Videotapes Can Bring the Classroom Home to Children

Everybody knows that renting or purchasing videotapes is an easy and inexpensive way to turn a living room into a movie theater. If you have children, you should know that it’s also a great way to turn your living room into a classroom.

Viewing educational videotapes at home with your child has several advantages. Difficult concepts can be repeated just by pressing rewind. The colorful characters and stories naturally interest the child. Lessons can be repeated for lasting memory. And it’s a good way to spend some quality time together.

Here’s my list of highly recommended educational videos for young children.

Learning to count is, of course, the most basic of all math skills, and “Richard Scarry’s Best Counting Video Ever!” makes this fun.

The color, animated video teaches children to count from one to 20 during an adventure with Lily Bunny, Bananas Gorilla, Lowly Worm and other characters.

The catchy music and closed captioning for hearing-impaired children are nice extras.

The 30-minute video is best suited for ages 2 to 6. It costs $12.95.

It’s no surprise that Sesame Street, one of the oldest and best children’s learning programs, offers an excellent series of videotapes.

Each comes with an activity booklet of games that reinforce what’s taught in the video.

Like the Richard Scarry video, Sesame Street’s “Learning About Numbers” focuses on the numbers one to 20. But rather than using animation, this video features Big Bird, the Count and other beloved Muppets, as well as classic segments from “Sesame Street” episodes.

“Learning About Numbers” is 30 minutes long and closed-captioned. It costs $14.95.

ABC’s “Rock” series is a sentimental favorite of mine: I learned the basics of math and language from the short segments that once appeared between my favorite cartoons.

Twenty years later, these animated lessons are still fun and effective learning tools.

ABC’s “Multiplication Rock” is my favorite video treatment of this often difficult math concept.

Children learn multiplication tables one to 10 through funny sketches and easy-to-remember songs such as “Lucky Seven Sampson” and “My Hero Zero.”

With actress Cloris Leachman as its host, the 32-minute, color video costs $12.95. It is appropriate for second through fifth grades.

Language skills is another subject ripe for home video study.

Again, Sesame Street is a safe bet, especially for learning the alphabet.

In “Learning About Letters,” Cookie Monster, Oscar and other Muppets celebrate Alphabet Day by taking turns at singing a song about each letter.

Best for ages 2 to 6, the 30-minute video is closed-captioned and costs $14.95.

Sesame Street’s “Alphabet Game” is good for children in the same age group who are already familiar with letters.

In this 30-minute video, Muppets compete in the “Alphabet Treasure Hunt” game show.

It costs $14.95 and is closed-captioned.

For children who are ready to learn the basic parts of speech, ABC’s “Grammar Rock” is a smooth introduction.

Viewers learn about nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions and interjections.

“Grammar Rock” is 26 minutes long and costs $12.95. It is best for children in grades two through six.

Science is an appropriately visual topic for video, and there are many titles available.

ABC’s “Science Rock” gives brief but solid lessons in gravity, bones, weather, electricity and other fields.

It is animated, lasts 32 minutes and costs $12.95.

“Star Tunes,” hosted by singer and guitarist Don Cooper, brings astronomy to children ages 4 to 8.

Along with an ethnically balanced cast of children, Cooper sings eight songs about the sun, moon, constellations, planets and gravity.

The 30-minute video costs $18.95.

The “3-2-1 Contact Extra” series contains several excellent videos, each about a different environmental topic.

“Bottom of the Barrel,” for example, discusses oil and its role in transportation, heating and manufacturing.

It is hosted by a group of energetic children.

Topics of other good 3-2-1 videos are garbage (“The Rotten Truth”), rain forests (“You Can’t Grow Home Again”), and water (“Down the Drain”).

Each is 30 minutes long and costs $21.95.

Most of these tapes can be purchased at children’s bookstores or the larger video rental stores, including any Blockbuster Video store.