My older son (OS) is 4.5. He really likes talking about the weather. In fact we even recently checked a book out from the library about how rainbows are formed. I was happy when I received Zula Patrol: Explore Weather from the Parent Bloggers Network to review because I thought OS would really enjoy it.

The DVD is aimed at children from pre-kindergarden through second grade. One aspect that I loved about the Zula Patrol in general is that their DVDs stress tolerance and non-violence. I definitely found that to be true from the DVD we viewed. The characters are different colors, and, except for the fact that one character wears blue eyeshadow, there are few differences between the males and the females. The DVD has four sections each explaining something different about the weather: freezing and temperatures, clouds, storms, and seasons. Each section is a cartoon with aliens aka the Zula Patrol, who have adventures. There's even a bad guy in it although he's fortunately not very scary. Finally the video has a bonus weather game adventure and sing along music video.

I have to admit, when I first started watching the DVD, I didn't think it would captivate my 4.5 year old. It seemed way too fast for me. A fact was thrown in quickly and then the character would turn around and do something else. We're of more of the Sesame Street/Blue's Clues mentality where everything is articulated slowly and clearly and explained numerous times. Also, the stories seem to have plot lines that were a little more advanced. For example they went to find a golden cloud and had to deal with the bad guy. I personally was not too taken with the first section. There was just too much going on in there, and I found it a little hard to follow.

I have to say that my son did not feel that way. He really enjoyed the whole DVD. His favorite section was the section on the clouds. The DVD did a really nice job of explaining the different types of clouds, and I learned a new fact or two as well. My 20 month-old was also captivated by it. My favorite section though was the section on seasons. I thought they did an excellent job of explaining why we have different seasons. In this section, they did repeat the information multiple times. I learned how it's the tilt of the earth that determines the season. OS still liked the cloud section better, but I think that's because the seasons section was just a little bit too detailed for him, meaning that it would be great for a slighter older child. He did enjoy that section though and did learn about the seasons.

OS's only complaint was about the previews that they did before each section. He kept on thinking it meant that the DVD was over. After watching it a couple of times though, he understood that was not the case. Personally I wish that they had put the name under each character when each character was first introduced, because I had a hard time understanding the name. That's not unique to this DVD though!

Overall, I liked this DVD. It's definitely the most educational DVD we own, but it does a nice job combining fun with fact so it's not boring. It was also very unique in that the characters are very original (I haven't seen anything else that resembles them), they use lots of bold, bright colors which I personally prefer to the pale colors used in a lot of kids TV, and the characters are from outer space. This is the type of DVD that would make a great birthday gift. This DVD is sold at Borders.