Here is a rare and lovely thing: a DVD that encourages children to turn off the box and go out and explore their own backyard! It uses contemporary design and entertaining animation to explore life in the garden: dandelions growing, flowering, producing seeds which are carried away by the wind, or by busy ants or birds. Magpies nest-building and feeding their young. Owls and moths at night. A spider building her web.

All of this is set to music and animal sounds – almost no words are used, but the graphics tell it all. With the DVD comes a set of sturdy flashcards, which at their simplest can be used for word recognition, but also have basic explanations and suggestions for further exploration on the back. I watched it with my two- (nearly three-) year-old grandson, who was transfixed. (In truth, he usually is when he’s allowed to watch the box!) BUT, then he wanted to go through and name all the creatures and couldn’t wait to get outside to find all the things we had seen.

I hope it finds its way into every pre-school and kindergarten in the country, as well as young family households. Satisfying, too, that it is a local Melbourne production, the happy result of the meeting of two young mothers at playgroup: Martine Corompt, a new media artist and Sonia Orchard, a writer. The good news is that they are planning more.