Suburban Reviews

Mike Byster is a math genius. No, seriously, he is. Psychologists say he has ‘one of the fastest mathematical minds in the world’, and after seeing him in action, you can’t help but believe it. The things this man can do without pencil and paper is both amazing and highly entertaining, making you wish he would both teach your children and attend your next dinner party. That mix of talent and charisma makes him a fantastic teacher, and the reason I see his Brainetics program for kids becoming a huge success.

The Brainetics system is a 5 dvd set that focuses on various tricks for doing math mentally as opposed to on paper or with a calculator. The theme of all this is ‘learning out of the box’, and I have to agree- math was never taught like this when I was in school. Learning how to calculate what day of the year someone was born? Magic squares? Card games? I probably wouldn’t be quite so math-stupid myself if we had been taught like this. In fact I found myself getting more and more interested as I watched the dvd’s, and even starting to understand the Fibonacci sequence, sort, after I watched it twice. (I will admit to being terrible at math, so I consider even slightly grasping the concept a step forward.) Still, the kids in the video picked it up pretty quick, so clearly it can be done.

My only real complaint with the program is that the videos move along pretty quickly, causing me to need to back up fairly often to review the concept. For a child’s short attention span that is probably a good thing, but if you are having trouble picking up the lesson being taught, all that rewinding can be a bit discouraging. Additionally, the number of steps to each of these tricks is a bit daunting, and would take a LOT of practice to memorize, which sort of defeats the point of being able to do it mentally. If I have to write down the steps, why not just work it out on paper to begin with?

All in all I think the Brainetics program is great, if a *bit* above the level of my current 4th grader. While all the tricks taught are certainly great for entertainment, the real value comes in the ability gained to look at a problem and figure a solution beyond the typical rote and recitation methods of the past. Thanks to the Parent Bloggers Network and Brainetics for a tool I’ll be using with all three of my children for years to come.

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Kids are a fickle lot- today’s favorite shirt is tomorrow’s floor-warmer, favorite foods are discarded as quickly as they are discovered, and don’t even get me started on the toys that were begged for for months before being played with twice and relegated to the bottom of the toy box. Not many things are able to stand the test of time where these short people are concerned, which is why it is so amazing a personal favorite of mine, Highlights Magazine, is celebrating their 60th anniversary this year. 60 years! Proving you are only as old as you feel, Highlights has launched a brand-new magazine for the 2-5 year old set called High Five. I got to check out the new magazine courtesy of the Parent Bloggers Network, and I’ll say already, it has knocked my socks off.

With High Five, Highlights has done an amazing job of taking the best of their regular magazine, and bringing it down to a preschool level. Each issue contains 6-8 short stories that are just the right length for a preschooler’s notoriously short attention span. I was incredibly tickled to see instead of featuring ‘The Timbertoes’ like they do in Highlights, the company has given the Timbertoe dog his own comic series in High Five called ‘The Adventures of Spot’. He always was my favorite character ;)  Remember doing ‘Hidden Pictures’ every month? High Five carries on the tradition with ‘My First Hidden Pictures’. Similarly, each issue also carries age appropriate crafts and activities to do with your little ones. The only thing I could possibly say is missing is the Your Own Pages section which usually has drawings and pictures sent in by readers. I think inviting parents to send in pictures of their kids with crafts they made from the magazine would be an excellent way to encourage participation and reader loyalty, and young children love seeing pictures of other kids their age.

Overall, Highlights has done a truly amazing job of creating a magazine for preschoolers that looks and feels like the classic reading material so many of us grew up with. By including the best features of the older magazine in their newer venture, they create the perfect bridge for kids to transition from High Five to Highlights as they get older, and in doing so encourage us long-time readers to keep subscribing.

Check out the Parent Bloggers Network for information on the blog blast on March 7th to find out how you can win a free subscription to High Five for your own family, a $30 value!  

Having been a nanny to a young boy and then having a couple of my own, I am no stranger to Bob the Builder. With all the trucks and tools and construction going on in each episode, its probably the only preschool-age show on tv that is aimed mostly towards boys. When I was offered an advance copy of Bob the Builder On Site- Roads and Bridges from the Parent Bloggers Network, my two little guys were over the moon excited.

