For Christmas, Mr. TBaM wanted to get The Boy a clock and I vetoed it; I felt he was too young to deal with the concept of time other than demarcations of the passing of the day. I suggested that we look at it for his third birthday (in June). Lately, The Boy has shown an increasing interest in time asking what day it is, is it night time/lunch/breakfast/dinner etc. He's finding Sundays particularly confusing, every sunny day is a Sunday according to him!
I was recently told about a new programme starting up on Nick Jr: Ticket Toc. The British produced (you know I'm a stickler for native accents in tv programmes) pre-school animation series features twins who help children gain and develop their awareness of time.
As a child, my grandparents had a genuine Swiss clock which didn't feature a cuckoo, but featured a little girl and boy that would come out of opposite sides of the clock to greet each other. I was obsessed with the thing, waiting and wondering where they went and what they got up to. When I read the information about Tickety Toc I smiled to myself.
'On the wall of an old clock shop hangs a very special clock. Every hour, on the hour, it chimes and out pop our little heroes. But what happens when they go back inside?'
When chime-time has finished, Puffity the puppy-dog train takes the time-twins Tommy and Tallulah Tockey off to the other side of the clock for adventures galore in this CGI action-packed adventure perfect for curious and imaginative pre-schoolers. We loved the colourful and charismatic collection of characters, especially the ping-ponging Madame au Lait and knitting Chick-a-dee.
Ticket Toc will air from Monday 23rd April 2012 at 8.15am every weekday on Nick Jr (Sky 615, Virgin 715, TalkTalk 318)
