In an attempt to wean Lara off her unhealthy obsession with Peppa Pig, I have this week, introduced her to the joys of Poppy Cat – another of Nick Jr.'s pre-school animations which was launched at the start of May.
In the Mellow household, our little Lara winds down for the evening with a couple of episodes of her favourite TV programme before heading up to bed for her bedtime story. The new programme, Poppy Cat, is all about a little girl called Lara (!!!) who likes to make up stories to read to her sleepy cat, Poppy.
Lara appears to concentrate quite hard when she is watching Poppy Cat – it seems to require a bit more thought than Peppa Pig in order that she can take in the content. I find the programme to be a little more mature – not in terms of its content, but in the amount of artistic and story content such as a beautiful soundtrack and sound effects, and lots of small moving pieces throughout the whole screen during the animation. I think it is beautifully animated and, in a way, mesmerising.
Poppy the Cat is not the only lovely character in the series (although she is my favourite) – she is joined by a band of friends such as Alma the rabbit, Egbert the badger and Owl – they all have crazy walks and wonderful voices from well-known voices such as Joanna Page from Gavin & Stacey. We've seen episodes with fun stories featuring topics as wide ranging as singing crickets to hot-air-balloons adventures.
The complexity of the animation, the length of the episodes (they are 10 minutes long which is a welcome relief from the adverts!) and the levels of imagination required mean that I wouldn't expect Lara to sit and watch a number of episodes of Poppy Cat in one sitting as she would struggle to maintain her concentration but I'm glad to have something to offer her in the evenings that will help her develop her imagination and think up fun adventures and stories of her own.
The Poppy Cat TV series is based on a series of beautifully illustrated books written by Lara Jones – we have one which is a stunning pop-up book that is currently our own Lara's favourite bedtime story. It's just a shame that our own family cat (who looked remarkably like Poppy) passed away a couple of weeks ago :-(
Poppy Cat is shown every weekday morning at 10am during May.
In the Mellow household, our little Lara winds down for the evening with a couple of episodes of her favourite TV programme before heading up to bed for her bedtime story. The new programme, Poppy Cat, is all about a little girl called Lara (!!!) who likes to make up stories to read to her sleepy cat, Poppy.
Lara appears to concentrate quite hard when she is watching Poppy Cat – it seems to require a bit more thought than Peppa Pig in order that she can take in the content. I find the programme to be a little more mature – not in terms of its content, but in the amount of artistic and story content such as a beautiful soundtrack and sound effects, and lots of small moving pieces throughout the whole screen during the animation. I think it is beautifully animated and, in a way, mesmerising.
Poppy the Cat is not the only lovely character in the series (although she is my favourite) – she is joined by a band of friends such as Alma the rabbit, Egbert the badger and Owl – they all have crazy walks and wonderful voices from well-known voices such as Joanna Page from Gavin & Stacey. We've seen episodes with fun stories featuring topics as wide ranging as singing crickets to hot-air-balloons adventures.
The complexity of the animation, the length of the episodes (they are 10 minutes long which is a welcome relief from the adverts!) and the levels of imagination required mean that I wouldn't expect Lara to sit and watch a number of episodes of Poppy Cat in one sitting as she would struggle to maintain her concentration but I'm glad to have something to offer her in the evenings that will help her develop her imagination and think up fun adventures and stories of her own.
The Poppy Cat TV series is based on a series of beautifully illustrated books written by Lara Jones – we have one which is a stunning pop-up book that is currently our own Lara's favourite bedtime story. It's just a shame that our own family cat (who looked remarkably like Poppy) passed away a couple of weeks ago :-(Poppy Cat is shown every weekday morning at 10am during May.