Right up front I have to say this DVD took some getting used to, because it is NOTHING like the tv series. Oh, Bob, Dizzy and Rolley are there, but everyone else seems to be missing in action. Where is Pilchard? Where is Spud? And where oh where is his are-they-or-aren’t-they partner Wendy? Not once is her voice heard in this movie, quite odd since she is a regular on the tv show. While I’m sure plenty of little girls would still watch it without her, it is nice to have a relateable female character, something this episode lacked. On the other hand, the live action mixed with the usual animation proved to be a novelty that kept both boys watching the entire hour.

The best part of this movie was by far the scenes that showed the real trucks. We have a couple of movies about trains and trucks, but this was the first I’ve seen that tells what they are and how they worked, rather than just saying what they do and moving on. Whether due to the content itself, or being stuck inside with 2 sick boys, I was strangely fascinated by the explanation on when you use a large cement mixer and when to use a small one. Who knew they even came in different sizes?

Despite missing the regular supporting characters, the video was a hit here all the way around, and one I’m sure will be getting plenty of play time with my two wanna-be builders

I love you
You love me
We’re a happy family
With a great big hug
And a kiss from me to you
Won’t you say you love me too?I love you
You love me
We’re best friends
Like friends should be
With a great big hug
And a kiss from me to you
Won’t you say you love me too?

The song is in your head now isn’t it? Welcome to the world of millions of parents everywhere. The big purple dinosaur we so love to make fun of has turned 20 years old, if you can believe that! I personally discovered Barney at the age of 13 when I took on my first babysitting job. I liked him then and I liked him now. Yes, he’s dorky, and yes the acting is terrible, but there is something comforting about a show so completely innocent into today’s MTV world.

In celebration of Barney’s 20th birthday, Fox has released Barney: Celebrating Around the World on DVD. The story takes Barney and his friends on a magic train ride around to the world as they explore ways other countries celebrate. They visit Rio de Janeiro for Carnival, the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan, India for the Festival of Lights, and several other destinations that include Ireland to learn the Reel, and tribal dancing in Kenya. Along the way they make new friends an explore some of the food, music and language that makes each place unique.

For the age 2-5 preschool crowd, this is a very beginning step to learning about the differences in various cultures, and I have to say I enjoyed it. Its not terribly in-depth, but keeping in mind the age range, the 60 minute movie did well here as far as my own expectations. The costumes were cute, the music was lively, and overall its just a fun film, as long as you are not expecting award winning acting. My only complaint would be that there was nothing about Mardi Gras! I know, I know, its more about other locations, but being in Mardi Gras season here in the birthplace of the holiday, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it Overall this movie was a hit with my 3 year old, and I wouldn’t mind watching it a time or two again myself. Barney may be 20, but I suspect he’ll be delighting children for many more years to come.

Everyone with children has heard of the Dangerous Book for Boys. Not surprisingly when the book came out, many parents were left asking “What about the girls? Why is it just for boys?” Picking this up and running with it, Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz wrote the companion book, The Daring Book for Girls. Thanks to the Parent Bloggers Network, I got to check it out and see what all the fuss is about!

The first thing I noticed about the book is how random it is. This book is made to be flipped open and browsed through quickly, making it perfect for a certain 9 year old girl with a very short attention span. (Not that I know any of those. Ahem.) Each section is only a couple of pages, and covers an amazing range of topics. Do you know the rules of basketball? 14 different ways to play tag? How to care for a softball glove? Did you know there were female pirates? Need plans to build a scooter? Want to learn some really big words, or be able to name some modern-day princesses around the world? It’s all in there. A lot of the information is really useful; I was thrilled to see parts talking about math tricks, the periodic table, and a lot of interesting history bits. Others, maybe not so much. (Stocks and bonds? Robert’s Rules?) Overall it’s a great mix of things to do and things to know.

I think my only reservation about this book is the politics behind it. I wrote recently about how it seems things just for boys are being demonized, yet things just for girls go without comment, and this seems to be another case of that. Don’t get me wrong, I applaud the authors for recognizing and filling a gap with a well-written, interesting book. There is however a little voice in the back of my head asking why was there so much uproar when the Dangerous Book for Boys was introduced, yet when a similar book for girls comes out, no one has anything to say about it, other than great job?

