Meet the Shapes DVD

I purchased a used set that was missing this one. Glad I picked this up, though, as it's one of my two-year-old's favorites of the bunch.

I started playing this video when my baby was probably 6 months old everyday once a day. At first as with all his videos, he would watch for a couple of minutes and then get bored. But as he got used to it, he started paying attention more. Eventually he had favorite parts that he would respond to. For some reason Octagon really got him giggling, especially at the end when she's all alone with cricket sounds.A few weeks ago, when he was 15 months old, he was playing in a bin of shapes. I casually said a shape, and he pulled it out. I said another one, and he pulled that one out too. I looked at my housekeeper and said, "Is this just a coincidence?" She replied, "I think he really knows it." So, then I asked him to find the oval which was half covered, not holding my breath for anything. Lo and behold, he sifted and found it! I could not believe my eyes. That was the very first time he responded to me quite positively that he knew some things. Well, later I tested him when he was fed and happy in his high chair. As I said them, he looked, smiled when he saw each one and then grabbed them.In this video, the only speech you hear is the narrator's voice or the characters' voices saying the shape name. You derive the story line by watching the characters interact with their environments. There is obviously friendly music in the background that go with each character.The circle skateboards. The square builds a bird house. The triangle sits in a canoe and feeds the ducks. The oval makes popcorn. The star gets on a ride at a place like Chuckey Cheese's and travels space and the ocean. The octagon plays in the school playground. The rectangle puts out a campfire as a fire truck.My baby still enjoys this video and has the biggest grin on his face when the circle comes out and tells the parents to adjust their tv screen if he looks stretched out.

Okay so first of all, as a Kindergarten teacher I'm going to say, "Don't allow your child to watch too much t.v." That said, as a mom, I know that sometimes we need them to keep entertained for a bit while we get a load of a laundry done, or dinner started, etc. so, at least in my opinion, t.v. becomes a must from time to time. In my opinion, there are great shows on t.v. such as The Backyardigans, Blues Clues, Sesame Street, Between the Lions (highly recommend for early readers), Hi 5, The Wiggles, etc. etc.In addition to these shows, these Preschool Prep videos are the best! We pretty much have all of these videos at home and my kids love them (as do I, both as a mom and teacher). My little boy who is now 3 learned his colors, shapes, letter names and sounds (sounds from Leap Frog Letter Factory which I also highly recommend), before he was two thanks to these videos. My little girl, who is now a year in a half, also knows all her shapes, colors, and letter names. Now of course as a teacher I do reinforce what they watch with some work at home, but I pretty much do that with anything they watch on t.v. These videos are colorful, repetitive but not boring, sound clear, and are fun to watch.You can reinforce what they are learning from these videos, simply by purchasing some foam rectangles (the ones used for crafty stuff) and cutting them out in the various shapes (use black for the shapes so as to not confuse the little ones with colors, although later on you can make the shapes in colors), colors, & abc's. We have these all over the house but they especially like to play with them during bath time.

I put this or one of the others on for my toddlers in the morning and they are repetitive and annoying to us adults but engaging to the toddlers. They really do learn from the videos and I sit with them and point at the tv and get them to guess the shapes, colors,

My youngest son has special needs & mainly uses sign language as a form of communication. My son can learn all sorts of things from these videos that he was unable to learn in preshcool. With just days of "Meet the Numbers" he knew several numbers and with 2 weeks of "Meet the Letters" he was able to name many letters on the cover of Meet the Numbers. This is a big deal because just saying words clear enough for us to understand is hard yet he was able to say these things. I even consider somewhat of a speech therapy while he does the video because he talks along with them. With the simple & repetitive style it is very easy to pick up and they associate the characters with what they are leraning and are able to generatlize it into every day activities. I HIGHLY recomend this item not only for normal children but for those with special needs. We use our's in the car on the way to school. Better then just sitting there!Meet the Shapes

The "dialog" to this video is "circle circle circle circle square square square . . ." I suppose it gets the job done of teaching kids the shape names, but there is literally zero story line. After 20 seconds of the kids watching this in the car, my husband and I were sick of it. After a minute or two, my 2 year old daughter started yelling "Elmo Elmo" - in other words, put the Elmo DVD back in, Mom. I'm trying to get my older son to remember his shapes though, and I do think it might help with that in the end.

My grandson loves this particular DVD and all the series. He started to watch them when he wasn't even one year old, he is two years old now and knows numbers, most of the letters, colors, and now, shapes. The DVD is very colorful, keeps kid's attention well and is very informative. As the introduction to a DVD states, the child's learning exceeded our expectations

My 2 year old loves this series of learning DVD's and I will purchase more for him. They're incredibly cute and within days he could say 'Octagon' as his first shape word. Great!! Thanks :)

What a great DVD!

The CDs are very cute. We have only used it however for a week now so I can't comment on the learning aspect.