Word World

“It’s time to build a word… let’s build it … let’s build it now!” With this catchy phrase and a groovy beat, the characters and action of World World are coming to PBS this Fall.

Word World is a bright and happy haven for characters like Duck, Dog, Sheep, Bear, Frog, and Cat, who play and have adventures that will capture your child’s imagination from the very first segment.

The characters are a delight, and the concept is fresh and innovative.

Every character, every structure, and many supporting objects are made out of … words. In the two 11-minute episodes that I reviewed, favorites like House, Train, Barn, Bridge, and Cave were drawn into the scenery as words shaped into perfectly recognizable objects and places. The characters are also words, with Bear being appropriately taller than Dog, for instance. Letters abound as background as well, where appropriate, such as when they’re being delivered by train or waiting to be used in Cat’s junkyard.

But the magic happens when the friends need to build a word. During the first quest, Runaway O’s, Kangaroo delivers a box of O’s to Cat’s junkyard. But before she gets to open the B-O-X, Sheep and Dog bump into it and the O goes rolling away! The O has many rolling adventures and we meet the other main characters as we see all the ways that the O could slip away without us noticing. For instance, an O looks a lot like a doughnut in Pig’s Bakery, and a floating ring in Duck’s pond. But this O can’t hide for long, and the friends herd it back to the yard just in time for Cat to wake up from her catnap. They reassemble the box by putting the letters in order while singing the bright ditty above, and a little animation magic helps it springs into shape, ready to be opened.

The second episode I reviewed, The Birds, is even cuter, but I think I’ll just recommend that you watch this one yourself. The colors are bright, the dialogue is happy, and the stories are captivating enough for a mom to enjoy as well. In short? While I’m no fan of too much TV, I’m definitely a fan of Word World for little ones big enough to recognize letters and prepare for the magic of reading.

This review was done in concert with the fine moms and dads at Parent Bloggers. The show debuts on PBS September 3 and Target will be rolling out DVDs any day now.

The Pod

This a review of The Pod that my friends and I rave about.  Its real name is lost to the internet (and therefore, unfortunately, no search engine will ever find this post), but it was made by Fisher Price a few years ago and it is one of the best inventions ever for a Mama of very little ones who likes to get outside and yet still have the use of her hands.

My littlest one, Little Bear, loves to be outside and enjoy the fresh air, but he has never tolerated being put down on a blanket on the ground with me.  He just hates it.  He likes to be outside on my lap, on the hammock, in a bouncy seat, or in a pack-and-play, but he will not tolerate lying down on the ground.  Whether it’s too hard, too bumpy, or too cold, I don’t know, but he just hates it.

Luckily, my friend Stimey and her three boys introduced me to The Pod.

The Pod unfolds easily into the configuration shown above.  Baby lies down on the soft, bouncy surface and is quickly mesmerized by his new view of the trees, the sky, and/or the three soft toys that hang down from the pod cover.  This is a nice solution for a baby who’s not fond of lying on a blanket on the ground, or a family with other toddlers and/or dogs who might run roughshod over said blanket. 

If the mosquitos come out to play too, The Pod can be zipped up to protect baby’s soft skin — and still give him a great view through the mosquito netting.

This Pod is awesome.  If only I knew its real name.

Whole Grain Goldfish?

That’s right, folks, you read that correctly.  The good folks at Pepperidge Farm have come out with something new — they’re making their famous Goldfish snack crackers with WHOLE GRAINS now.  Supposedly, that makes them better for our little crackersnackers — but I’m here to tell you today that it also makes them GOOD.

Whether it’s the whole grains in them or something else that changed along the way, these new Goldfish crackers are less greasy and a little more substantial than the originals, but just as tasty. 

Which explains why we ate the WHOLE BAG at snack time yesterday.  Yum.

