Animal Island Aila Sit & Play Plus Preschool Learning System Essential for Toddlers 12-36 Months Letters (Aila Sit)

I found the item way too fragile to give to my toddler. The plastic is thin and hard, I expected something silicone for toddlers. The videos are nice, they obviously put a lot of effort into the content. But it is NOT interactive. My toddler got bored after 5 minutes. I would recommend this for older toddlers, not 12-36m as advertised. Worth the content, but not the product.

AILA Sit & Play is a juggernaut of early childhood literacy. I am a voice teacher, my husband an English professor, and we were both impressed with the iterative learning process of AILA Sit & Play. In our combined experience of nearly seventy-five years of working with children, we believe AILA Sit & Play is the 21st century equivalent of Sesame Street. AILA Sit & Play is portable, on-demand learning that, with its impressive battery life, can travel anywhere with kids, making it a truly invaluable learning companion.The storybooks feature is really special and alone is worth the price of this product. And these are real books! Mister Goose announces the storybook of the day, and the animal characters, similar to elementary school students, gather together and sit on a rug, and Mister Goose reads the storybook. Words and illustrations appear together in classic storybook form with Mister Goose reading. More advanced preschoolers will read along with Mister Goose, while early learners will gain a sound introduction to literacy. Mister Goose’s treehouse preschool will become an iconic landmark in the early childhood education space.And the places on this island are exquisitely imagined. Our nephew enjoyed Friendship Forest and Coconut Grove, and the nature sounds are strikingly realistic. At one point we thought our living room was filled with birds — good speakers for such a tiny device. And good speakers are necessary with the sheer amount of music packed into this device. The music is tuneful and cheerful, designed in just the right way to help kids learn quickly — this education team has done its homework. Songs help kids gain language and expand vocabulary, and AILA does this better than any other product we’ve seen for this age group.In all, this is high-quality content with impressive animation, superior sound, and good teaching instruction. AILA Sit & Play does not feel like a cheap toy. It is substantial, and the details are thoughtful and well-executed. In terms of social emotional learning, the animal friends are all so polite and kind. They ask questions and model taking turns and sharing. Expect a few more “Pleases” and “Thank Yous” as your kids work their way through the premium learning adventures offered by AILA Sit & Play.Like a great teacher’s lesson plans, these learning sessions seem organic and free-flowing, yet they are iterative, teaching key learning concepts through playful activities and stories. It’s exciting to see how the lessons build upon one another. AILA Sit & Play is a powerhouse of literacy with numbers and other STEM elements seamlessly integrated. The lessons are clear and consistent, and preschoolers gain exposure to rich vocabulary and intriguing questions.Some of the problems with technology today is that it makes children anxious. This is decidedly not the case with AILA Sit & Play. For example, when Fox gives a tour of Friendship Forest, you are led into tranquil woods, and the woods, saturated with the calls of birds, has a calming effect. In broadcast mode, you can serve up lullabies that will have your toddler in the Land of Nod in no time. AILA Sit & Play also makes it impossible for toddlers and preschoolers to become couch potatoes. They will be engaged, whether through singing (an effective means of promoting literacy and creativity) or dancing — Pig is a disco genius by the way!AILA Sit & Play exceeded my wildest expectations. The team of AILA Sit & Play has done amazing work in creating an at-home preschool experience.

Love this with my whole soul! The price is on the higher end, but it will be 100% worth it!! My daughter and niece love this! All the fun modules they don’t even know it’s learning and it’s not just mindless YouTube videos. It has an app you get too and it tracks their leaning and there is even a camera you can watch them as they learn! It also has a lullaby mode that I like to use at the end of her using it to help her kind of settle. The only downside is the base is not weighted so it will fall over here and there or if she puts it in the couch. But if that’s the worst to come, then I’m okay! Highly recommend!

Whenever a product has nothing but 5-star ratings, buyer beware.This product isn't what it makes itself out to be. It's a cheap off-brand (probably $30) tablet in a unique case that features a foot. That foot is cute and child-friendly, but the case is absolutely not shatter-proof and doesn't protect the tablet if your kid decides to toss it across the room...like I wanted to about ten minutes into trying to set this thing up.The first bad sign was when they suggest you scan a QR code to activate the product with the parents app...except there's no QR code to scan. Then they give you a four-digit code to put into the app...which does nothing. The app wants the full serial number or no dice. So, again, they're asking you to do something that doesn't work. Okay...weird. Not feeling super confident at this point, but let's give this thing a fair shake.The tablet finally boots up and immediately starts playing content, which is nothing but a video that my 2-year-old will tolerate for about a minute before losing interest. It isn't all that engaging and you can't click on anything on the screen. You can't stop it, skip it, etc. You just have to grit your teeth through it. As this thing continues to play, I scour the app in search of a way to customize the age group so that activities are at the 2-year level (like on ABC Mouse). Nope. Not available. Quite frankly, the parent app is useless. It lets you start a learning session, which is timed...and there's supposed to be a place to adjust the timer (which is supposedly set to 15 minutes from the factory). I couldn't find that adjustment anywhere. Maybe it's there, but I gave up. All the app can really do is turn the device off, which I guess is handy if you're one of those parents that likes to use the "uh-oh, it's broken!" excuse to get your kid away from stuff.Now to the software. One word: unimpressive. Annoying characters. Too much talking. Videos flow into other videos without giving the kid a chance to interact or you a chance to skip them. Again, maybe this is just the way this whole thing starts out and it gets better as the AI "learns", but there's no chance my kid would give it that much time. And if you're thinking, "well, sounds like your kid has been raised on YouTube and has the attention span of a gerbil," you couldn't be more wrong. We have a screen-free kid who can play on his own for a good 45 minutes at 23 months. Take away from that what you will.At $199, this thing is a waste. It's cute, I'll give it that. But engaging? Hardly. Worth the money? Not a chance. Sorry AILA, but this is an immediate return.

We've been using the AILA for about a month now with our 16 month old son. As recommended, we started by just turning it each day for a period time between his breakfast and mid day nap. He instantly was curious but only for a minute or two when one of the songs was playing. Over the last month he has gradually become more interested, he has watched it occasionally for 5 to 10 minutes. We are about to start introducing the learning sessions. The one issue I have with the whole system is the Home Button Lock feature. As anyone with kids should know, kids are very curios and like to push buttons. When the Home Lock Button is on, they only way to turn it off is by touching the Volume button on the back of unit. So if you want to adjust the volume, you have to turn Home Lock off and then reset it. If my son sets the unit on its back so the screen is facing up, the volume button is inadvertently pushed and Home Lock is off. My son discovered the buttons on the back of the AILA almost instantly and within a few days realized thats how to make the Home Button work again. So far the AILA App has worked fine. But if you spent the money to develop an app that can turn the AILA ON\OFF as well as initiate Learning Sessions, Send pictures to the AILA, and spy on your child, WHY WOULD YOU NOT ALLOW THE APP TO CONTROL THE HOME BUTTON LOCK feature!?! Finally the AILA can only get 3-4 hours of run time before it needs to be recharged. Then it takes 3 to 4 hours to recharge the thing. With today's technology, this is a complete joke.