I love kids! My wife and I have five, ages 1 to 10, (yes, my wife is a saint) and we’re not quite sure if we’re ready to hit the brakes on the baby-making yet, but there are certainly some days when we KNOW that ‘five is enough’…but honestly, we know that children are a blessing and that is one of the main reasons why we created Solomon’s Nursery. It all started when my daughter, Yzabella, was about 2 years old and I found her thoroughly enjoying a really cool video for kids her age. I thought to myself, “wouldn’t it be cool to produce a series of videos that would engage and entertain children her age with the overarching goal of sharing the beauty and diversity of God’s creation and impressing upon the hearts of children how special they are to God” (yes, I think in run-on sentences)…anyway, after the idea nagged me for a very long time and after a couple more kids, I decided I need to do this, so I put on my producer hat and got busy!
my wife and I barely keeping things together…
At the time I was producing a television program that was airing on the ABC Family Channel and on other networks throughout the world, but I hadn’t produced anything for this age of viewer. So, I got to work studying the best ways to visually and musically/audibly engage this younger audience; an audience that was at a stage of being very inquisitive about the world around them, but was still developing a concrete understanding of language and processes. I also interviewed and surveyed moms with young children (yes, moms, in my opinion, are probably the best resource for this information) and asked them what they thought was really important to have within a video for their kids. And not surprisingly it was through these interviews that I received some of the best ideas for content; this is the content, in particular, that I receive feedback from other moms who say, “I’m so glad you have this within your video…”
So, after researching things I determined that I would tell Bible stories to these young children in a pretty unique way – not with words, but primarily through visuals and music. We decided upon the name ‘Solomon’s Nursery’ for the company because Solomon is considered to be the wisest man in the Bible and we figured his childhood must have been filled with all kinds of fascinating experiences; and the first video created for the series is Noah’s Floating Zoo. To capture and keep children’s attention, we assembled a creative combination of animation, puppets, children in animal outfits (a ‘mini-fan’ favorite) and real-world images of animals within their natural habitat – all of this set to cute renditions of classical music, worship songs and Sunday school favorites (like the Arky Arky song.)
It was so cool the first time that we played Noah’s Floating Zoo for our first group of children; to see them become mesmerized by the video, not in a way where they became zombies, but where they were interacting with the videos, laughing at the animals and puppets, moving along to the music and trying to mouth some of the words to the songs. Since we launched the video, it has received praise pretty much across the board from parents –you can click here to read some of the feedback– and I truly believe that this video will be a blessing for you and your child(ren) too.
Oh, and one last thing…if you are like my wife and you want to try things out before you make a monetary commitment, click here and you can download some free segments from the program for you and your child to check out. These downloads will work on your computer (both Quicktime and Windows Media versions) and are maximized for use with mobile devices – mobile phones, iPods, etc. We call them ‘mobile pacifiers’ and they are a great tool for engaging your little one’s attention. For example, when the checkout line at Wal Mart is snaking around the corner or if the trip to Grandma’s is taking a bit too long (“in kid time”) you can pull out your mobile phone and let your child be entertained by these cute little musical segments!
Thanks for stopping by our site and checking things out!