All in all, the Daring Book for Girls is a great book that will take you back to your own childhood, and maybe open your eyes to all the things girls can do, if only we as an over-protective society will allow them.

If you’d like to hear more about this book, be sure to check out Motherhood Uncensored on Blogtalk Radio Wednesday night at 9pm as she interviews Andrea and Miriam about the book!

We’ve all heard the news reports- kids who are taught a second language at a very early age pick it up faster and more thoroughly than those who wait until middle school, and those who learn a second language in general are more creative and better at problem solving. However, the majority of adults are not bilingual, so giving our kids those benefits seems more like an ideal than a real possibility. Aside from the occasional ‘taco’ and fajita’, the most exposure to a foreign language my kids get is via Dora the Explorer. (I have my doubts about Dora’s morals, she goes on wayyyy too much about ‘playing with the magic stick’ if ya know what I mean!)

What’s a single-language parent to do? This parent got a copy of the Kids Love Spanish dvd set from the Parent Bloggers Network and gave it a try.

I have to say, I was unimpressed with this company before I ever got the dvd’s. Mainly because I never got them. Twice we were told they were sent out, and I have yet to see a package from the company. I double-checked the address PBN has on file, so I know the problem is not on this end. As far as I know I was the only reviewer on this campaign to have this problem, so I’m writing this off as a fluke, but I would be remiss if I didn’t give my full experience. Luckily a fellow reviewer came to my rescue and loaned me her copy(which arrived quickly and without issue!), so here we are.

The dvds are at first glance rather cheesy looking. I could barely keep a straight face as the creators of the video, sisters Julie and Krisse Brock, started singing and dancing against an amateurishly done background. When they started introducing to the words, I was this-close to turning the movie off. The words are repeated over, and over, and over, and over. My 4 year old gave a disgusted look and turned back to his video game. Then I looked at my 2 1/2 year old and listened as he repeated the words. Toddlers thrive on order and repetition, and in that, the Brock sisters have nailed it. What they lack in production knowledge, they make up for in their understanding of small children. My youngest son sat there laughing at the videos, oohing and ahhhing over the pictures, and practicing the words along with the children on the video. Even as his interest in sitting still during the movies waned, I could hear him behind the couch playing with his cars and saying the words along with the video.

For all the repetition, they still manage to pack a surprising amount of material into each 30 minute dvd. I didn’t count, but I would estimate each episode covered between 20-30 words. I like how each disc covers a particular category of words, and the topics range from colors to numbers to animals to alphabets to family words, moving on to simple phrases in disc 7.  Such a broad base of words will  give your kids an excellent  base vocabulary to build on as they continue to learn.

Despite the rocky start, I would very highly recommend these videos to those looking to teach their 4 and under kids a second language. (Over 4 and I’m not sure the cheesiness will be quite as appealing.) The movies are packed with words and the repetition along with the incredibly cute videos will captivate your little one’s attention, and unlike Dora, there are no naked monkeys or magic sticks to be found.

I have found a great new product designed to make giving medicine to your baby easier.  It’s called ReliaDose and it’s a bottle/syringe/medicine dropper combination.  It’s meant to be used as a medicine delivery system for babies who fight taking medicine or for medicines that don’t taste good. 

Even when I first looked at the design, I knew it was a terrific idea.  ReliaDose is a bottle with a syringe in the middle.  To give your child a liquid medicine, you simply fill the syringe and place it in an opening in the middle of the bottle.  When the baby sucks, you slowly press the syringe, administering the medicine.

I attempted to use ReliaDose to give my daughter her Prevacid solutabs.  Unfortunately, Prevacid solutabs do not completely disintegrate and it’s granules became stuck in the nipple of the bottle.  However, when I used a liquid medicine in the syringe, it worked like a charm. 

I was really impressed with the design of this product.  It was extremely easy to use, is dishwasher safe, and was invented by a Mom.  ReliaDose retails between $8.99 and $11.99.  This medicine delivery system can be purchased online at cvs.com.  For retailers, visit the ReliaDose website at reliadose.com.

