Holiday 2010 Review: Mickey Mote & Disney Preschool DVDs

On November 16th, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released something new and exciting for preschoolers. They introduced the new Disney Mickey Mote in a boxed set with the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Numbers Round-Up DVD. This kid-friendly remote is meant to use with Discovery Mode enhanced Disney preschool DVDs.

Chances are you may already own some of these DVDs. The existing titles include Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Road Rally, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Mickey’s Adventures in Wonderland, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Mickey’s Choo Choo, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Minnie’s Bow-Tique, Handy Manny: Manny’s Motorcycle Adventure, Handy Manny: Manny’s Big Race, Little Einsteins: Fire Truck Blast Off, My Friends Tigger & Pooh: Super Duper Super Sleuths, and My Friends Tigger & Pooh: Bedtime With Pooh.

The Mickey Mote allows your child to answer simple questions to reinforce some basic skills, such as counting, colors, shapes, and listening comprehension. The remote has only four colorful buttons in distinct shapes. The blue square and green circle are used to answer multiple choice questions that only have two options. Each Discovery Mode enhanced DVD comes with 2 levels of play, so that your child can build his or her confidence. I cannot tell you how proud our twins are when they each are able to answer questions correctly.

Take a minute to watch the Mickey Mote in action . . .

The Mickey Mote is also available in a boxed set with the new DVD Handy Manny: Big Construction Job. Both DVD boxed sets retail for $29.99 and can be found on Amazon.com and Walmart.com .

Thank you to Click-Communications for sending us complimentary product samples to base this review upon.

Review: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse "Minnie's Bow-tique" (DVD)

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and all the DVDs stemming from this Playhouse Disney children's program have become a staple in our house. My youngest son, who just turned 3, is the biggest Mickey Mouse fan ever. In fact, he sleeps with a plush Mickey Mouse doll that he received for his birthday.

On February 9th, a new Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVD will be hitting store shelves. This one is titled Minnie's Bow-tique and features the never-before-seen episode "Minnie's Pajama Party". Although the four episodes on this DVD have plot lines that revolve around Minnie, all four episodes did a very good job of keeping both my daughter and my sons engaged.

Here is a synopsis of each episode featured on this 96-minute DVD . . .

"Minnie's Pajama Party" is about a sleepover planned by Minnie for five of her friends. Good friends, a pajama dance, a bedtime story, and a little pajama party pie guaranteed a successful party. This episode teaches the viewer about the number six, including how to count to six and how to divide a circle into six equal pie pieces.

"Minnie's Bow-tique" tells the events of the Grand Opening of Minnie's new boutique. The viewer will be impressed by how many types of bows Minnie sells in her store, including unusual ones such as a mood bow, a grow bow, a disco bow, and a camera bow tie. This episode teaches the viewer how to sort by patterns and touches upon basic addition.

"Minnie's Bee Story" is about the Clubhouse gang's adventures during their search for their friend the bumblebee. This episode encourages the viewer to think about how more than one thing can make similar sounds, such as buzzing.

"Minnie's Picnic" tells the story of how Minnie planned a picnic for eleven of her friends, only things do not go as smoothly as she would have liked. This episode teaches the viewer how to count to twelve. It also touches on adding by fives and basic subtraction.

Between February 9th and April 6th, 2010, you can purchase this DVD with a bonus Minnie Mouse set of magnets and picture frame right inside the specially marked package. You should be able to find this DVD at the Disney Store and most places where Disney DVDs are sold.

Thank you to Click-Communications for providing us with a sample DVD to base this review upon and for providing a press release with information about this DVD and WDSHE.

Review: Mickey's Choo-Choo Express (DVD)

It's no secret that we are fans of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in our household. Plus with our toddler son asking Santa for the Mickey Mouse's Magic Choo Choo Train Set for Christmas, this DVD was just what we needed to get everyone excited about Christmas.

Mickey's Choo-Choo Express was released on DVD on December 1st. This DVD features a full-length 45min feature plus a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse interactive bonus episode titled "Mickey's Big Job". This bonus episode allows you the option of playing it in Fastplay mode or two different Adventure modes, in which your child can answer questions with the television remote. In addition to the familiar Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme song and the Hot Dog song, this DVD features a song from the ever-popular band They Might Be Giants.

