The Leapfrog is a great system! You can find games for kids of all ages. They won’t get tired of it because there are games to keep up with their age level.
Holy Cow! I bought two of these right before Christmas and my girls (7 and 10) LOVE THEM! I can’t recommend them enough. We put their spelling words in there and it helps tons. The games are spendy (30 bucks or so), but totally worth it. Once you plug them into your computer, it updates it and then sends me emails how they are progressing in each subject (ie, game) they play. Shown tremendous growth in their math skiils, especially. Buy it–it’s 20 bucks!
Best thing about these little guys is the price of the games! Kids can get bored with lots of games quickly, so it’s great to be able to replace them without digging too deep. Also, they can reasonable save up their own $ to buy the games themselves. Let the little buggers fend for themselves, I say.
Picked up one of these when kids.woot! went live. Pretty impressive overall, for a kid’s educational “gamegear” like handheld (you remember the Sega Gamegear, right? Anyone?)
It’s got some rather impressive specs for its price. Makes me wonder if there’s any homebrew groups out there that have turned it into a cheap gaming system. DidjDoom, anyone? =D
Finally, it’s pronounced “didge”, rhyming with “bridge”. Drove me nuts until I watched a commercial for them and they pronounced it for me.