrases trigger in no particular order, meaning you can run into the same song twice before other songs are played. This isn’t a major nuisance per se, but it can be a slight annoyance.
Given that we live in a time of technological wonders, one would expect a more sensitive sensor. Electronics are rather cheap and affordable nowadays, so there aren’t many excuses as to why this particular toy doesn’t have a better sensor. It could have been designed a bit better, and the sensor could have been tweaked so that it recognizes colors too. For example, if you insert a green coin, it should say “Green, one!” rather than just “One!” This might be considered perfectionism, but it’s not as complicated to integrate as one might expect it to be.
To Conclude
If you’re looking for a beautifully designed toy that’s foreseen to significantly improve your young one’s tactile, motor, and mathematical skills, this one might be a good choice. It’s made of quality plastic, it’s durable, and most importantly – it’s fun to play with!
While it does come with a few minor disadvantages, it’s definitely a worthy investment, especially if you have a child with special needs. Many parents have said that this toy helped their kids to become much more communicative and social.
Catherine is a writer from Canada who simply loves toys, collectibles and superhero figurines. Writing is her passion, but she also loves reading, enjoying her “me time” and finding new ways to improve her work and ways to entertain the readers.
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