Awards and Recognition

Can Do Kids Find a NicheBy, Michelle MaitreEnvision a cross between "Schoolhouse Rock" and "The Jane Fonda Workout" and you just might get an idea of the content of one of the educational videos created by a new Sonora-based business venture. U Can Do, started last year by Sonorans Laura LaNier and Cindy Rivera, uses the musical techniques of the '70's era "Schoolhouse cartoon shorts plus the exercise and movement of a workout tape to teach math facts.

Each video starts "The Can Do Kids" seven youths from preschool to high school age who lead the exercises and impart mathematical knowledge. "Subtraction is just addition, backwards," one of the Can Do Kids explains in "Subtraction Safari," one of the four videos created by U Can Do.

Students are put through their paces - with leg lifts, arm curls, sit ups and marches - and encouraged to chant along as the Can Do Kids count down addition, subtraction, multiplication and division tables. A short warm-up begin each video, and students can follow along at their own pace - younger children with low-impact exercises and older students picking up the pace as the video progresses.

Each $19.95 video package contains a Teacher's Guide and Student Workbook, so students reinforce their lesson visually with mathematical problems.

"Each video has its own flavor," said LaNier. "We wanted to do math facts, and we wanted to appeal to different styles of learning." It all started because LaNier and Rivera, both home-schooling parents, were looking for an easy and accessible way to teach their children multiplication.

"Kids love it because it's fun and it's not flash cards," said Rivera, an expert in multi-sensory learning techniques who introduced the physical education aspect as a way to get children involved in the lesson while also giving them some fitness.

"We tried to use the most up-to-date exercise techniques," Rivera said. "If you follow the kids on the tape, there's no chance you'll overdo it."

Although the videos can be used in a classroom, one of LaNier's and Rivera's main goals in creating U Can Do was to provide a teaching tool to other home-schooling parents.

Parents can pop in one of the 20 minute videos and have time to complete other chores while their children are studying mathematics and physical education.

"The approach is two-pronged," said Rivera. "Students are learning the way they like to learn, and at the same time they're learning the things they don't like to learn."

"It's like two subjects in one," said Can Do Kid Nicole Rivera, Cindy's daughter and one of the stars of the video.

More than 600 videos have been sold nationwide since U Can Do was started a little over a year and a half ago. Besides home-schooling parents, the videos are popular with special-needs children and those with attention deficit disorder.

LaNier and Rivera sell their tapes by attending various conventions throughout the United States and by word-of-mouth advertising. The company takes its name from Philippians 4:13, "You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you." A theme song based on the verse and composed by Steve Gentry is recurrent throughout the tapes. U Can Do is a true family venture. LaNier and Rivera wrote, created and directed the videos which were taped and filmed in the Oakdale studio of LaNier's brother, Ron Cole. (Digital Media Productions, Inc.) The Can Do Kids are LaNier's and Rivera's own children or friends of their families.

"We wanted to have real kids that other kids could relate to and say, "I could do that," LaNier said.

"We've already seen how (the videos) have helped lots of other kids," said Jimmy LaNier one of the Can Do Kids, who found that participating improved his own math skills. "At the last convention we went to, a lady who bought all of the videos said her kids got up early just to watch the videos."