What I thought about this Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVD as a parent:

1) I was happy to see that the featured presentation Mickey's Choo-Choo Express covered many educational concepts, including geometric shapes, deductive reasoning, primary colors, sequential patterns, and telling time.

2) It was nice to see our toddlers yelling out the answers to the questions posed by the characters in the movie. They were not afraid to guess at the right answer even if there was a chance they were wrong.

3) The children all seemed very excited that there was a second set of mouseketools called upon rather than just one like in the regular Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes.

4) The bonus episode "Mickey's Big Job" was extremely entertaining. It demonstrated to my children how to sort by size and also what a little teamwork and ingenuity can accomplish.

You can find Mickey's Choo-Choo Express at the Disney Store and at most other retailers of Disney DVDs.

Thank you to Click-Communications for providing a sample DVD for this review.

Review: Disney Mickey Mouse's Magic Choo Choo Train Set

Look what Santa is bringing for our nearly 3yr old son Luke this year for Christmas! All our children love Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but Luke especially. In fact, the theme for the twins' next birthday will be Mickey and Minnie.

To top it all off, we just watched the new Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVD Mickey's Choo Choo Express, where the kids were able to see this train in action. Now they are more sure than ever that it was the right thing to do to write to Santa asking him to please bring Mickey's Magic Choo Choo for Luke this year.

What I thought about this Disney toy train made by Fisher Price:

1) I have to point out how parent-friendly the packaging is. There are two perforated openings on the box . . . one on the back and one on the bottom. These pop open to reveal the twist ties that need to be undone in order to remove the toy from the box. This was much better than trying to pull the inner box out while it is glued to the outer box or just trying to rip the cardboard packaging apart with my bear hands just to get to these twist ties.

(Click on any image to enlarge)

2) I like that there are not a lot of small parts to lose for this toy. This train set comes with the basics with no frills, which is perfect for a young child.

3) Another parent-friendly feature is the battery compartment. It is secured with only one screw and then the compartment pulls out like a drawer.

4) The on/off switch is very prominent so your child can find it easily. This will help your toddler or preschooler to be more independent and decreases the amount of battery-operated toys that are left on accidentally at my house.

5) This toy train works in two modes . . . Magic and Classic. In Magic Mode, the train uses the two straight tracks. As the train moves forward, it picks up one track and expels it from its mouth to lay the piece of track down in front of the train. This allows the train to drive onward using only two pieces of train tracks. Although the track does not get laid down quite right once in awhile, this function still has a pretty high coolness factor.

6) Although the train working in Magic Mode is cool, it actual goes very quickly. You need to have a large space where the train can drive itself in a straight line for awhile. It did not work well on our large train table because, even travelling diagonally, it only had enough space to lay down a piece of track three times and completed this in about 3 seconds.

7) What helps the train track pieces stay in place are the rubber treads underneath that grip a flat surface or carpeting very well.

8) The pieces of track are large and chunky, making them perfect for little hands. It is pretty cute that the connection for each track are shaped like Mickey Mouse's famous silhouette.

9) During Classic Mode, the train chugs along around the track with plenty of sound effects, such as the Choo Choo Song, the train whistle, and Mickey's voice as the conductor. I think once the novelty of the Magic Mode wears off, my son will enjoy playing with this Mickey Mouse train in Classic Mode the most.

Please take a minute to watch this train in action:

10) If you choose to use the train on top of a large train table like I did, you have to keep in mind that the train barely fits. You may have noticed in my video that the train made the track correct itself by moving inward a bit when the train touched the side of the table. Other than that, it works great if you have a table at least as large as ours.

11) One thing I would not mind seeing is some related toys. A coordinating train station playset with some other figures would allow for more imaginative play and would also allow more than one child to play.

If you are thinking about gifting this toy to a child for the upcoming holidays, you should be able to find this Mickey Mouse's Magic Choo Choo Train Set at the Disney Store and most places where Fisher Price toys are sold. If you can manage it, I think this toy would make a great gift paired with the Mickey's Choo Choo Express DVD.

Thank you to Disney Consumer Products for providing a toy sample for this review.