Leapfrog: Lets Go To School (DVD review)
Jojo learned a lot from our LeapFrog DVD’s. My favorite title was our 2003-edition of LeapFrog - Letter Factory (it has now been revamped and I haven’t seen the newer version).
LeapFrog - Letter Factory taught Jojo all of his phonetic sounds at the age of 2. I gave him the DVD for his 2nd birthday thinking that he would be interested when he was a bit older, but no…he watched it daily for two weeks until he had memorized the entire thing!
Now, he is in 4K and has just turned 5. I sat for a parent-teacher conference just today. I was told that he is ahead of the curve on reading readiness (he can read consonant-vowel-consonant words), and I can’t help but wonder what role our LeapFrog DVD played in that?
So I was very excited to hear that LeapFrog was releasing a NEW DVD, the first in 5 years!
LeapFrog: Let’s Go to School is a little different in from the 
previous DVD adventures of frog siblings Leap, Tad, and Lily.
Here are some things I noticed:
- There is a song at the beginning about following The Learning Path. This make me think that LeapFrog is planning to further expand the DVD series and tie it all in to the online “Learning Path” available on their website.
- Lily and Tad are now twins. In previous DVD’s, Tad was the youngest sibling and Lily and Leap were older. In fact in LeapFrog - Letter Factory, Lily and Leap taught a preschool-aged Tad his letters.
- The animation is a different style now, more computery.
As for the actual content, LeapFrog: Let’s Go to School is a good overview of various preschool skills, and it also talks about nervous feelings about starting school for the first time.
The running time is 35 minutes, which is enough time for a short animated “music video” and song about topics like letters, counting, days of the week, months, seasons, and animals.
The special features on LeapFrog: Let’s Go to School are closed captioning, a preview of “Math Adventure to the Moon,” which comes out in 2010, an Interactive alphabet “book”, and Sing-alongs of all five of the film’s songs (Alphabet Song, Counting Song, Animal Family Song, Calendar Song, and Leapfrog Learning Path Song).
LeapFrog: Let’s Go to School is a fun title but not as “meaty” in the learning department as other LeapFrog DVD offerings. Exploration of each subject is brief and shallow, but if you are looking for something educational, this is something that children could benefit from watching repeatedly.
I’m teaching preschool full time now, so I am thankful toLionsgate for my complimentary review copy.
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