Disney’s Little Einsteins were created by Disney along with the Baby Einstein company. This group of four preschool-age children — Leo, Annie, Quincy, and June — rides in their friend Rocket and blast off into adventures. In “Our (Big) Huge Adventure,” these characters encourage your child to participate in their mission as they fly through priceless works of art and live-action footage accompanied by classical music. Your child will not only learn about art, famous landmarks, and classical music, but s/he will also learn what it means to be part of a team.
This video begins with the Little Einsteins singing their theme song, encouraging your little ones to “climb aboard, get ready to explore.” If you are familiar with the Playhouse Disney series, you know that each episode features a different piece of music as well as famous works of art. The precursor to the series, this video, is no different. After the theme song, each piece of art is introduced, as is the piece of music. In “Our (Big) Huge Adventure,” “Wheat Field with Cypresses” by Vincent Van Gogh is one of the featured works of art, along with “Under the Wave of Kanagawa” by Katsushika Hokusai, and “Young Woman in a Garden” by Claude Monet. The featured musical piece is the “Ode to Joy” movement from “Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.”
Our little geniuses take off in their rocket and introduce themselves. First, we have June who is the dancer of the group. Next comes Quincy who loves instruments and carries a trumpet. Annie likes to sing, and her big brother Leo is the leader of the group. As any leader, he likes to conduct. Of course, we also have Rocket who is their mode of transportation and their friend.
As our heroes fly, they hear music being sung by a little caterpillar (“Ode to Joy” played by flute). They find him in Van Gogh’s work of art. They discover that he needs help finding a place to turn into a butterfly. As they are trying to help him find this place, the Tree of Many Colors, he gets hungry. His feeding is shown as a live-action take of a caterpillar eating a yellow leaf. When he gets to the Tree and turns into a butterfly (which they teach your child to call metamorphosis), the caterpillar again needs their help in getting to a butterfly forest in Mexico to be with all of the other Monarch butterflies. They travel over Niagara Falls, to the United Nations building in New York City, to a cave in Oklahoma, and finally to the forest in Mexico.
In the midst of their travels, the Little Einsteins find musical roller coasters in the sky which they must follow to reach their destinations. On each roller coaster, they find musical terms. The Little Einsteins teach your child that allegro means fast and adagio means slow, and they encourage your child to repeat with them. This video is a great way for preschoolers to learn about music, art, science, and teamwork.
Before my nephew turned three, he learned about metamorphosis from this video. Now when we ask him what it means when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, he says, “It’s metamorphosis.” Even though my daughter is not even two years old, she also enjoys watching this video. She likes to dance to the music, and when the team has to pat their laps to give Rocket speed, she likes to pat her legs or whatever is in front of her at the time.
“Disney’s Little Einsteins: Our (Big) Huge Adventure” is available for purchase from Disney, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and other retailers. You and your child can also catch the “Disney’s Little Einsteins” series on Playhouse Disney every day at 8:00 am.
The Little Einsteins videos and series are produced by Disney and are products of the Baby Einstein Company. For more information, please visit their respective websites.