I have never heard of these new DVD's before, which are from the creator of Veggie Tales, Phil Vischer. They are brand new, so I was excited for the opportunity to check it out.
First off, they are nothing like Veggies Tales. Well, okay, they are a little like Veggie Tales, in that they are geared toward children and feature silly songs, but not with Larry. They are just fun songs. But rather than featuring stories from the Bible or character lessons like Veggies Tales, these aim to teach children all about the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. The video I received is the first in the series, Volume 1, In The Beginning. There are 7 videos in the series altogether.
Inside the DVD case there are a couple papers: one has an access code for a digital copy of the video, and the other is a brochure. On the front of the brochure is some brief information about the video, inside is a coloring page, and on the back are some questions for parents to ask kids after the video to see what they learned.
Okay, onto the video content.
At first I was a little turned off by the characters in the video, because the voices are very similar to those of the Veggie Tales characters. They obviously use the same people to do voices, and I guess their range is limited.
The characters are funny, though, and we had a lot of laughs while watching the video! Mind you, I have four children, age 13, 11, 8, and 5, and we all watched together. We were all laughing! There is some unexpected, really funny lines in there that got us cracking up!
Some of the songs were really cute, creative, and funny. Some were.... ok. My favorite was one where the Sunday School lady was singing a song, and at the end, she doesn't know how to rhyme the last line, and she says "blah, blah, blah, dungle" to rhyme with jungle. That one had me rolling!
I also appreciated the fact that they teach the kids how the Bible is divided up (Old Testament, New Testament, different books, etc.), what the word "testament" means, and why the Bible is divided up the way it is. It also went into detail about how the books were chosen to be in the Bible, what the Apocrypha is, the Septuagint, and who likely wrote the books of the Bible. These are points that are sadly not usually presented in Sunday school classes, but I believe are important to knowing the history of the church, the Bible, and why we can trust its content.
There were a couple of things about the video that would keep me from purchasing the rest of the set, however. Now, mind you, this is my personal opinion, and these points might not bother you.
First, this video discussed Genesis, which means Creation. This can be a heated topic of discussion as there are so many varying beliefs regarding Creation, evolution, and a blending of the two. But my personal belief regarding Creation is that God completed Creation within six literal days, not involving a "big bang", and not involving millions of years. That is my personal belief, but it's one I hold onto very strongly.
In the video, the puppet characters begin explaining the Creation, stating that God created the universe with a "big bang". Then Phil Vischer takes over and explains that there are different theories regarding Creation, and that we are not sure of any of them, because of the different interpretations of the Bible. This bothered me. I personally believe in a literal six-day Creation, and I choose to trust what the Bible says. I don't want to get into the Creation debate here, but this difference in theology is enough to keep me from buying these videos.
As I said, that is my personal belief, so if you don't have a problem with the teaching that God might have used millions of years, or a big bang, then this aspect won't bother you.
My second point of contention is with one of the puppet characters. He is the only African-American-looking puppet (or person, for that matter) on the program. That bothered me a little bit, because save for one character who was blue, the rest of the characters are Caucasian-looking. This alone wouldn't keep me from buying the video, however. It's the voice they chose for the African-American character. He had a gravelly voice, kind of like Louis Armstrong. I don't know, it just made me cringe. Why couldn't he have a regular voice? It reminded me of the way African-Americans used to be portrayed in movies, with the silly voices, dressed poorly, etc. He only appears a couple times and he isn't one of the main puppet characters. But it just made me think, "What?" Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, but it struck me as odd, awkward, and wrong.
There are bonus features on the video that we enjoyed watching, especially the blooper reel! There are a couple videos that didn't make the cut, and also a cartoon short called Quacky's Questions that is cute.
There are also extras that go along with the videos that you can access here:
http://www.whatsinthebible.com/activities
These include:
-coloring pages
- Bible flashcards
- Study Guide
- and more.
I would be curious to see what the other videos teach, but I am reluctant to buy them for the above reasons.
"I was selected for participation in this review and given the What's in the bible DVD as a member of The Homeschool Lounge Review Team. All thoughts and opinions are my own."