What’s better than free? Educational and free! And so begins the beginning of a new addiction in our house- Word World, a new educational program aimed at preschoolers on PBS.

We love PBS here. I grew up on Sesame Street and have introduced it to my own children, and the hubby and I enjoyed watching the Frontier House and Pioneer House series.  They are such a great resource for educational tv, and in a time where Barney and Spongebob rules for the under-5 set, a channel I don’t feel guilty about letting the kids watch.

Word World is a new show focusing on teaching children letters and how they are put together to make words. Every character and many of their surroundings are made up of letters. Yes, everything is spelled with letters, but visually, they really are made up of letters. Confused? Check this out-

I swear they are not nearly as creepy as they look. Far from it, they are very warm and inviting thanks to some of the best voice acting to come along in a PBS show in quite some time. The storylines are simple but engaging, and the episodes are just short enough to keep the kids from getting bored. The letters are repeated subtly to help encourage recognition, and words are spelled out to help emphasize the relationship between the letters and using them to build words.

Best of all? This enchanting series is available to everyone, free of charge on your local PBS station. The show was developed as part of the Ready to Learn initiative and funded by the Department of Education to help lower income children with reading readiness. That’s right, quality educational programs with no dvd’s to buy!

Check your guide and set your Tivo’s, this is one show you don’t have to feel guilty about letting your kids watch! Thanks so much to Parent Bloggers Network for introducing us to this new favorite, and  Word World for giving us something the kids will turn off Spongebob for. Really, my sanity thanks you.

We love our Wii. It’s probably the first system we’ve owned that I’ve spent any kind of real time playing. When Parent Bloggers Network offered me the chance to check out the new Boogie game for the system, I wasted no time accepting. This had to be good!

The game comes packaged with a microphone, the game, and 2 pairs of 3-D glasses. There is a 3-d effect in the music editing section, so I can say from experience if you plan to try that, keep them away from my your 2 year old or they may get torn up like tissue paper misplaced. *ahem*. The mic is corded, something that takes a few minutes to get used to, but not something you will even notice once you are acclimated.

Once you start, there are several options for activities. You create a character from a pretty limited selection of heads and clothes, and then chose from either karaoke, dancing, or story mode. Story mode tells the story of each character as you go through 3 sets of dancing and 2 sets of singing, to songs the Wii game picks.

The dancing I think is both the easiest and the hardest part of the game. Your natural inclination is to dance, but as I sat and played with it, I realized it is scoring you by your hand movements staying on the beat of the song. You literally can stand still and move just your hands up and down, and if you do it right, score really well. Maybe that’s a good thing for those of us who are, let’s say less than coordinated.

As far as the karaoke, I have very mixed feelings on it. I loved a few of the more recent songs, but I really, truly have a problem with the fact that they are heavily edited versions. So edited that it causes problems for those of us who know the songs by heart, and are left stumbling when huge chunks of lyrics are just missing. If the songs are so objectionable, why include them? There are plenty of current, somewhat child-friendly songs out there that wouldn’t involve butchering the music. Maybe this is where parental controls could come in? Don’t get me wrong, I am all about kid friendly games, particularly with having three children and owning every game system on the market. But I think when you are trying to make games that appeal to the whole family, you can’t just cater to the lower end, there has to be a good draw for adults to play too. Nintendo seemed to try to compensate for this by including older songs like YMCA, ABC, Brick House, and a few other 70’s and 80’s songs that were just before my time. Overall I just was not thrilled with the music selection, and sincerely hope they will be offering music packs in their download store in the near future.

That aside, the actual singing part was fun! Provided you aren’t shy. And you have a decent voice. And being slightly inebriated would help too. Lacking all that, I simply waited until my husband went out of town, and after the kids went down I tortured the dogs with my howling, complete with a cold and sore throat. Just from knowing the songs I picked I was able to score pretty high, and despite how bad I sounded, I had fun. So much fun I actually played it for about an hour straight, a rare thing for me.

