See the frozen north and the Canadian Rockies from a special dome car. Visit the dining car and see how the chef cooks dinner on the rails. Learn how a train trip is planned, and ride in the cab with the engineer. See the giant control center and the maintenance shop. You'll even discover the history of the trans-Canadian Railway, and see the incredible sites as you travel from Toronto to Vancouver.

Take your child on a cross-country train trip through southern Canada from Toronto to Vancouver.  On the way, they will learn about the inner workings of a passenger train including the sleeping quarters and the dining car. The Canadian countryside is breathtaking as the train travels through the snow covered winter land of each province. Your child will learn about sound frequency and how it behaves while approaching and departing from its central location. As the video transitions from each segment, colorful word displays flash on the screen which helps associate the words with the appropriate fact or object.  This will help to expand your child's vocabulary as they learn about the intricate processes required to operate a train safely and smoothly.  The video is accompanied by upbeat music that will captivate a child's imagination.

As your child watches this video they will likely have lots of questions about trains.  This is an excellent opportunity for you to interact by watching along with them and exploring their questions together. If you don't know the answer, it will be fun to research it together at a later time. The information presented will also introduce your child to a different part of the world and the kinds of jobs associated with operating a train. 

When I watched this video with four-year-old Sam, I found that he was very curious about how far the train was traveling. Since he didn't understand miles, I tried to give him the distances of things he was familiar with such as how long it takes to go to the store or to his aunt's house.  He wanted to know how long it would take to cross the ocean. I told him that trains can't cross water unless there is a bridge, which led us to a discussion of bridges. It's amazing how kids love to go from one topic to another, and then find a way to tie them all together in the end.

--Kendall

Filmmaker William VanDerKloot was watching kids' videos with his children. He was disappointed with what he saw... and what he didn't. With a few notable exceptions, most children's videos were poorly done and overly simplistic. "It seemed as if very little effort was put into the research or production of those products," said VanDerKloot. "Many looked like amateur home videos."

Then he got an idea.... A Peabody award-winning director/producer, VanDerKloot decided to produce one himself. The first subject came to him while driving past the Atlanta airport in a car full of children. As they drove down I-75, a giant plane took off overhead. Immediately VanDerKloot was bombarded with questions from the kids, "What kind of plane is that?" How fast is it going?" "How many passengers are in it?" The Big Plane Trip, the first video in The Big Adventure Series®, was born.

But VanDerKloot did not want to make a simplistic video "just for kids." Each subsequent video in the series, is constructed with various levels of information so that an entire family, from the youngest to the oldest, can enjoy and learn something new with every viewing. "There is something that happens when you become a parent," says VanDerKloot. "You begin to look at the world through the eyes of a child. Suddenly the normal becomes the extraordinary and you see things in a whole new way."

The Big Adventure Series® shows how things work with a child's sense of wonder. And who better to critique an adventure-in-progress than kids themselves. The team at Little Mammoth holds a number of screenings for children's groups while videos are in their rough edit stage. Utilizing the input, the videos are modified. The results are productions that have received national acclaim from the critics, and most importantly, from families and children.

This hard work has paid off. The BIG Adventure Series®, which is now sixteen titles strong, has received dozens of awards and citations from such organizations as Parent's Choice, Kids First!, Video Librarian, CINE, and International Monitor Awards.

I knew my son would love this video and I was right. He sat and watched every second! I like that it was narrated by a child and that it explained scientific concepts in a way he could understand. He liked that they passed another train and went into tunnels! When it was over, he looked me right in the eyes and said "Thank you momma. Can we watch it again?"

--Amy Looby, Faithful Finances