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PBS LearningMedia provides you with all the resources you love, plus thousands of additional interactive games, videos, and audio clips designed to ignite learning in your classroom.
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Courtesy of Sesame Workshop/ITVS

Sesame Workshop, the creator and producer of the popular children’s show Sesame Street™, has recently released the results of a study evaluating the effectiveness of Sesame Street™ around the world, and the results are very positive. Overall results showed an 11.6 percentile difference in the areas tested (e.g. cognitive and social skills) between viewers and nonviewers of the show.

According to Sesame Workshop:

“More than 1,000 studies show that Sesame Street reaches children across many countries and cultures in every demographic group, and that preschoolers who watch do significantly better on a whole range of cognitive outcomes —than those who don’t.”

Sesame Workshop believes that the reason for their show’s success is adaption, and keeping their material relevant to a young child’s life and the problems that children face. Recently, for example, Sesame Street™ has added math and science content in response to the national focus on STEM in schools. Sesame Workshop even responded to the growing concern about childhood obesity by having Cookie Monster start eating fruits and vegetables. To learn more about the workshop and its efforts across the globe, see this video.

Sesame Street™ is broadcast (under slightly different names and with country specific content and characters) in over 150 countries around the globe and reaches over 150 million young children. To get a better idea of Sesame’s global reach, see this interactive map. The skills that Sesame Street™ helps young children learn include: literacy and numeracy, emotional well-being, health and wellness, and respect and understanding.

We encourage you to explore the Sesame Workshop website and read about all the amazing things that they are accomplishing, and learn how you can best utilize Sesame Street™ in your home and/or classroom!

Celebrate Mom this week with Sid the Science Kid!
A special video of Sid and his friends sing “My Mom is Cool!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9jkkvJNE58

Mother’s Day Card: http://www.pbs.org/parents/special/mothersday.html
Visit PBS Parents to print out a card for your Super Duper Oooper Shmooper Mom!

Mother’s Day Episode: “Special Mom Day Meal”
Friday, May 10 @ 11:30 am ET
Sid declares that it’s a special Mom Day, so he makes Mom French toast for breakfast.  When Sid smells the French toast and his stomach growls, he wonders if his stomach is trying to talk to him.  When Sid and his friends investigate at school, they discover that the stomach makes noise when it’s getting ready for digestion.

Happy Mother’s Day!

According to PBS LearningMedia, the virtual Shakespeare events they are offering are:

• (4/11) Interactive screening about Hamlet
• (4/16) LIVE Twitter Party with guests from the Folger Shakespeare Library
• (4/22) Webinar featuring the Executive Producer of Shakespeare Uncovered

If videos and lesson plans don’t get students excited about Shakespeare, maybe “the play’s the thing.” PBS has a wonderful site with tips and tricks about teaching Shakespeare for educators, which includes sugestions for putting on productions, as well as advice for teaching Shakespeare with technology.

The best part is these recources will be there “tomorrow, and tomorrow,
and tomorrow” so you can introduce your students to the world of Hamlet and Macbeth any day!

There will be science demonstrations from the FSU Chemistry Fraternity, the TCC Earth Sciences Department and the STRIDe robotics lab, as well as a robot craft, raffles, photo opportunities, and much more!

The event is from 9 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., with a light breakfast and activities taking place during the first half of the event, and the movie screening starting at 10:30.

For extra fun, bring your child dressed as Sid and they will receive a special certificate!

For more information visit the Sid event page at wfsu.org/sidmovie.

March 20th is Fred Rogers’ birthday and a couple of years ago the Fred Rogers Company started a tradition of asking people to wear a sweater on that day to honor Mr. Rogers. They also ask that you do something kind:

“Wearing a sweater is our ‘outside’ tribute to Fred, but he was so much more focused on our ‘insides’ that we wanted to add doing something kind and caring – something ‘neighborly.’”

If you wear a sweater on the 20th (this Wednesday), make sure to take a photo and post it on the company’s Facebook page.

Even if you do not read this post in time, it would be a wonderful idea to honor Fred Rogers on another day of your choosing by having your students wear sweaters and do something nice for their community, such as visiting residents in a nursing home or volunteering at a local charity. By doing this, you are honoring Fred’s passion of helping others:

“We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say “It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.” Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.”
― Fred Rogers

Leymah Gbowee, Liberian activist

March is half over, but there is still plenty of time to encourage the next generation of female leaders and celebrate the past, with resources from PBS Learning Media.

