Hi-5 : Discovery product reviews

I'm going to start this review with a shock reveal. I hate Hi-5. There, I said it. For the most part, my every exposure to Hi-5 has been like taking a hammer to my face. Every parent goes through this. There are the shows you can stand and the ones you can't. As a result my daughter had not been exposed to them until recently. However, she actually likes them a lot. With her watching it, I started to re-evaluate my own feelings towards them.

So when this DVD was offered to me for the weekend, I didn't make a cross with my fingers and back away. In fact, my baby grabbed it with both hands drawn to the bright green case and the smiling faces of the group on the cover. I was interested to see how this would fair in my house. We put it on, on Saturday morning. My baby was instantly transfixed to the screen. The songs were high energy with great dancing. The kids in the audience are joining in. The group themselves are young, energetic and exciting. They have great costumes as well. My eldest daughter danced as well.

As a parent to a new entrant at school, I was actually excited about the language used in the segments. Shape language included 3D shapes which kids do need to know. Maths language is explored through the use of words like small, medium and large. They even did some science stuff which sparked my eldest to want to do more research and we ended up doing some of the same experiments at home after watching the DVD.

I really liked the way each episode had short segments along a similar theme but with different paces. So songs and dancing, then imaginative play, then another song or exercise to do with the presenter. Segways are completed with shorts of children or computer generated images of the Hi-5 presenters. When they were doing the science stuff, they did it to a song, with loose instructions which was enough to be able to follow at home. The actions are repeated again, and then they show other ways to do the same action. This is great for cementing the learning. In the beach segments they make sunsmart stuff seem second nature, wearing rash tops, putting on lotion, wearing long shorts and hats.

I think its safe to say I am actually converted. The songs were nowhere near as annoying as I thought they would be. My daughters both got something out of the DVD and we could happily watch this one again and again.