12 Days of Giveaways: Little Pim Language DVDs

Thank you all for your patience as I let this space be quiet in respect for all of us as we processed the events of the last few days.  I'll catch up on the giveaways, but sometimes we all need a moment to reflect, especially with such great tragedy.
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I was asked to try the Little Pim series of educational DVDs and I was very excited to give it a go.  We pay pretty decent money at a preschool that teaches a foreign language for our daughter, but since I speak (spoke, in college) Russian and French, I'm not much help with the German she gets at school.

As background, Little Pim was created by the daughter of Dr. Paul Pimsleur, who developed the Pimsleur method of learning languages for adults.  They call the approach in the Little Pim series "Educational Immersion", and it is targeted at children ages 5 and under.  For more about the development, methodology and approach, you can check out the Little Pim Website.

So, remember when Baby Einstein was a thing? (Maybe it still is, I'm a few years out from babies) This is a similar format with a simple animated Panda between footage of actual people doing things.  It's all immersion, so there's no English, although there are subtitles for parents who need help with pronunciation.  In German that wasn't an issue at all, but in reading reviews from other sites, some users complained that in languages like Russian and Chinese, the subtitles were phonetic and native speakers teaching their children often felt like they'd do the phonetics differently, or they wanted their child exposed to the alphabet of the language they were learning.

Each DVD is divided into 5 minute mini episodes, so if you are really trying to get a younger child to focus, they only have to do it for a brief stretch.  My daughter sat down to watch this with my husband. She's 4 and he's in his 30s, and he did such a great job learning German, I'm very proud ;)
My daughter loved the DVD and at her age, she stayed focused intently for half the DVD, and then said her brain needed a break.  She's already asked if she can watch again tomorrow.  I assume that they use the same footage for each DVD and just put the language over the top because our first DVD was food/eating themed and we learned how to say "rice" and "chopsticks", but we also learned "strawberries", "kiwi", "cake", and "the oven is hot".  I'm not an expert, but I know that this approach seemed to work quickly for my daughter (and my husband) because they could see the actual item being used and hear the words.

You can order Little Pim in gift sets like the one above, for $169, which includes books, DVDs, music CDs, a plush, a backpack, and flash cards, but only in French or Spanish.  Other languages, including Chinese, Italian, German, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, English ESL, English ENG, and Portuguese, are available in 1 DVD or 3 DVD packs for $34.95 or $59.95.

(Shhh.....until the 19th you can get them over at Groupon, too)

Anyhow, I like the DVD concept.  I'm not going really dedicated to the idea of being bilingual by age four, so I enjoy that I can provide my child with learning materials she can use on her own, working at her own pace.  Could you really work these up into a language curriculum program for your toddler? Sure- but it's really nice to just pop in the DVD while you're making dinner, too.  I think we might pick up a few other German DVDs for my daughter, but if you'd like to get your own starter DVD for free, enter to win! Best of luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
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I was provided with a DVD to try and with one to give away to one of you lovely lucky people.  Shipping will be directly from Little Pim.  PwcMoms is not responsible for your child walking around speaking a language you don't understand.  Winner assumes all liability.