Bob de Bouwer (Bob the Builder): how things get made
Bob arrived in 1998 with a question — kunnen wij het maken? — and a team of machines with faces. Eighty episodes on KidsTube, in Dutch.
What it is
A job, a complication, and the job finished by the end. Bob, Wendy and the machines build a house, mend a bridge, dig out a harbour. The formula never varies, and for the age it is aimed at that is the appeal rather than the flaw.
What makes it more useful than most is that the work is real work. Things get measured, sawn, drilled and lifted, and named while it happens. A child who likes machines gets vocabulary out of this as well as a story.
What is on KidsTube
Eighty videos, including a strand called Leren met Leo that takes one tool at a time — the saw, the drill, the chainsaw — and several hour-long compilations for a long afternoon. There are sing-along episodes built around the theme tune, and a set of newer, brighter episodes alongside the older ones.
What to know
Dutch, and here the language does more work than in Nijntje or Buurman en Buurman, because the tool names and the problem-solving are spoken aloud. A Dutch-speaking three-year-old gets the most from it; a child who does not speak it will still follow the diggers perfectly well.
Three to five.