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Edutaining Kids
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Parents' Guide to Children's Products for Fun & Learning
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Edutaining Kids
.COM
Parents' Guide to Children's Products for Fun & Learning
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Here
we compile our favorite videos and DVDs for preschoolers with a
strong educational component. Learning letters and
numbers is made fun and easy with these top picks.
Top
Pick in DVDs for Learning the Alphabet. A new and
fabulous children's
DVD (and audio CD) by They Might Be Giants
and Disney Sound is entitled Here Come the ABCs. 
(audio CD)
Leap:
Letter Factory is based on the LeapFrog line of educational
toys, and is available on both VHS and DVD. It features the
friendly Leap frog family and both educates and
entertains children in clever ways. Children learn to identify
each letter of the alphabet and relate to its unique phonics sound
through song and a clever storyline. Although only
approximately 35 minutes long, this video packs a learning punch
with valuable mini-lessons that are both memorable and effective!
Graduates of Letter Factory can move to building short, simple
words with the next title in the series, Leap Talking Words
Factory. We are thrilled with this new title and hope to see
more titles in the series from the company. 
(3 DVD and flashcards set) at Amazon.com]
Richard
Scarry's Best ABC Video Ever!
For kids who have mastered letter
identification and who are now ready to learn letter sounds, Rock
n Learn Letter Sounds makes a great choice. Though engaging,
its content is repetitive and strongly academic, so it is probably
not a good idea to have your preschooler watch the video all in
one sitting. However, the catchy rhythms will do an excellent job
at teaching beginning phonics skills. As well, children learn both
upper- and lowercase letters in this excellent program. [Buy 
Younger
preschoolers who benefit most from an uncomplicated, focused
approach to learning to identify letters will do well with Pocket
Snails Letter Adventure. This simple but charming video/DVD
features snails that move along the countryside, encountering each
letter of the alphabet. Both uppercase and lowercase letters are
introduced. The approach is systematic and repetitive, and the
visuals are charming. Alphabet recognition and alphabetic order
are the video's focus. Phonics sounds do not complicate the
educational agenda, making the video most appropriate for younger
preschoolers who require time to digest the unique shapes of each
letter. [Buy 
Richard
Scarry's Best Counting Video Ever! is a fabulous choice for
teaching kids to identify numbers and to reinforce counting
skills. Often parents will stop at 10 when they are teaching their
preschooler to count. They might be surprised to learn that many
young children can handle double-digit numbers as well. This video
begins with the challenge of counting to 10, then goes a step
further when the darling star of the video takes on the task of
making it all the way to 20. Lily Bunny is endearing, and she
encounters a full range of fun and famous Richard Scarry
characters on her quest to find sets of objects for each number
from 1-20. Lily feels triumphant indeed, and so will your
preschooler! The songs are darling and educational, and each
numeral is clearly shown on the screen. Plenty of counting
practice and animations that kids will love add up to a must-have
early learning video. 
Young learners
who enjoy relaxed, slower-paced videos with simple animations will
take well to Count with Maisy. This video features charming
stories in which Maisy and friends count as they play. Anyone
familiar with the Maisy book line written by Lucy Cousins will
recognize the simple scenes in this video that is never
intimidating in its presentation of early learning concepts.
Counting comes about naturally in this outstanding video. 
