Educational Insights Pete the Cat Hot Dots Interactive Math & Reading Paperback Children's Workbook Set, Ages 3+

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] 3 year old played with it for over 2 straight hours. Learned about patterns.

3 year old played with it for over 2 straight hours. Learned about patterns.

We opened this up and my son went through the first book, start to finish! He didn't want to stop.

We opened this up and my son went through the first book, start to finish! He didn't want to stop.

My almost three-year old loves it! He was already a fan of Pete the Cat and had also used the Hot Dots storybooks previously. We both prefer the noises/guitar music that the Pete pen makes over the owl pen from the storybook set. It is very encouraging and my son enjoys dancing along to the guitar music sounds. He is able to use the pen easily but the book must be flat on a hard surface for it to press down. The preschool content is just right, with a variety of skills covered and it is easy to go page to page or skip around. Letter recognition, matching, sequencing, patterning, etc. Stickers included are an added bonus! One thing to note is this is a toy designed for adult-child interaction. An adult must read the question aloud before the child can choose the answer. The pictures help, so the child could probably do it independently after a while, but definitely not designed for a child to do alone from the start. Overall my son loves this, and it is a fun and educational product with a character he enjoys.

I got this for my 3.5 year old son. He really likes the cat pen - it makes a "correct" and "incorrect" noise based on which dot he presses in the book. The reason I'm not giving it 5 stars is that an adult has to participate. He can't read the questions and they aren't laid out in a way where he could very easily figure it out without being able to read. So it is a great educational toy for parents to play with their children, just not something you can set them down with and step away.

My son was very excited to receive this. Once we got it, we had a faulty pen and tried many combinations of batteries and nothing worked. Educational Insights shipped a new pen very quickly to us. Once we got the pen to work, my son enjoyed going through all the scenarios. It something that works best if an adult is reading through the pages with the child. It's not the type of game that works well unsupervised since most pre-K kids can't read yet. I like how portable it is (easy to throw in a purse/bag when you are on the go). Especially if you are waiting at a restaurant for your food. Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange for a review

My daughter is not quite three but I thought this would be a good activity to help with her academic skills. She is very interested in learning and a rather long attention span compared to others her age in terms of reading books/completing puzzles. The first few times she wouldn't listen to me read the question and just liked to hear the noises the cat made. She kept saying "I do by myself." The only thing I wish this had was the ability to put the pen on a dot near the question so Pete could read it aloud. It has a wonderful variety of questions and now that we've worked on it a few times, she's starting to get the hang of it without me reading all of the questions (which she loves to say "Look mom, I do by myself!"). Noises are not too loud, which makes it an appropriate toy for down time.

We received this as a gift from my mother to my daughter, who loves Pete the Cat. Unfortunately, the pen doesn't work right out of the box. New batteries inserted properly, cleaned the pen tip, ensured everything was closed, but the pen does nothing . The books themselves are great.

This was great keeping my 3 yo busy on a long flight nut it dudnt last more than 6 months. We only used it no more than 3 times and now it says Incorrect to all the questions. I tried a new battery. Still broken. Unhaply customer. Its tesching my son wrong answers!