VTech Touch and Learn Activity Desk, Green

If there was a six-star, "Over the Top" option I would choose this.My 4.5 yr. old grandson has Down Syndrome. His favorite toys are alphabet toys (he knows his alphabet in upper and lower cases as well as sign language.) MOST of the good alphabet toys we've come across are for babies/young toddlers and while he still loves those, it's important that he also have age appropriate things to use.I began my search and came across this "Touch and Learn Activity Desk".When it arrived the Vtech box was sitting in the living room when he noticed it. He has never paid attention to anything like that before, but he stretched out his arms and picked up the box (as wide as his arm spread) trying to carry it to his mother and me. He must have noticed the alphabet in the picture.I sat down to open it, he tried helping me, dancing with anticipation. (New behaviors.)Once it was put together, this child was beyond thrilled! Right now he prefers the ABC option, but I LOVE the exchangeable pages, the graphics are wonderful, and can see this as a desk that he and his younger sister will be able to use for several years.I will be purchasing a second one so they have one at home and in Grandma's house!

Beware there’s different models of this desk so if you buy an expansion packs with extra cards be sure they will work on the model desk you purchase. I bought this desk along with a 32 page expansion pack on Amazon Prime day in July but saved both for my daughter for Christmas. Opened it only to realize the cards don’t fit in this desk and can’t be used. The return window expired in August and they won’t even do an exchange for an expansion pack that WILL work with the desk. Very disappointed, especially since the expansion pack I bought as a “deal” is the same price right now that it was on Amazon Prime day. The expansion pack I bought is called “Touch & Learn Activity Desk Deluxe Expansion Pack.” I’m guessing the word “deluxe” indicates a different model of this desk.

I got this for my 18 month old girl as an xmas present. Here are my observations after 6 months:1. The kid loves having a desk of her own and a little stool just her size. If it didn't do anything at all she'd probably still have been happy. She's satisfied putting her water bottle in the cup holders and shoving her toys inside the desk and in the other cubbies on it.2. Young children are probably mentally able to play with the desk well before they are physically able to. The touch screen sensitivity of the desk is very high. If you so much as brush your hand against the desk it starts playing stuff and assumes you are pressing the "buttons." Because I gave this to my child at a very young age this was really confusing to her. She'd be leaning in to touch letter A and her other hand would be balancing her and touching letter Z. And she'd be wondering why she's getting questions wrong or why it keeps saying Z. At her age, it was too hard for her to lean in without leaning on the table and pressing buttons and it was hard for her to understand the concept of only touching with one finger. Now that she just turned 2, I'd say in the last month or so she's really started grasping the concept of being careful not to touch other parts of the screen but even now she still brushes up on it sometimes. Even I do accidentally.3. This comes with several screens you can switch out. They easily switch in and out. My 2 yr old can do it by herself. The screens include, but are not limited to: big letter alphabet, farm animals with baby and adult names, sealife and various shapes, months of the year, and a town with various vehicles and staple buildings.4. There are different modes. An exploratory mode where you can press anywhere on the screen and it explains facts about whatever you are touching. A music mode where a song is sung, sometimes with a question embedded for the kid to answer. A searching fun mode where questions are asked of the child and they must press the button to the answer. The questions vary vastly in educational level. Obviously this is targeted for over 3 years old players. There will be questions where they spell the answer and you have to know how to read/spell to participate. There are other questions like find the yellow triangle that my child can manage at age 2. The questions are random so if you have a younger child they're going to ask for help with some of the harder ones.5. My toddler will play this in spurts of 5 minutes to 45 minutes or so depending on her mood, but as she ages and becomes more familiar with the letters, shapes and other related things she's enjoying the challenge of the desk more and more. Overall this is one of her most commonly played with toys outside of her dolls.6. My daughter seems to be learning from the boards, particularly the town one with hospital and taxi and ambulance because these are things she doesn't really see around our house.7. This looks like a toy a child should still be learning with at age 3 and beyond when she starts learning time and is starting to read, so I see this lasting in our household for a while.We have not used the easel feature so I can't say much about itOverall I think this was a great purchase and reasonably priced. I'd buy it again. However I would have waited until my child was 2 but definitely don't see needing to wait until 3.

I bought this for my Grandson's 2nd birthday and he absolutely loves it! All the different learning activities and levels are amazing, he plays with it everyday and never gets bored. I highly recommend this product, you won't be sorry!

I returned a couple of birthday gifts and got this for my 2yr old. It is super cute! A ton of subjects covered with the activity cards. I can see my daughter learning a lot from this product! The fact that it also flips up to a "art table" just makes it great.Just a few notes:The Activity card can be stored inside the desk when not being used, I'm not sure how these plastic (place matt type) cards are going to hold up to a 2-year-old but I'll come back in a few months to update the review.The table has non-slip type pads on the bottom of the legs. The Stool does NOT... I wish it did!The package that comes in the mail is a picture of the blue desk, and I did not see any label about it being pink. (So I didn't even open it up, in fear of my LO ripping everything apart and wanting to play with it, and knowing I'll have to ship it back) I wrote to Amazon saying I got the wrong product. They shipped me another one... a few days later... I got another box with a blue desk on it... so after my LO was out. I opened it up... AHHHH it was pink!! YAY!!! I was so excited.. lol Moral to the story... Open up the box, and you will find a pink desk, not a blue one like on the box.

I bought this one last year for my son, however, the sheets get old after awhile. Buy the deluxe version because they actually make activity cards for it. I hate that I wasted money on this one when I could have waited for the deluxe version.