TOS Review: Monkisee

Recently, Lily(2) had the opportunity to use a new TOS Review item from Monkisee. Monkisee is a video series designed to teach reading and also object recognition to babies ages 3 months to 4 years. The video series teaches body parts, first words, colors, shapes, animals, and more using music, poetry, puppets, and real life images. There are three DVD's in the series: Baby's First Words, All About Colors, and All About Shapes. Each DVD lasts approximately 30 minutes and retail price is $24.95. By going to this page, you can purchase a single DVD for $19.95 or the set of three for $49.95. In addition to the DVD's you can find other learning products such as flash cards and books by clicking here. We received the Baby's First Words DVD and the book Know Your Monkey $9.95 to review.



Baby's First Words teaches your baby body parts and first words while learning to read. In this DVD Howie and Skip, two Howler monkeys, will help teach your baby 40 words such as bottle, diaper, baby, mommy, daddy, arm, leg, shoulder, head and of course many more. The words are shown on the screen and several different images are shown of the word. The DVD uses puppets, music, and real life images. It also features a slide show to help review the words being taught and a parent's guide. You are encouraged to show the DVD to your child 5 days a week for 4 weeks. You can view a sample clip here.


Know Your Monkey is a paperback book featuring Howie and Skip. The book is 24 pages long and teaches 29 words. In this rhyming book children are taught to identify body parts. The words are seperated from the illustrations allowing babies to focus on the words without being distracted by the pictures.

This video was really not at all what I expected. It is very simplistic. Hand puppets, simple back grounds, some silly songs, and real life images are all that make up this video. There are some scenes in which computer generated monkeys "monkey around" and sing the theme song. This is a little odd and I think would have been much better if they stuck with the puppets. It is really not at all like television most kids are used to watching, BUT Lily(2) really likes it. Christian (4) and Anthony (5) also really like it. They sit and watch it everytime I turn it on and Lily has even asked to watch it. We did not watch it 5 days a week because I thought that was a little too much but we did watch it 2-3 times per week. The book Know Your Monkey makes a good compliment to the DVD. The cute monkey puppets and rhymes make it interesting to children to read. Will the video/books teach your baby to read? That I cannot answer as we have only had the product for a few weeks. I do think at the very least it will teach your children recognition of their body parts and some objects around them.

To see what other crew members had to say click here.

I received a complimentary copy of Know Your Monkey and Baby's First Words DVD for the purpose of writing a fair and honest review. I received no other compensation.