Ameba Review and Giveaway: Fun and Educational Kids TV

I’ll admit it.  As much as I thought I’d be the parent who wouldn’t let their child watch too much television, my kids love the TV.  They have a dozen favorite shows that they absolutely *must* see and are constantly asking us to DVR something else.  In addition, they’ve fallen in love with Netflix on our Roku player.  NHL, in particular, enjoys picking just which episode of which show he is going to watch next.  Of course, we prefer it when their television watching habits are educational in nature.  So when I heard about Ameba, I was intrigued.

Ameba is one of the many new channels that Roku provides.  Unlike others that show old movies or anime, though, Ameba shows educational programming geared towards children.  When we first browsed the selection of shows, I’ll admit that I began to get a little nervous.  Nowhere was Dora the Explorer, The Wonder Pets or any of the other “big name” shows that my boys are used to watching.  Would they take to these new shows or would they turn their noses up at them?

We looked through the Ages 2 – 5 section for a good program for JSL.  After awhile, we found Rainbow Fish.  This was a pleasant surprise because they love the Rainbow Fish book.  We watched an episode where Rainbow Fish and his friends need to welcome a new girl to their school.  A girl who doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the gang.  They both enjoyed this show.

After this, we switched over to the Age 6 – 10 section to find a good program for NHL.  I noticed Einsteinabot, a program which appeared to be about numbers and math.  NHL loves math so we tried this.  Once again, I began to get nervous.  The program had a fun song, but the look of the show wasn’t as polished as some shows on Nick Jr or Disney Junior.  I needn’t have worried, though.  NHL began singing along while JSL danced in his seat.  When the episode was over, NHL asked to watch the next one and the one after that.

It just goes to show that kids like fun shows.  They don’t care if the show uses the latest animation techniques or expensive computer generated imagery.  The shows on Ameba might not have big toy lines behind them like Dora or the Disney shows do, but they are fun and educational.  (Of course, the lack of a big toy line might be seen as another plus.)

Ameba costs $9.99 per month (though, for the month of April, they’re dropping the price to $3.99) and you can either get a set top box from them or purchase a Roku box for $60 to play it on.  I didn’t test Ameba’s box so I can’t say anything good or bad about it, but I highly recommend the Roku box for ease of use and availability of content.

Giveaway:

Thanks to Ameba, not one, not two, but three lucky winners will receive an Ameba set top box and a 3 month subscription to Ameba. To enter, simply leave a comment below answering this question: What education programs do your children watch or did you watch growing up?

You can also earn bonus entries by doing any (or all) of the following items. Just be sure to leave a separate comment for each item that you complete.  (Don’t just leave one comment listing everything you did.)

• Follow @TechyDad on Twitter. (1 bonus entry)
• Follow @AmebaTV on Twitter. (1 bonus entry)
• Tweet about the giveaway on Twitter. Be sure to include @TechyDad, @AmebaTV and a link to this post in the Tweet. (1 bonus entry per day) For example: Stream educational children’s shows from the web to your TV. Win 1 of 3 @AmebaTV set top boxes from @TechyDad http://bit.ly/gMRdRH #Giveaway
• Subscribe to my RSS feed or let me know if you already are. (1 bonus entry)
• Leave a comment on any of my non-giveaway posts from March/April. Leave a comment here letting me know which post you commented on. (1 bonus entry per comment, maximum 3 entries)
• Write a post on your blog linking to this giveaway. Leave 3 comments about this to get credit for all of your extra entries. (3 bonus entries)

To enter, please follow the rules above within the comment section. Contest starts today, March 31st and ends at Noon EST on April 14th, 2010. You do not have to be a blogger to enter, but must leave a valid e-mail address for me to contact you for mailing address once the giveaway is over. I will select the winner using random.org and contact you via e-mail. You will have 48 hours to claim the prize. If there is no response, another winner will be selected. Open to U.S. and Canada residents only.

Disclaimer: I was provided two month’s free Ameba service to review.  No other compensation was given. The opinions expressed above are my own. Ameba is also providing the giveaway item to my readers.