Baby Einstein: Baby MacDonald (2004)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Created by Jim Janicek & Len Marino

Features:

• Repeat Play
  
• Discovery Cards
  
• "Old MacDonald" Sing Along
  
• Puppet Shows
  
• Story Time with Baby MacDonald on the Farm
  
• Toy Chest
  

My Advice: If you've got kids, there's nothing better

Let's spend a day at the farm! There are all kinds of neat things that happen on the farm! There are all the animals like the horses and cows and chickens and pigs! Don't forget about all the work that goes into the farm...like watering and plowing and planting and harvesting! And what do farms give us? They give us lots of foods that are good for our bodies like corn and apples and wheat and carrots and eggs and milk!

For anyone who is not familiar with this series of children's videos, CDs, games, and toys, they are outstanding. If you are about to have your first child or your fifteenth, these need to be on your shelf. My daughter is two years old and she has her favorites. This one ranks at the top of her list. How do I know this? She's constantly picking it off of her shelf of DVDs to play it for her. Seriously, she can pick this one out amongst the likes of the Pixar movies, VeggieTales, and even the other Baby Einstein DVDs. If she can't find this one, she will run around the house yelling the word "farm" (which she learned from the video) until we help her track it down.

So, what sets these apart from other children's DVDs, you might ask. Well, for starters, this series is focused on the development of little minds. Rather than simply entertaining them with a story, this series helps youngsters work on their ever expanding vocabulary by connecting words with images, music and sound effects. Any time we are out in our car and my daughter sees a cow, she will yell, "Look! Cows!" and then start mooing. That probably doesn't sound like much for someone who is not a parent, but for a two-year-old, that's a huge thing. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the music and sound effects are the type that you won't get tired of hearing over and over again. This is a must for parents.

The DVDs are every bit as devoted to the development of children as the main content they hold. The great part about the bonus material is that every bit of it encourages parents to get down on the floor and interact with their children while watching and learning. First of all, the main content for the disc has a repeat play feature which will play the video over and over again. I think this is measured in half-life, but I'm not sure. This is great if you want to put the DVD in so you can a few things done around the house.

Next up, there are the Discovery Cards which act as interactive flash cards. They can be used with your children to help them identify the images from the video. Think of it like the test on the video. Everything else on the disc is a kind of scene selection with some modifications. The "Old MacDonald" sing-along takes you to the place in the video where they sing the famous children's song, but it flashes the lyrics on the screen turning your home entertainment center into a kind of karaoke machine for little ones. The Puppet Shows plays the various puppet shows from the video as well as some new ones, complete with a musical score that is not found on the main video.

Stay with me here, this is actually bonus material on the disc! Finally, Story Time with Baby MacDonald on the Farm is, yet again, more material that relates to the main content, but is actually new and something else for you and you child to interact with while they learn. Think of this feature as a kind of digital storybook that is narrated for you talking about all of the images that can be seen on each "page".

I'll say it again, if you've got kids and you don't have a couple (if not all) of this series on your DVD shelf, you don't know what you are missing. It's a great, entertaining way for your kids to learn all sorts of things. Make sure you see my reviews about the other DVDs in this series.