Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Alphabet Beats - lowercase letters from The TV Teacher

The TV Teacher – Alphabet Beats lowercase

http://www.tvteachervideos.com/

About the DVD
This fun and educational video teaches children how to write lowercase letters. Within each 5-minute chapter, approx. 8-10 vocabulary words beginning with that letter are also shown. All vocabulary is different from the Uppercase DVD which enhances your child's learning!

Alphabet Beats are fun, educational videos that teach children (recommended ages: 2 ½ - 8) how to write the alphabet quickly and easily! In each DVD children enjoy watching Miss Marnie because she is very engaging and fun, while at the same time she is teaching valuable skills and concepts. The vocabulary words being demonstrated are both educational and therapeutically based: body parts, spatial concepts, opposites, shapes, colors, animals, musical instruments, sensory items, community helpers, cutting, painting, behavior modeling, gross and fine motor activities, daily living skills, and so much more - all in our writing DVD's!

Our Thoughts
If you would tell me that you can only buy one product this year for your preschooler/junior kindergarten, I would strongly suggest that you look into this DVD. This product is a HUGE hit in my house. Not only my 27 months and 4 years old are watching it but my 6 and 8 ¾ years old come and join us as well.

I’ve seen a difference in the writing of my 4 year old and my baby girl is enjoying Miss Marnie so much that she repeats the letter after her most of the time. The DVD is engaging and very educative. Miss Marnie takes the time to speak slowly and clearly for the children to understand. She is full of energy and encourages the kids to repeat after her, answer questions and even practice their lettering. The vocabulary words are very creative and incorporate either pictures or videos. It is quite entertaining to watch. Miss Marnie will repeat multiple times how to write the specific letter and will do so in three different ways -first by following the letter pattern on a frame, then by writing it on a black board to finally sitting down at the table with a paper.

On the website, you will have the possibility of downloading the pages as well as the activities she has during the video. Jérémy enjoyed playing the game with his brothers after learning the letter g. Just doing so with the big dice we had, he had a blast. I find this video to be multi-sensory learning which I totally love for my kids. They are learning so much by watching, listening, writing and playing that I find this kind of learning being the best. Learning should be fun and Miss Marnie does bring this aspect in learning how to write your letters.

It reminded me the training of my oldest son when he was in senior kindergarten (before our homeschooling days). His teacher had had training in teaching writing from a French company that had developed something similar but without the words. It was more movements like slide, tchouc and so on. Honestly, I find the DVD of Miss Marnie so interesting that I think it should be translated. Doing so, it would be different because some example she is giving is not easily transferable in the French language.

The DVD menu makes it easy to select individual letter chapters, one at a time. The only one negative point that I would find is that every time I put the DVD in the player, we get the introduction automatically. Mind you, it is only a matter of pressing the menu button to get to the main menu but personally I would have preferred having this introduction part of the DVD menu so I don’t have to listen to it every time I insert the DVD in the player.

Despite the fact that the introduction is played every time you put the DVD in the player, I find this products to be a absolutely must for families who have preschoolers and young children having problems with their letters. I am still amaze on how much my own daughter, who is 27 months, is absorbing while watching the DVD. She repeats clearly after Miss Marnie and enjoys learning too. And my son is taking more his time to write his letters now. So I am quite please with this product. Thank you Miss Marnie for this wonderful DVD called Alphabet Beats.  Now I must admit that I am quite curious with the Uppercase DVD as well as the Strokes, Shapes and Scenes DVD.

The Alphabet Beats DVDs are available directly from the TV Teacher website for the price of $35 each or $64.99 for both lowercase and uppercase letters.

This review was possible because I received the Alphabet Beats lowercase letters from The TV Teacher to review through the TOS Homeschool Crew.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for your wonderful review!! We are so glad that all of your children are enjoying our program and that it has helped their handwriting!!

    I wanted to let your Canadian readers know that currently our website tends to miscalculate international shipping rates if multiple SEPARATE items are ordered. If this happens, please either call us directly: 866-971-0450; or we have 2 Canadian distributors that will be happy to assist you:
    Home & School Connection: (Regina,Saskatchewan) 866-664-3276
    or Sonsuh Educational Supplies (Toronto): 416-499-3088

    Happy Writing!
    Susan Ellis
    Co-founder; Director of Operations

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  2. Thanks so much Susan for letting my readers and I know about this. I didn't know that it could be ordered through Canadian distributors.

    I know someone who told me she was interested in this product already!

    ReplyDelete