Ni Hao, Kai-Lan: Super Special Days

Great show for preschoolers
This Nick Jr show is great. My son likes it as much as Dora. Each episode is interactive (I think even more than other shows, like Dora)--Kai-Lan gets viewers involved with things like helping her count or pick out certain colors or shapes. A few physical movements (reaching for things, etc) are promoted too. But the primary plus is how it focuses on social and emotional development--one episode has a theme of managing anger, another of helping out your friends, etc. And the song that is interwoven throughout the episodes (the words change for each episode, but the tune is the same) is quite catchy. And I have learned a few Mandarin words!

Episodes:

Dragonboat Festival -- Rintoo gets angry when he loses a dragonboat race. Kai-lan helps him calm down so they can all meet Mr. Dragon at the end of the festival.

Beach Day -- On a trip to the beach, Tolee gets mad when the waves knock over his sand castle, so the others help him calm down and...

Crazy good for your kid to learn how to deal with frustration
Until now, if you were, say, a 1st-generation Chinese parent who wanted their 2nd-generation, fully-immersed kid to watch Chinese DVDs targeted at English-speaking kids, you had to suffer through a few noble but failed attempts: Bao Bei the Panda is a notable example, Jade goes to Kindergarten is a little better.

This is great for Chinese language, though not for the vocabulary, but mostly because they use crazy-hard words like "Xue" and other tongue-rolling Chinese sounds and my kid picked it up spontaneously. Of course, we thought she was swearing at first, but turns out she was saying the word for shoe (or more appropriately, the word for slippers/sandals).

Anyhow, that's not the best part of these videos, which is a refreshing surprise. While Dora, Diego, and Blue all teach your kid to basically follow a three-part mystery, and prepare them for a lifetime of watching CSI or Law & Order, Kai Lan and her friends teach them much more valuable lessons...

Great show but warning on some of the behavior of the characters
In Ni Hao Kai-Lan Super Special Days, I like the idea of a Chinese kid's show teaching a few Chinese words here and there, but the goal of the show is not to teach a new language. It's about a Chinese girl and her adventures with her friends and family while introducing a few Chinese words. It's similar to Dora and her adventures while teaching a few Spanish words.

My kids (twin boys-5 years, girl-3 years), especially my daughter, enjoy the show very much. There are lessons to be learned about being polite, calming down when you're angry, helping friends, being creative, and having fun. However, because there's a lesson to be learned, one of the characters has to act naughty before he learns to behave....that's where the trouble begins for me.

Of course this could happen in any child's video, but for some reason my kids mimic all the bad behavior exhibited in the Ni Hao Kailan videos. For example, in the Dragonboat Festival, Rintoo is "so mad" when he doesn't...

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