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DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS
Welcome to the wonderful world of Jack and Holly & wonderful it really is!
We were sent a copy of Jack & Holly’s Cosmic Stories to review as part of our Santa’s Little helpers and Christmas countdown feature. The series, a low-budget children’s production has been developed with the help of parents, teachers and more importantly children themselves.
Cosmic Stories is the second release following Jack & Holly’s Christmas Countdown and is brought to us by ‘Blockhouse TV’ a husband and wife team who are proud parents of two children aged 3 & 6 years.
The couple have more than 20 years of experience between them & being parents themselves makes them passionate when producing a series aimed at pre-schoolers.
The producers have deliberately used muted colours as opposed to the more traditional high-octane colours seen more today. This combined with soothing music and good old-fashioned animation techniques makes it kinder to little minds. The overall aim is to create an informative, yet entertaining animation that when viewed later in the day (the child’s last bit of TV time) it will help bring relaxation while encouraging interesting chats at bedtime alongside good parent, child interaction.
Jack & Holly’s Cosmic Stories sees our two best friends ‘Jack & Holly’ reveal interesting, educational facts and stories about our universe. This is a DVD created to bring awareness of some of life’s key questions such as “What is a Solar System?” or “What is the moon made off?” it even talks about the ‘Big Bang’ and the possibility of other life forms on other planets.
I will be honest, when sitting down to watch this with Harley, I myself become pretty engaged and therefore was really impressed by it.
I was pleasantly surprised at how educational yet entertaining the feature was. The animation reminded me of my own days of watching children’s TV back in the eighties when I myself was a child with a mind like a sponge.
We were also very lucky to be sent a copy of the first DVD ‘Jack & Holly’s Christmas Countdown’ which aims to teach children as young as two the joys and meaning of Christmas.
Harley loved both titles but was very impressed by the Christmas Countdown, mainly due to his age (his aged 2). Harley has since become overly interested in Santa and more so the ‘Snowman’
The title ‘Cosmic Stories’ is aimed at children 3+ nonetheless at age 2 Harley was pretty engaged in the production which managed to hold his attention really well.
Overall Parental Perspective
The balance of both informative educational material & entertaining animation is perfect and it’s my opinion that children will learn a great deal from the Jack and Holly series without even realising it.
There are many children with Aspergers & autism out there with a real taste for interesting facts on our universe! This would be perfect for them as it would aim to answer all them questions too often thrown at parents. I say this because I know a child on the autism spectrum who would go crazy for this DVD (note this isn’t the Little man, his more of a transport lover, though he did sit and watch this from start to finish, alongside his sister Alice-Sara).
The makers of the series have been very clever thinking both about both the attention span of young children alongside what maybe considered an appropriate amount of TV viewing time a parent may want their child to engage in. With this in mind the DVD has been chopped into seven bite sized pieces to give the parent complete control over how much time to allow their child to watch the DVD.
I honestly think that despite the recommended age of 3+ the second DVD release ‘Cosmic Stories’ would appeal to child of all ages, even those in the primary years as it’s packed full of interesting educational facts, some that I didn’t learn about myself till I was at-least 7 or 8. With this in mind I think it would be a fabulous resource for schools, especially for those teachers who are planning a term of lessons around the subject of the universe. If teachers were to screen ‘Jack and Holly’s Cosmic Stories’ as to form part of their lesson plan, children would see it as a rewarding treat without even realising that their little minds were being feed loads of interesting & educational facts, therefore learning without knowing it, which in my opinion is one of the best ways of educating any child, regardless of their age or abilities.
Would I recommend either DVD? Without a doubt, yes I would!
Christmas Countdown 4* (better for the younger children aged from 2).
Cosmic Stories: 5* (Recommended for children 3 and above but safe viewing for the younger child too).
Visit the Jack & Holly website for more info and a list of retailers, just click HERE
COMPETITION
I have been lucky enough to be given an extra 5 copies of Jack and Holly’s Cosmic Stories to give away to my lovely readers (Yes, I really did say 5)! This would make a wonderful gift for any child and really is safe viewing for little minds.
So… to win one of 5 copies of Jack & Holly’s Cosmic Stories, its dead simple, just follow the instructions below making sure you are careful to do all the required actions to validate your entries (sadly comments that don’t contain the required actions fulfilling all the rules, will have to be deleted without warning)!
Twitter ID or email contact must be left with all comments!
COMPULSORY ACTIONS
First… follow @jackandholly on twitter then tweet: “I want to win a @jackandholly DVD with @clairelouise82” ADDING THE URL TO THIS POST
Lastly come back here and leave a comment informing me you have done the compulsory actions including your twitter name and I’ll validate your entry.
ADDITIONAL ACTIONS
These actions will not be valid without the compulsory action having been taken.
For additional entries just use any of the ‘Share buttons’ located in this post to share the competition with others.
For every share button used, you must validate the entry by leaving an additional comment from that above for each and every button used!
Remember to leave a contact
IT’S AS EASY AS THAT!
Competition will close on the 30th December 2011
T&C
All required actions must be taken to be entered into the random draw that will close at midnight on the 30th December and announced soon after. Winners have 72 hrs to confirm by sending me their postal address for delivery of their prize via email. Each winner can only win the once and the prize will be sent directly via the brand itself. Note, the prize is for 5 copies (one per winner) of the title ‘Jack and Holly’s Cosmic Stories’ and no cash alternative is offered. Competition is open to those in the UK only.
Disclaimer
I received a copy of both Jack & Holly’s Christmas Countdown and Cosmic Stories in-order to write this review and run this competition. All opinions are my own and haven’t been influenced in any way.
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Tags: Asperger syndrome, attention span, Autism spectrum, Blockhouse TV, children's entertainment, Children's production, christmas, Christmas Countdown, competition, Cosmic Stories, DVD, educational, giveaway, Jack and Holly, Lesson plans, low-budget, pre-schoolers, primary years, review, Santa's little helpers, Solar system, universe
A boy with Asperger's 
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