Sony Wonder and every baby inc., Explore Play in New Infant Development DVD Series Designed to Enrich a Baby's Natural Learning Process

What to Expect When You're ... a baby? Certainly not infant learning videos that actually reflect the way in which babies learn ... until now. Sony Wonder today announced a partnership with every baby company, inc., to deliver eebee's adventures™: the industry's first infant learning property designed to playfully engage, delight and support both infants and their parents through the exciting process of building the real, basic skills of infancy.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050826/NYF003)

eebee's adventures™ focuses on the foundations for learning -- those new and emerging behaviors that form the basis of a wide range of important -- and complex -- social, physical and cognitive skills. The products respect that a baby's learning experience should not start with the alphabet, counting or other academic skills, but rather with the idea that every baby learns by doing.

eebee's learning adventures are based on real foundational skill-building games and activities such as rolling a ball, crumpling paper, or scaling a pillow mountain. Unlike many current infant videos that simply focus on displaying moving objects or situations beyond the child's experience, the content in eebee's adventures™ is authentic to the baby's own world.

The new DVD series features real babies, parents and a baby-like puppet named eebee exploring a range of everyday objects such as balls, blocks, containers and paper. Each of the playful "adventures" is about 10 minutes in length and centers on eebee and the babies discovering new ideas about themselves and the people and things around them.

Based on the latest child development research, the "eebee" concept was created by Stephen Gass, a leader in the field of children's media, educational innovator Don Burton, and a panel of expert advisors specializing in early childhood development. Designed to encourage a baby's innate curiosity and provide parents with insights into how and what their child is learning, the videos are choreographed to spark real-world explorations and interactions-both during and after viewing-that provide the intuitive experiences necessary for the successful development of academic as well as life skills.

eebee's adventures™ is crafted to help parents recognize their baby's developmental milestones as well as participate in the learning process. DVD bonus features include on-screen developmental tips, "play-by-play guides," behind-the-scenes commentary from early learning experts that feature insights into the benefits of each "eebee moment," and ideas for taking eebee's adventures from the screen to the playroom floor. Additional background and parenting information is available on the project's web site, http://www.eebee.com/.

"While there are many infant videos that claim to be educational, we saw a need for a product that invites parents to have fun, [that] truly meets babies where they are developmentally in a warm, playful, and essentially human way, and [that] helps them to learn and grow together," said every baby company president and co-creator, Stephen Gass.

eebee's adventures™ will launch with three DVD releases targeting six- month-old to two-year-old children:

  *  Exploring Real Stuff: eebee and playmates explore a range of materials
     and everyday objects (developed for babies aged six months and up)

  *  All in a Day's Play: The many teachable, unplanned and unscripted
     learning moments that fill a baby's day (developed for babies aged
     six months and up)

  *  Figuring Things Out: What happens when a child's newfound motor skills
     support his/her natural curiosity and interest in making things work
     and achieving goals (developed for babies aged 12 months and up)

eebee's adventures™ will be initially sold through amazon.com and SonyMusicStore.com.

Babies' Eye View of Their World

eebee's adventures™ is shot from a baby's visual and developmental perspective. The action is simple, but exciting from an infant's point of view. The pace is gentle, but true-to-life active.

Each adventure is careful to show viewers the adults and children in the video when they are speaking and the things they are speaking about. By showing the context for an action and employing other research-based techniques, such as reframing an idea and repeating a process, eebee's adventures allows infants to focus on the ideas behind the actions and the words that describe them.

"Although listening to Mozart can be calming, and watching moving images drift across a screen might be mesmerizing, meaningful learning requires an actively engaged child," says eebee advisor, Dr. Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek, Director of the Infant Language Laboratory at Temple University and author of Einstein Never Used Flashcards. "eebee is the 'every baby', who, like a scientist, experiments to learn about the world. eebee's adventures™ is designed to naturally invite infants into that learning process. It lets babies be babies -- these incredible beings who are wired to learn -- and recognizes that it's playing with ideas, not memorizing them, that leads to understanding and growth."

The Play's the Thing

eebee's adventures™ brings to life "eebee moments" -- everyday, teachable moments during play which build the foundation for future learning. Among the many "eebee moments" spotlighted in the videos:

  *  Making "music" with a spoon and bowl, which teaches baby that objects
     can be tools to accomplish a goal -- the foundation for complex
     problem-solving abilities and creative thinking
  *  Paper play, which helps baby explore ideas such as parts and whole,
     more and less, bigger and smaller -- the foundation for conceptual
     understanding of mathematics
  *  Filling and dumping containers with little objects, which helps baby
     explore relationships between objects and predict outcomes -- the
     foundation for understanding patterns and symbol systems like numbers
     and letters
  *  Pouring and scooping cereal, which lets baby explore the properties of
     materials and experiment with ideas such as cause and effect -- the
     foundation for a deeper understanding of the physical world of objects
  *  Rolling balls and sliding blocks, which encourage baby to test
     hypotheses and draw conclusions -- the foundation for developing innate
     scientific, logical thinking skills

Sony Wonder is the children's and family division of SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.

About SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT

SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT is a global recorded music joint venture with a roster of current artists that includes a broad array of local artists and international superstars, as well as a vast catalog that comprises some of the most important recordings in history. SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT is 50% owned by Bertelsmann A.G. and 50% owned by Sony Corporation of America.

Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050826/NYF003
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
AP PhotoExpress Network: PRN5
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com

SOURCE: Sony Wonder

CONTACT: Tamara Jacobs, +1-770-971-0677, tamarajacobs@elsix.com, for
Sony Wonder

Web site: http://www.sony.com/
http://www.eebee.com/
http://www.sonymusicstore.com/