Phonics based toys for 3yo?

[Convex]

My son is starting to show proper interest in his letters. We want to support this. Are there any toys that we could put on his xmas list? Eg a leap pad type thing? Anything you would recommend....

[Monkey]

My daughter loved the Melissa and Doug See and Spell Classic Wooden Puzzle. she was really interested in handling letters so we also got lots of foam letters for her to stick on paper.

[BB100]

You can buy cheap wooden letters from amazon which u can do loads with such as draw around, trace fingers around the shape, hide in sand or around the room for treasure hunt, put in envelopes for a posting activity, line them up in order, make the childs name or other words, press into wet sand...the possibilities are endless.

However at 3 the focus should be on hearing the sounds rather than linking the sounds to letters. So just makng up silly sounds is a good start.

[DulwichPianoFestival]

We had a Peppa Pig Fun Phonics toy which was OK if not a bit noisy!

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/2769844.htm

[etta166]

My 3 year old loves an app called reading eggs. It was meant for our older son, but now she's the primary user... The same company make a number of fun phonics and maths games if you're after something electronic. If not, the foam letters are still popular with both my older children. A word of caution - they mostly use them to spell out "rude" words at the moment though.

[esme]

all Vtech toys are great, we have an alphabet game thing where you can press the letters to say the letter / play music / play games... lots on the market, I would search on the Toys R Us website that is pretty good.

We have a 4 yr old and he also likes the wipe clean books you can get - e.g. Topsy and Tim learn to write

Foam letters that go in the bath are great too - about ?3 from Sainsbury's :)

[edanna]

I've got a Thomas the tank engine electronic toy that says all the letters etc. I find it as annoying as all those type of toys but if your son likes Thomas he would probably love it - happy to give it to you for free. PM me if you're interested.

[Convex]

I'm trying to avoid Thomas! we are suddenly and heavily into peppa pig now though - sigh.

i went to the charity shop and they had a couple of the toys mentioned above so i bought them. can use the money saved to buy the letters and puzzles which appeal more to me to be honest! we already use so much technology it would be nice to be more basic...