Fisher Price Think and Learn Smart Cycle

The Fisher-Price Think and Learn Smart Cycle is designed to look like a real stationary bike. This design is great to help children learn how to pedal and steer a real bike for when they are playing outside. The bike’s seat is adjustable so that a variety of different children can use the bike and the bike can be adjusted for one child as they grow bigger. The dashboard of the bike has a joystick for your child to utilize as they play games as a means of controlling other mini-games within the bigger game.

The handlebars swivel back and forth for steering the bike through the obstacles of the games. In front of the handlebars is an adjustable holder for a tablet. This area is where Mom or Dad can place their tablet and start the game and their child has a screen to look at for when they are playing the games while they pedal. The tablet will hook into the bike so that you can link the two items. The bike also runs on Bluetooth and you can link the bike to your smart TV.

Assembly is required for the Fisher-Price Think and Learn Smart Cycle. When the box is opened, the contents inside come in several pieces that will either need to be screwed or snapped together. The bike does come with a set of screws that require a Phillips head screwdriver. Have a screwdriver on hand or purchased when you purchase the bike. After that, the assembly should take no more than about fifteen or twenty minutes to complete. A lot of the parts are on a snapping mechanism, so when you are assembling the bike, you will hear a hard snapping that alerts you to the fact that everything is snapped in secure. Other areas of the bike that need extra security like the pedals and the seat require screws to ensure that they don’t come loose or slip out while the bike is being used.

The Fisher-Price Think and Learn Smart Cycle leans heavily in the direction of helping your child learn and grow in the best possible way educationally. Fisher-Price has done more than simply give your child an interactive toy, the manufacturer has given your child the ability to grow healthy while learning. The interactive games that are available through the app that you can download to your smart TV or tablet will all help your child learn how to read.

The games rely heavily on phonics and spelling and recognizing letters and their sounds. There are several games that your child can download with a variety of different methods that will help them learn. The faster they pedal the faster the cartoon bike on the screen will go, and your child will start to learn faster and read faster. The three different kinds of games that your child can play revolve around driving, gaming, and racing. Depending on what game your child chooses to play determines what type of activity the game will provide.

There are several games that you can download for using the Fisher-Price Think and Learn Smart Cycle. Some of the more popular games that demonstrate the level of learning available are:

Alphaballoons: This game is a find the letter driving game that your child can play to find letters. The voice on the screen will sound out a word, and your child will have to drive through the course to find the balloon that has that letter written on it. The voice may sound out the word “cat”, and then your child will have to find the “C” balloon. All the while they are searching, your child will have to keep pedaling to get the bike on the screen to move through the course.

Drone Zone: This game has your child pedaling to fly a drone that will fly around trying to pick up letters and syllables. The purpose of this learning experience is to get your children to sound out words and put sounds together to create words, which will help them when they start learning to be able to see a word, sound it out, say it, and then learn it.

Balloon Pop: Balloon Pop takes place in a seaside town where children will use a beach ball to target letters. As your child pedals, they will be able to find the letters they need to seek out and then aim at the letter with a beach ball to win the game. This helps reinforce children’s skills at recognizing letters out of the sequence of the alphabet and really learn what each letter means and how it sounds.

Match-A-Word: Match-A-Word is a game where your child will have to recognize words to be able to finish sentences. The value of this game is to get your child to build their skills at reading comprehension and understanding the meaning of a sentence and the story it is telling. This will help put children ahead faster as they start school and their reading skills are further ahead than their classmates.

The Fisher-Price Think and Learn Smart Cycle is recommended for children ages three-years-old to six-years-old. Children under three-years-old may not have the dexterity and physical skills to maneuver and ride on the bike. A child under three-years-old may also not be tall enough to reach the pedals and handlebars.

Children over six-years-old may become too smart to play the game as they will have already started school and their reading skills will be too advanced to enjoy the game. The bike also has a 75 lbs weight limit, so your child may also become too heavy to ride on the bike. There does not seem to be a height limit for the bike, so that limit will be reached once your child is simply too big or long to pedal, which may come before they hit the 75 lbs weight limit, but that is rare.

The other side of what makes the Fisher-Price Think and Learn Smart Cycle so sought after is that not only will your child learn how to read, but they will be exercising at the same time. The games can only be played if your child is pedaling the bike. There are several great benefits to this type of physical learning. Your child will be able to do cardio vascular exercise, which is good for their heart and keeping them moving. They will build muscles in their legs and feet as they pedal, which will strengthen their skills at walking and running.

Your child will also be constantly balancing themselves on the seat of the bike, which will help with balance skills as they play sports or do other physical activities. Your child will also develop their hand/eye coordination skills as they look at the screen and then use their bodies to maneuver the character on the screen through the courses of the game. Their minds and their bodies will become synced together as they play a variety of games that are available through the app.

One of the major praises for the Fisher-Price Think and Learn Smart Cycle is that it is durable and can stand up to the rough play of toddlers. The bike is made of a hard plastic that can withstand kicking and pushing and jumping. Because the weight limit is 75 lbs, larger kids can also play with this toy without parents worrying that the bike is too delicate for an older or bigger child. Many parents have reported that they were impressed by how much the bike could handle with several children wanting to play on it and the bike constantly getting adjusted and readjusted as the kids swapped in and out of playing the games. What’s more is that all the while this is happening, kids are learning to be better readers and spellers.

The Fisher-Price Think and Learn Smart Cycle does what a lot of other technological toys don’t do and that is keeping your child active through technology. So many technological toys cause your child to be sedentary as they watch videos or play games, but Fisher-Price has changed the game and now your child will be active with technology and not just sitting around being inactive without the benefits of using their bodies to learn while their minds are expanding to learn how to read and spell and do better in school.

The Fisher-Price Think and Learn Smart Cycle is priced more on the expensive side than the inexpensive side. It can be understood why a toy of this kind costs so much considering it comes with a lot of technology and the design is advanced. The price may not fit into the budget of some parents, but for those parents that can afford this type of toy, it is a must-have for your child. The bike has so many benefits that you will see your child’s mind grow along with their physical growth. The bike could be priced higher, so it is a fair price for something that could be worth more. The bike also has a three year age range, so several children can get enjoyment out of this, and the games cater to a variety of different reading levels as well, which also helps make the bike seem more of an investment than a quick purchase. If you can afford the price tag, buy the bike.

The Fisher-Price Think and Learn Smart Cycle is a revolutionary toy that leans more towards where toys will wind up in the future. The bike takes technology and uses it to get kids active instead of making them sedentary, which is what many electronic games have done to children in the past. What Fisher-Price has done, is it takes technology and allows children to get off the couch and into a more active lifestyle, and not many toys can do that.

With smart technology like tablets, TVs, and Bluetooth, your child is still being exposed to tech without it taking over their lives, and the physical skills that your child is learning will only allow them to grow stronger and healthier as they get older.

With so many benefits to learning and staying healthy, the Fisher-Price Think and Learn Smart Cycle is a great buy for the parent who can afford to have this kind of toy as part of their child’s toy collection. The bike is a great way to get your child excited about learning and excited about exercising as they go from being a toddler to being ready to take on the fun and learning experiences of school.