Featured Review & Giveaway ~ Fisher-Price Smart Stages Crawl Around Car {VIDEO}

Fisher-Price’s Laugh & Learn® collection has long been a favorite at our house. From the crawl through house to the Musical chair, my boys have spend many, many hours being entertained by these toys.

Traditionally the line has had two electronic settings; learning and music. But new for 2014 Fisher-Price has re-designed the collection to evolve as your child grows with their new Smart Stages technology. Now available with three stages of learning; explore(First words and sounds spark baby’s curiosity) for kids 6 months, encourage(Prompts baby though questions and simple directions) for little ones 12 months and pretend(Imaginative fun and early role play) for toddlers 18 months and up, the Laugh & Learn collection offers more play value than ever before.

Last month I attended the launch of the new collection at The Baby Show in Toronto and have been testing the popular Laugh & Learn® Smart Stages™ Crawl Around™ Car($60) with some of the kids in our community.

All on its own the Crawl Around Car is a great toy. Adding the Smart Stages technology increases the play value with over 75 songs, tunes and phrases.

Out of the box the Laugh & Learn® Smart Stages™ Crawl Around™ Car requires about 20 minutes to put together. You will need a screwdriver (and 3 AA batteries) but assembly is pretty straight forward. Once it’s together the car really is awesome both inside and out!

On the hood the car features a wheel that toggles between sunny and cloudy. As you switch the panel between each of the smart stages the car respond differently to accommodate children at each level of learning.

Inside the car the driver’s dashboard is where all of the action is. There are quite a few buttons that kids can activate to bring the car to life.

In stage one the 1234 button sings some basic songs like ‘abcd’ and counting up to 10. In stage two it sings different songs like the ‘wheels on the car’, ‘puppy’s coming round the mountain’ and it also asks kids to do tasks like honk the horn. On the third stage it plays more current songs like rock riffs and hip hop beats.

When your little one presses a button the ‘GPS’ lights up, the left and right signals flash and the car responds by singing, or asking a question.

For parents who would like some tech-free time for their little ones, there are some classic play activities on the outside of the car.  The door driver’s door has a shapes & colors sorting panel and a built-in ramp for ball play on the passenger’s side door.  On the back panel of the car there is also a roller that kids can manually scroll through to learn their numbers from 1 to 10.

Additional toys can be stored in the ‘trunk’ under the roller ball.

While the crawl around car appears like it could be mobile, it is only stationary.  When placed on the carpet, however, it acts as a support unit to help little ones learning how to stand.

We tested this car with kids 6 months, 9 months and just over a year.  They loved banging on the horn, dancing to the music and navigating the outside perimeter of the car.

I have put together a video to show off some of the great features of the car.  Please watch below.

We are excited to also have a Laugh & Learn® Smart Stages™ Crawl Around™ Car($60) to giveaway to one of our readers! To enter please tell me what toy is your favorite from the new Smart Stages collection. An extra entry will be given to anyone who tweets about the giveaway!  Please leave the link to your tweet in a separate comment below.

“Enter to win an @fisherprice Smart Stages Crawl Around Car from @growingyourbaby! http://goo.gl/ufY3ij”

• Giveaway closes Friday November 14th, 2014

GIVEAWAY RULES Here

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