The Baby Einstein Company is a unique, innovative company. With several videos, a great deal of CD’s, books, and toys, this company is an all-around educational phenomenon! My daughter has all of the Baby Einstein DVD’s, and she likes “Neighborhood Animals.” This video teaches your child about animals that live in and around your neighborhood — in the house, in the yard, on a farm, and on the river. There are puppets, animation, and live photographs and video clips used to display each animal. Your child will have fun learning all about the animals in and around his/her world. Works by Rimsky-Korsakov, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Scarlatti, and Pachelbel are featured throughout the video.
Our host of “Neighborhood Animals” is a dog puppet named Pavlov. I personally think this is hysterical. Pavlov is one of my daughter’s favorite puppets out of all of the Baby Einstein videos. At the beginning of this video, there are puppets of a frog, a duck, a pig, and a dog (other than our host) that pop onto the screen then off-screen. We then see video clips of some animals in their respective habitats — swans and geese in a lake, pigs in a pen, and cows in a field.
The next segment is entitled “Animals in My House.” The animals featured in this segment are a mouse, a cat, and a dog. When the video clips of the cats showed up on the screen, my daughter pointed and meowed. She then looked at me and clapped her hands. There was a clip of a kitten sticking its nose into a goldfish bowl, which I found particularly amusing. When it is time to show dogs, there are many photos of different types of dogs and then a video clip of a girl petting a dog. For the mouse, all of the clips shown seemed to have been taken with mouse in the wild. It is a little strange, considering that the mouse was included in the “Animals in My House” segment. Then again, I don’t really think anyone wants to think about mice in their houses, unless they are pets. A funny thing about this part, though, is that they show a plastic mouse getting trapped in the game Mouse Trap.
“Animals in My Yard” is the name of the following segment. This part features rabbits, bus, and birds. Rabbits running through grass and a rabbit eating a dandelion show your child how a rabbit lives on a daily basis. At the beginning of the birds part, a photograph of a cardinal is shown. Videos of a hummingbird and a barn owl are also played. Before the bugs come on-screen, Pavlov is shown holding a flyswatter chasing a bug. Then, video clips of caterpillars, ladybugs, and other beetles are shown. Bees are shown working in a hive as “Flight of the Bumblebee” plays in the background. At the end of the bugs segment, a little girl tells a joke. “Why did the bee go to the doctor?” the little girl asks. “Because he had hives!” she laughs.
There are three remaining segments in this video. In “Animals on the Farm,” horses, pigs, and cows are the focus. In “Animals on the River,” otters, ducks, and frogs steal the spotlight. “My Neighborhood” reviews all of the animals that were featured in “Neighborhood Animals.”
“Neighborhood Animals” is a fun way to introduce your child to the animals around them. Not only will they learn about the animals, but they will also learn about some of their habitats.
In addition to the DVD or VHS, there are toys, books, and other educational supplements to this video available for purchase from The Baby Einstein Company. Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon, and other retailers also sell Baby Einstein products.