Watch Kids' Reviews of
SO SMART: BABY'S FIRST WORD - HOUSE

The kids giggled, danced, clapped their hands and were all engaged. They repeated the new vocabulary words such as door, couch, chair, table. Some growled and made claws with their hands and pretended to be Larry the Lion. Some, who had watched other titles in the series, recognized the characters and called out the names of Larry, Iggy Dee-Dee and Edward. They responded to the narrator's questions, "What words do you remember?" with their new vocabulary words. Kids loved the "Sounds in My House" section. When a visual of a phone appeared onscreen, they spontaneously said, " phone." When the narrator says bye bye to Larry, they repeated it and waved as well. This is obviously well planned out for this age group, who loved it, learned new words and found reinforcement for social skills they are developing. It encourages cooperation and friendship.

Lovable, non-frightening characters, easy-to-understand stories with gentle humor and great educational value for developing early language skills. The video encourages engagement and participation with its questions such as, "What sound is that?" "What words do you remember?" There are 4 vignettes: Bath time, Who's Hiding in the House, Sounds in My House and Clean-up Time. The total time of the video is 30 minutes but each story can be viewed separately. The content is suitable for very young children with friendly characters, relatable stories, lovely cadence of voice-over narration. Its gentle humor and positive messages are just right for this age. The four characters include two male characters and two female characters. The characters' genders are recognizable, race is not a factor and the characters are typically middle class as each has its own home, clean clothes and toys. The stories respect the fact that children can get dirty (while eating or painting) but lets children know its okay to get dirty and that one must later take a bath to clean up. The stories have gentle humor as the characters get dirty all over again even after they take their baths. There are no repercussions if one gets dirty again which is a forgiving, accepting message. The simple animation style is appropriate for very young children as is the use of simple sentence structure. The voice over by the narrator is warm and loving. The use of sound effects is education and gentle such as the sound of the phone ringing, the doorbell, birds chirping, splashing water, bounding of a ball. The use of color adds to the visual experience and is not glaringly brilliant. In all four stories, repetition is used. Vocabulary is appropriate to this age with a recap at the end of each vignette when the narrator asks, "What words do you remember?" For example, in thee Bath time vignette, the new words that are emphasized are bath, bubbles, boat and soap. The interaction between the characters is cooperative, kind, and friendly.

So Smart! is an award-winning brand trusted by parents for over a decade. This new animated series, Baby's First-Word Stories, is created especially for 1 to 3 year-olds, who are beginning to explore the rich world of language. In this baby DVD, So Smart! friends Edward, Iggy, Larry and Dee Dee will first introduce your little one to simple words about objects in the home, and then build sentences and stories around them. A deliberately gentle pace, engaging imagery, and soothing music make So Smart! a winner for both children and parents.