Looking For DVDs?

I remember as a child that I loved watching the segments on Sesame Street where raw materials would be shown moving through a manufacturing plant until they became a product and were ultimately delivered to consumers. The most memorable of these for me is the one about milk. First the cows are shown being herded into the barn, then they’re milked, on and on and on until at the end of the snippet a little boy picks up the bottle of milk from his doorstep where it’s been delivered, pours a glass and drinks it. I always loved these. Along these same lines were the videos showing construction sites, cranes, bull-dozers and other accoutrements of daily life that tykes find engrossing. I’ve not completely grown out of it either. Ever seen Ultimate Factories on the National Geographic Channel? Same concept, but built for grownups. Same with Dirty Jobs, or the myriad of History Channel and Discovery Channel shows out there.

Last week my two young sons were given about six DVDs distributed by BigKids.com (here). My four year old has already watched several of them. When asked on Saturday morning which movie he wanted to watch, he chose to have a second showing of the DVD on the Osh Kosh Air Show. This is high praise as he only gets one show a day on Saturdays and Sundays, and none on weekdays. I don’t believe he understands the particulars of the air show DVD, particularly when they describe the physics behind lift, but as he watches it I see him taking it all in. He’s so attentive that he is immobilized throughout the entire screening. Not quite so when we watched the DVD on the Blue Angels. This might have been a bit too dry for him. Although he loved seeing the F-18 fighters fly in formation, a particular aspect of flying he’d never before imagined, the scenes showing the pilots planning the missions left him yawning.

I did notice that unlike Dirty Jobs or Ultimate Factories, shows I have to coax him to watch, the BigKids.com DVDs were narrated by kids. This aspect of it, having a voice that he could relate to, seemed to draw him in a manner that the adult shows lacked. For example, we watched an Ultimate Factories episode on the process of building a John Deere Combine. It was like pulling teeth to get the boy to watch it even though he is a huge fan of tractors. Seems a bit arbitrary to me as he’s a city kid, but who am I to judge. Nevertheless, the BigKids.com videos, due to the narration and the lack of commercials I suspect, yielded the complete opposite reaction.

I know that many of the readers of this blog have kiddos the same age as my own. If you’re looking for a series of engrossing and educational videos, go check out BigKids.com. It’s well worth the investment.