If you do not already have a PBS Learning Media  account, create one today! It is free and gives you access to a wealth of resources including documentaries, interviews, lesson plans, and more.

Many resources on the site are perfect for Women’s History Month, such as a video about the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and one about single women homesteaders.

Another great resource for Women’s History Month, is the Makers project, which consists of a documentary, Makers: Women Who Make America, and also individual videos of women, such as Danica Patrick and Ellen DeGeneres, sharing their success stories.

It’s Dr. Seuss’ 109th birthday on March 2, and PBS KIDS is celebrating with new content on-air, online and on mobile beginning March 1. Viewers can join everyone’s favorite cat in two new episodes of THE CAT IN THE HAT KNOWS A LOT ABOUT THAT! as the Cat, Nick and Sally explore science concepts from as far away as space and as close as inside our own bodies. Kids will also be able to continue the science adventure with the new “Swirly Whirly Pearl Hunt” online game and video content online and on mobile.

Image credit: Series copyright 2010, CITH Productions, Inc. and Red Hat Animation, Limited. Underlying characters copyright 1957, 1985 Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P.

“Every year at this time, children and families across the country pay tribute to Dr. Seuss and his legacy, and we’re thrilled to participate in the festivities with new content across platforms,” said Lesli Rotenberg, General Manager, Children’s Programming, PBS. “PBS KIDS is proud to offer two new episodes of THE CAT IN THE HAT KNOWS A LOT ABOUT THAT! and a new online game that will take kids on science adventures that range from the solar system to the skeletal system, helping teach key concepts and encouraging their curiosity and thirst for learning.”

THE CAT IN THE HAT KNOWS A LOT ABOUT THAT! will feature two brand new episodes. “Rumbly Tumbly / Planet Name Game” features a super shrunken trip into Thing One’s stomach as well as a whirlwind trip to each of the eight planets, and “Top of the Sky / Jiggle Bones” follows the Cat, Nick and Sally as they travel to Audrey the Astronaut’s space station and visit Dr. Giggles to see why bones are important.

The celebration will continue online and on mobile. Video clips from both episodes will be available for free online at pbskids.org/video and on the PBS KIDS Video App starting March 1.

Viewers will also have a chance to interact with the Cat in the Hat with the new “Swirly Whirly Pearl Hunt” game. In this game, the Swirly Whirly Ocean is filled with aquatic creatures of all colors, shapes and sizes, and players can catch a ride on the Thinga-ma-jigger to travel deeper and deeper through silly, Seussian schools of fish. The Swirly Whirly Pearl is waiting somewhere far below, along with the chance to create a personalized school of mix-and-match sea creatures. “Swirly Whirly Pearl Hunt” will be available on pbskids.org/catinthehat on March 1.

As part of the American Graduate project, WFSU will be hosting a free screening of the brand new PBS documentary, 180 Days: A Year Inside an American High School, at the Challenger Learning Center on Thursday, March 7th, with a discussion afterwards. This is a wonderful opportunity to discuss what we can do as a community to address the dropout rate.

The documentary allows viewers to experience a year in the lives of students and staff at Washington Metropolitan High School in Washington, D.C. and to see some of the challenges the students face in graduating from high school.

WFSU’s screening will take place at the Challenger Learning Center, 200 S. Duval Street, with a reception at 6:00, screening at 6:30 and discussion at 7:30 p.m.

For more information and to RSVP for the event, visit wfsu.org/180days.

Fred Rogers was also a champion of quality education for preschoolers and emphasized the importance of a child’s emotional well-being and emotional intelligence in determining their success in school. Fred knew the importance of making lessons relevant and meaningful to a child:

“As you help children appreciate their real-life experiences  playing with things like numbers, shapes, and measurements, you will be helping  them learn that math can have relevance in all people’s lives.  When children care about what they’re  learning, and when they know their teachers care about them, they are more  likely to be ready to learn and grow.”

Many children do not enjoy learning about math, perhaps because they do not see why it is important, or they do not think it is fun. The Fred Rogers Company, offers some wonderful resources for teachers and parents to use to help their students love math, including a video clip of Fred demonstrating the importance of counting, and a fun counting activity.

Additional Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood™ content and games is available on pbskids.org, and over 300 episodes of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood™ are available for purchase on amazon.com for $1.99 each.