Aside from the music choices the biggest downside for me was that I am NOT someone comfortable with performing in front of people. Obviously not Nintendo’s fault, but if you are not up for being goofy and looking foolish in the name of good fun, you might not enjoy the game that much. I would highly recommend getting it for the kids, all three of mine tried it and had a good time with it. The more outgoing members of our family had a blast with it also, and this really would make an amazing party game if you are into karaoke.

Head over to the Boogie site to check it out, and be sure to stop by the Parent Bloggers Network and see what others are saying about this game!

In this day and age of Baby Einstein videos and educational toys, one thing is clear- we all want our children to reach their fullest potential. We start our children listening to classical music before they enter the world, we make sure our crib mobiles are black and white so our 3 day old infants can see them properly, and we start reading to them within weeks, all in the name of “smarter babies”. It’s not surprising then that there are actually videos on the market claiming to be able to teach these babies to read. Yes, you heard me, to read. The Infant learning Company, Inc is making such a claim with it’s Your Baby Can Read dvd series, and as part of the Parent Bloggers Network, I got to put them to the test.

Each Your Baby Can Read dvd comes with the dvd and a set of pull-out flash cards. The disk itself consists of sections for both parents and children. The parents portion explains how to use the video with the cards. I admit I was a little taken back when I viewed this section, as it’s creator suggests that to get the full effect, the video should be played 1-2x per day, and no other tv should be watched. At this point I started to laugh; the guy is obviously a first-time father.

(We all had those no-tv-and-only-educational-when-it-is ambitions with our firsts. By the third child, Dora rules the roost.)

I put the dvd in the first time not expecting a lot. After viewing the parent’s portion is seemed like it would be just a lot of words on the screen. Boy was I wrong! Instead I was shown videos that dare I say it, put the Baby Einstein series to shame. The words are there, shown first before the delightfully engaging clip of the animal, object, or action. We especially loved the animal ones; ‘pig’ is a very easy word to pick up, and the shot of the baby pigs nursing made my boys giggle uncontrollably. In between the narrators ask questions such as “Do you know what color the baby ducks are?” to keep the children interested. For my 4 and 2 year olds, I have to say this was the most truly interactive video, ever. It kept them watching and participating through the entire 30 minutes, no easy feat for a 4 and 2 year old!

The flash cards were also enjoyed, but admittedly not as much as the video. They liked the pictures, and didn’t mind sitting still for short sessions of reading the word and then viewing the picture. The way they are put together is a problem though. They are very durable, but one of them stuck for us, and I still do not know what the horse looks like, as we’ve not been able to open at that card at all. Other cards had minor sticking that we were able to open without breaking, and overall I thought they were well-made.

My 4 year old is I *think* starting to pick up a few words, but is very hit or miss. Sometimes he seems to recognize them, sometimes not. My 2 year old is not picking up any at all yet, but we’ve not been able to manage the twice a day viewing either, so it may just take longer when you are doing it a few times a week.

That’s not to say we got nothing out of it. In fact we had a very surprising outcome, in that they have turned out to be a wonderful speech therapy tool! My 4 year old has verbal apraxia, and has been in speech therapy for nearly two years. It has become second nature for us to incorporate sounding out words and having him repeat things in our day to day life, and this has become a wonderful supplement to that. When the narrator reads a word on the screen, my son will immediately repeat it back, and with him, repetition is key. In addition, my 2 year old would repeat everything his brother would say, so it ended up being great vocabulary practice for both of them.

I am not one to push educational toys and reading to your child the minute they are expelled from the womb, but as far as these things go, the Your Baby Can Read dvd sets actually have some value. Some kids will start recognizing words right away, some like mine may benefit more from the verbal vocabulary building parts, and still others may enjoy this as just a truly entertaining and worthwhile educational video. As long as you can take the instructions with a grain of salt, I would recommend these to anyone with small children. They really were a delightful find, and I thank Parent Bloggers Network for allowing us to be a part of this one, because I will be purchasing more of the dvd sets in the future.

Interested parents can find Your Baby Can read dvds and books on the Infant Learning Company website. Each dvd can be purchased for $14.95, or special muti-disk set prices are also listed. Either way they are well worth it!