Every Baby

CanCan, 31 May 2009,
Categories: Baby care, Educational products, Mom stuff, Reviews
Tags: Mom Most Traveled, review

Every baby learns by doing.
This is the driving idea behind Eebee baby and even better for parents of little ones, Eebee shows how your baby can learn at home without having to buy a heap of “educational” toys!
Currently there are three creative and fun Eebee DVDs. Each are thirty minutes long, divided into three 10-minute segments.
The character Eebee is herself colorful and engaging, and the original songs add to the excitement.
For parents, there is a information galore from developmental experts, as they explain each activity from a “clinical” perspective, which is exactly my cup of tea. I love learning about how my child learns!
Eebee’s Adventures - Exploring Real Stuff has ideas for letting babies 6 months and older experience their world though touch, and sound.
The first segment, Brimming with Ideas, is filled with pouring activities that reminded me very much of Jojo’s Montessori education. Let your little one pour and scoop with cereals and grains. Who doesn’t love a good romp with a rice bin?
Out of the Box is an introduction to math and science concepts. Now, it isn’t as lofty as it sounds; these “lessons” are taught using paper and cardboard boxes!

Discovering properties, feeling, stretching, tearing, crumpling, finding, hiding, crinkling, pulling, pushing, waving, weighing

On a Roll highlights fun activities to do with balls, such as learning about texture by rolling them on different surfaces.

Eebee’s Adventures - All in a Day’s Play! is an Eebee DVD title for ages 6 months and above. My favorite segment, the first, Laundry List, is all about fun things to do with the laundry basket and piles of (clean) laundry! Deeds loves playing with the laundry, and it is great to know how to use his interest to build his language skills and help his imagination grow!
The Just You & Me focuses on relational activities between parent and child. You will learn how to make the same old book exciting in those times you are made to read it repeatedly! I love the silly games that help teach social skills.
Little Objects, Big Ideas is about something that all mobile babies seem to love: making noise with cups, bowls, pots, pans, and spoons.
Eebee’s Adventures - Figuring Things Out is geared toward toddlers, ages 1 to 2.

Deeds is fascinated by lights right now, so the The Light Bulb Goes On is a lovely segment for him! We actually do all of the activities, because Deeds demands them: turning the light on and off. And on and off. And…one more time! Tracking light with a flashlight beam (Deeds likes to be in charge of the flashlight though), and fun with shadows! Jojo, who is 4 1/2, enjoys these activities as well, but maybe for different reasons. He actually kind of understands how to make shadow puppets now!
The second segment, themed Blocks and Tackling Ideas focuses on building (and the fun part, knocking things down!). This activity is actually a source of contention for Jojo and Deeds because they can’t agree over exactly when the knocking down should occur…
On the Go is a segment designed to really get your little one moving as they perform physical feats such as scaling mountains of pillows! Deeds is a natural climber (it makes my life very difficult some times), and Jojo loves to be challenged when I set up indoor obstacles and pretend to time him.

Deeds will certainly learn a lot with Eebee, but I learned something too.

I learned to look at the things that Deeds likes to do (such as pouring things out, making noise, ripping paper, and shoving folded clothes into the laundry basket in a way that makes them become wrinkled again) in a new light.

Before, I would of course grow annoyed at his repetitive meddling. But Eebee made me realize that these are things that Deeds NEEDS to do in order to make sense of his world.

So, instead of trying to body block him to keep him out of the kitchen cabinets, I’m now trying to stretch my brain to set him up with an activity that makes him feel a part of the action.

A wad of play dough and plastic knife on a cutting board or a big bowl of water and measuring cups can keep Deeds happy, engaged, and out of trouble, which saves me a lot of stress!