Meet the… DVDs

Our son really enjoyed the “Meet the…” series from Preschool Prep. A friend of ours recommended the series and, being curious, we ordered a couple just to check it out.

First, about our TV watching policies, so that you know where we’re coming from. Like many parents, we try to minimize the amount of DVD/TV-watching time in our house. We didn’t quite go to the extreme of no TV watching until 2, but we did try to keep it to as little as possible (hopefully no more than 2-3 hours per week). If our son did watch TV, it was either in the form of a little Sesame Street (he liked Elmo) or DVDs like these. Many days he watched no TV. Some days he watched more than usual (for example, if we went a long-ish car trip).

Each of the DVDs takes a simple approach to introducing the child to a series of concepts (e.g., shapes, colors, the alphabet). Typically, each item in the set of objects associated with the concept is introduced and then linked to a particular character and musical score. The name of that item is repeated several times, with different intonations, and the character used to represent the concept is often show performing some simple task (e.g., a green square will be show mixing chemicals in a lab, a blue circle will be skateboarding around town, etc).

In watching these, here was our take:

PROs:

• Simple concept - easy to watch
• Great musical score - easy to listen to
• Stresses phonetic variations
• Colorful, smooth animation
• Obviously made with care (you get the feeling a small core group of people are involved)
• Repeats sequences of related concepts (good logical flow)
• Calm; not over the top
• Can be purchased with a book (per DVD) - our son actually loved these!

CONs:

• Repetition of concept might be annoying (at first) to adult (but we guarantee that the music will win you over)

Overall, these DVDs were a smash hit. I recommend starting with “Meet the Shapes” and/or “Meet the Colors” before tackling “Meet the Letters” or “Meet the Sight Words”. You’ll get a feel for how much YOU like these DVDs by starting off simple and holding back on ordering the whole set.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 11th, 2009 at 1:32am and is filed under Educational, Baby, Toddler. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.