Many children's DVDs claim to offer educational entertainment. In my experience few deliver the goods. I suppose I was skeptical then when I originally sat down with my two year old and watched the Bop-a-Lots. In fact, before he and I watched it, I had already spent some time on the website, Bopalots.com, learning about Huggy-Bop, Silly-Bop, and Sugar-Bop, the three stars of the Bop-a-Lots feature film. I learned that he and I would have great fun with this DVD, since it ties together laughter, learning, and music. The information from the website eased my skepticism, and made me optimistic that this DVD would hit it's mark.
After just a few minutes my son and I were singing along with one of the familiar songs. Then, things got really interesting. You see, the creators of the Bop-a-Lots, Stephen Fossati and Philip Vaughn, came up with a fun way for children to "develop better thinking skills". They achieve this by presenting 4 familiar songs, 1) Old MacDonald, 2) Pop Goes the Weasel, 3) Happy and You Know It, and 4) Rock-a-Bye Baby. Each song is first played in it's original version and accompanied by the three dancing Bop-a-Lots. The songs are then played in different versions, including The Blues, Celtic, Arabian, and Japanese, to name a few. I have to admit, it was fun listening to a Mariachi version of Pop Goes the Weasel.
The creators are passionate about making a product that teaches a child "how" to think rather than "what" to think. For example, the child listens to a familiar song from an original perspective. Each subsequent version is less and less like the original, therefore your child must listen and search to identify the rhythm of the traditional song. In doing this, the child is simultaneously being positively exposed to different cultures. The Bop-a-Lot characters further expose children to different cultures by celebrating the diverse clothing that makes each culture/country unique. The biggest smile from my two year old came from Huggy Bop-a-Lot wearing his Irish top hat during the Celtic version of Old MacDonald.
The creators of the Bop-a-Lots have backed up their claim and I am happy to say that this DVD will be added to our rotation of must-sees.
