Monday 12 March 2012

Dinosaur Train on Nick Jr - A review

I was lucky enough to be sent out a copy of Dinosaur Train, a new series that had its first airing today on Nick Jr, for us to watch, so after tea tonight we sat down and watched.

Show synopsis:


Dinosaur Train, created by Craig Bartlett (Hey Arnold!), is set in a whimsically realistic, prehistoric world of jungles, swamps, active volcanoes and oceans. Each day, Dinosaur Train will help kids ages 3 to 6 to apply scientific thinking as they discover new types of dinosaur species, compare and contrast dinosaurs to today's creatures and embrace the living sciences of paleontology and natural science. The half-hour shows feature two animated episodes; Based on input from paleontologists, science educators and early childhood education experts, Dinosaur Train promotes critical thinking skills for preschoolers based on an engaging and creative curriculum.
Shiny
Dinosaur Train, produced by The Jim Henson Company, is co-produced with Singapore animation company Sparky Entertainment, with the participation and assistance of the Singapore Media Development Authority. UK production and financial support is being provided by Ingenious Media. The series is executive produced by Lisa Henson, Brian Henson, Halle Stanford and Craig Bartlett.

Don
The stars of the show are Buddy, a curious, funny, and intelligent T-Rex, who was hatched in a nest along with Don, Tiny, and Shiny his siblings who are Pteranodons. Buddy was a stray egg in a strange nest but his "mum" decides to keep him regardless.

The show is bright; lively, funny, and held the kids interest at different level. Fifi was able to understand terms like herbivore,  and the concept ot travelling through time in the tunnel. Bobs' interest was held by the antics of the other animals, the songs, and more especially for him the train.


Fifi was joining in and telling me she was like the herbivores and was not keen on fish but much preferred vegetables - any vegetables, Bob decided he was a meat eater as he preferred his fish to his veg and he was glad he was not  "one of them" (a herbivore.) .




So what did we think?
Buddy and The Conductor
We enjoyed the program, personally I felt the terminology was beyond the scope of a 3-6 yr old, talk of crustacean period, travelling through time etc, but Bob liked the fact it was bright, colourful, tuneful and fast moving....and it had a train in - you cant fail!!


Fifi at 9 I felt got more out of it, was able to relate more to the conversation and had a better understanding of what was happening, why they were travelling, and had much more understanding of the conductors lessons on the train.






Verdict interesting program that stimulated conversation but I feel paleontology and natural science
is beyond the age group it is designed for, though Bob could relate to it at a much less scientific level

This is a review with us being supplied with a copy of the disk to review, no money was received, but this post is an honest reflection of our findings.
 

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