Fathering Your School-Age Child

When Parent Bloggers asked me to review Armin A. Brott’s new parenting book, Fathering Your School-Age Child / A Dad’s Guide to the Wonder Years: 3 to 9, I immediately said yes.  Or, really, we said yes.  WhyDaddy was a big fan of his earlier book, The New Dad, and read it cover-to-cover when we were expecting Widget to make his appearance.  WhyDaddy proclaimed the earlier book, “the best of the new dad books that I’ve seen,” and referred to it frequently during the first few months.  So we were both excited to read the new book.

With his newest book for preschoolers and school-aged kids, Brott continues an excellent series for fathers.  WhyDaddy and I both found the book to be clear, concise, and straightforward advice for the thinking dad.  It’s a common sense guide to the new situations and conundrums faced by dads with growing kids, full of information shared casually without being preachy.  The advice is clear without being simplistic.  WhyDaddy says that the prose is, “very readable; friendly without being condescending.”  Brott really gets into the mind of dads and walks them through new situations like a trusted friend.

The chapter on 3 year olds (our expertise) has been great reading and given us some things to think and talk about.  One of the aspects we like most about this book is its emphasis on research, not just opinion.  The text is well-researched without being overly technical and dry.  Brott is good at referencing studies, but he also acknowledges when the research straddles the fence and is not definitive on a particular point.

WhyDaddy had only one complaint, “Although the author provides a very good filter on research results, the more research-oriented parent would appreciate pointers to the studies or at least further information.” 

Overall though, we both really like this book and recommend it for dads of kids just starting school.

Imagitales

Remember the personalized books that were available when we were little?  I had one, my husband had one, maybe you had one too.  They were standardized stories with typed text, with child’s name filled in here and there, and perhaps a mention of your town and state somewhat awkardly as well.  Good literature, they were not.  Smooth transitions, they were not.  But they were ours, and we loved them, didn’t we?

Well, today’s technology has brought personalized books to a whole new level.  One company, Imagitales, now offers books not only personalized with the child’s name, but also his picture!  That’s right, the books can feature your baby or toddler acting as part of the story.  Each of the thirteen books puts your child’s picture right in the action, as the main character of the story, and inserts his or her name every so often as well.

There are a variety of titles.  I chose Nature Time, Things That Go, and On the Farm.  Nature Time is a two-person book, featuring a small child and a parent, friend, or sibling.  We used our baby as the second person, with some success, although it would have come out much better with an adult (from the size of the shoulders on several drawings).  Also, the skin tone was off in these books.  The pink tone, which we selected, came out much more yellow and spotty than in the other two books.  I wasn’t very happy with this one at all, and contacted the company.  They offered to send me a replacement of another book, and I’ll let you know what I think when it arrives.

Things That Go and On the Farm are single-character books, and they came out beautifully.  The drawings are simple and cheery, with the body sized so that the face is emphasized, in a cartoonish but pleasing way.  The stories are simple and appropriate for a two- or three-year old, as designed.  There are actually two levels of story for each title.  The standard story was written by the creators of the series.  The beginner level story was written by a speech language pathologist, and I much prefer these.

The books came out really cute.  They’re inexpensive, viewable online, and are a fun birthday gift for a friend or stocking stuffer for a little cousin.  They do take time to create, however, and this is the big drawback to the books.  The pictures must be uploaded to the site and the parent/friend ordering must do some digital cropping to trim the photo down to the face itself.  This consists of pointing and clicking 15-30 dots around the face; more is better, as in most digital image processing.  It’s not hard, but it does take some time.  Luckily, once an image is uploaded to the library, it is saved and it’s very quick to order duplicates or other titles.

The other difficulty I had with this site is its accessibility.  There seem to be issues with Java; I’ve had trouble getting into the site predictably.  Part of that was due to the new Java release last month, but part of it is a persistent problem.  Maybe that won’t be an issue for you, but I mention it here as a caveat.  It might take more time than you expect to order these little books.

But the look on your child’s face when they see a story featuring themselves is worth it.

This review was done as part of the Parent Bloggers Network.