Munchkin Math: Shapes

First, you save money buying 2 dvds, if my memory serves me correctly, for the price of 1.Of course my husband thought they were cheesy, but they are supposed to be for young children, not adults! There are easy to remember chants and easy to copy motions. I'm all about parents "moving" and participating with their children, and this dvd has something for the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learner. Since my son isn't much of a motion little guy (3 years old), I wrote down some of the chants to sing to my son to teach him time. He really likes them and we chant even when we aren't watching the dvd.I really like how the shapes portion of the dvd goes beyond the basic shapes like circle, triangle, square, rectangle. While it does cover those shapes, it also covers: crescent, hemisphere, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, trapezoid, rhombus, and 2d and 3d shapes. The characters are cute and the songs are catchy, which make the shapes really easy to remember (an example: a rhombus is a square that got hit by a bus).Each episode, I believe, is less than 30 minutes long, which is great for attention span and "not too much" tv time.If your little one is not yet 3, I'd recommend PreschoolPrepCo Shapes. My son isn't exposed to a lot of tv to keep educational dvds interesting. He learned all his colors, shapes, alphabet, and numbers 1-10 through watching short sections of the PreschoolPrepCo dvds. Now that he has mastered that information, Munchkin Math was an entertaining, while still educational, next step for him.For those who are interested, Munchkin Math also has a money dvd, but I haven't seen it, so I can't recommend it...yet. If you have a 4 year old or an advanced attention span 3 year old, I've seen previews for Mathtacular, which Amazon or Sonlight carries, and I'll definitely be purchasing that dvd in the future.When you write reviews and think you've found a better product, or have related products you'd recommend, please mention it in your review, like I did above. That way, we can all learn about the best products out there.

Even after reading the other glowing reviews for this product, I still wasn't sure that this would live up to the hype for a preschooler who knew most of the shapes. But it did! The "songs" help reinforce shapes, like heptagon vs. hexagon. My daughter is singing the songs and talking about trapezoids like it is a commonplace shape that all 3 year olds know.I bought this DVD to test it out on something my daughter basically understood before purchasing the DVDs in the series which cover new concepts for her. Needless to say, we have gotten 2 more Munchkin Math DVDs.

I own all three of the Munchkin Math Series. I actually wrote to the company and Wendy herself (the main actor in the video) wrote back to me! I like all three of these DVDS. I had to admit, when I first watched one, I thought it was very cheesy. However, those silly cheesy phrases, songs etc get my daughter to LEARN!! If you want a shortish (30 minutes or so) video that really helps your child to learn - fAST....these are great! If you personally want to be wowed with big video productions and intricate musical numbers, then you will be disappointed.

This video is a great way to start your students off in learning and loving shapes. As a Headstart teacher I start with this video to introduce the shapes and then support for those who take a little bit longer to retain. This video taught the shapes to my 2 year old!!!! It is a must have for parents with toddlers.

My little one (2.5 years) really love this. She already knows all her shapes but I bougth this to reinforce it from time to time.

This is the one DVD our 2.5 year old watches that we cannot stomach at all. The character and the songs to memorize # of sides in different polygons is awful. Perhaps he is learning and he certainly is mesmorized by it but is it worth it?

I recommend these to all my friends. I teach special education and recommended to the elementary teacher and she loves it too. Utilizes all kinds of learning (visual, auditory, kinestetic) and goes beyond the basic few shapes that most DVD's focus on. Great series,[...]

We bought this a while back for my daughter when she was 4, and within a couple of viewings she was repeating the chants with enthusiasm and telling me all she was learning, and not just the easy shapes either. She would run around saying "A rhombus is a square that got hit by a bus!" and "A heptagon has seven straight sides!" She learned to recognize those as well as trapezoids, octagons, you name it! The characters (Pent the elephant and Zoid, who is like a cute alien) are very likable too. Now my daughter is older and still enjoys watching this video from time to time with her younger brother, whose is learning his shapes now. One thing I really like is that the video has no previews and is only 20 minutes or so. So I don't feel like I'm parking them in front of the TV for a long time and I know they're learning something.