The Original "Yes We Can" Man

Not Barack Obama: Bob the Builder! Like many other little boys (and girls) out there, my son is a fan of the fix-it Brit. So we said "yes we can" to an offer from Parent Bloggers Network to check out Bob's latest DVD release, Bob the Builder On Site: Roads and Bridges.

This one-hour show is a complete how-they-do-it explanation, in preschooler-friendly terms, of road- and bridge-building. As Bob spells it all out for his pal Roley and a collection of rabbits and squirrels (yeah, I didn't really get that, either), a combination of animated and live-action videos illustrate the steps, from digging to filling to smoothing to painting. It's the first Bob video to include footage of kid-pleasing "real diggers!! Mommy! REAL DIGGERS!" and other heavy machinery. Even my almost-6-year-old girl had to admit it was cool to see the huge cement mixers, cranes, and bulldozers in action.

Just as fun for my kids, though, was seeing other kids play construction crew. The video features three segments of children re-enacting what they've learned by building a street in a sandbox, drawing roads on a sidewalk with chalk, and engineering a bridge with blocks and toys. Sure enough, ever since we started watching this DVD, both kids beg to "build a road" with toy trucks, cookie sheets and cornmeal. And sing "how do you do it? how do you do it? how do you build a road?" as they go (the catchy little jingle features in the DVD as well).

The length of this video is both a drawback and a plus. At one hour, it's beyond a TV episode but short of a movie. I typically like my kids' viewing fare in short chunks, so I can limit TV time without drawing howls of protest. Our review copy of this DVD doesn't have scene selection (I couldn't determine if the final version does or not--but I think not) so it's harder to skip forward and back if you want to catch certain parts only. Then again, as Mrs. Chicken noted in her review, sometimes Mama needs an hour to get something done.

The bottom line: Did we like it? Yes we did!