Baby Road Trip Series (DVD)

Blue Mountain Arts. (2006). Baby road trip: Circus [DVD]. New York, NY: Baby Road Trip.

Interest Level: 3 & under
Subjects/Themes: Word Recognition, Shapes, Colors, Circus,
Running Time: 30 minutes
Price: $8 to $15

Plot:  Children join Scout the Dog and Road Trip Ryan as they learn about the circus.  Children are introduced to the different people, animals, and things that children would see at the circus.  Shapes, with the names written on the screen, are introduced to with circues animals.  The images are composed of a stream of graphics, clay animation, and live videos that all relate to the circus theme.  A portion of the profits from DVD sales are donated to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Personal Thoughts:  I borrowed this DVD from my local library (always a good resource for learning DVDs).  The strength of this DVD is the live video representations of the circus concepts, such as acrobats and trapeze artists, which can be hard for children to understand using picture books.  A good alternative to taking a child to the circus or in preparation to go to one.  The weakness of this DVD is the lack of audio pronunciation accompanying the shapes names which would go a long way to helping children with word recognition.  There is a bonus feature that shows a picture of each concept with its name written and spoken which almost serves as a better learning device then the movie itself.  Not one of my favorite learning DVDs but still useful as a circus learning tool.

Awards:
Parenting Magazine's Pick of the Month (July 2004)
Dr. Toy Award
NAPPA Award
iParenting Media Award
Creative Child Award