Tot TV Watch

I am a big fan of the Wishbone series and I loved watching the show growing up. The DVD release Wishbone: Paw Prints of Thieves is enjoyable, but at the same time kind of pitiful because it only has one episode and absolutely no special features. The sadder thing is that so few of the shows episodes even have this minimal of a release. I would love to see this show get season releases of its two season or at least a 4 episode set like many other kids shows are released as.

I may not like how they release this show, but I still think this show is worth watching on DVD, as it does not seem to be on PBS ever these days. I would not go as far as to recommend buying it unless you can get it for a couple bucks, but it is certainly a worthwhile rental. The “Paw Prints of Thieves” is a great episode of the show. It basically tells the story of Robin Hood and teaches about helping the poor. The main plot of the story is about Wishbone’s owner getting involved in secretly donating the school’s leftover food to the food bank despite the supervisor of the cafeteria not wanting to deal with the paperwork involved and instead wants the leftovers to be thrown away. Wishbone’s owner leads a school protest when the cafeteria worker is fired for donating the food. In the end the Principal finds out about the incident and helps start the program to do it and is annoyed to hear that the supervisor did not tell her that the worker wanted to start the program and that she was fired for donating the food. As this plot plays out Wishbone flashes into scenes that relate in the Robin Hood story.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.

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I do not remember where I learned about this show starting as a new revival of the classic show from the 1970s. Honestly, I am not entirely sure it is showing new anywhere tomorrow, as my PBS station is not showing it at all. However, according to my DirectTV guide this show is showing on one of the premium PBS channels, which by the way I do not have. It does not say the two episodes showing tomorrow are new, though. I do think they are the new episodes of the new show, as I remember learning about coming out on January 22, 2009, from somewhere.

This show’s educational goal is to help teach kids to read. In particular it aims at teaching kids ages 6 to 9 to read at or above grade level. The show uses a combination of music, comedy, technology, pop culture, and celebrities to give children a multimedia learning experience. According to Wikipedia “the show will have a different format from the original, involving a natural-foods diner, ecology, super heroes and villains.” This first season will include 26 episodes. Celebrities expected to appear in the first season include Samantha Bee, Ne-Yo, Mario, Tiki Barber, Whoopi Goldberg, Kyle Massey, Common, Jimmy Fallon, and Wyclef Jean.

It sounds like this revival based on the classic show might be a good one. It does seem sad, though, that it is not getting released to all PBS markets at this time. Perhaps it will catch on and more PBS stations will end up picking it up in the future.

Tomorrow on PBS (not sure if most or just some are doing this, as I know PBS Kids line ups tend to vary station to station) there is a Feast of Favorites Line Up. This line up includes some new episodes of favorite PBS Kids shows and the premiere of the Sesame Street special called Abby in Wonderland. Below is the line up I got from here, but it may vary by station, as it is not the same as my station’s line up, although my station is showing most of the stuff just in a different order.

Between 7am and 9am - Curious George’s “Mulch Ado About Nothing” episode about George learning about composting. I am not sure if there are 3 more episodes of the show during this time slot or this may just be the only new episode in the time slot.

9am - Abby in Wonderland: This is the Sesame Street special about Abby and Elmo going down a rabbit hole and re-imagining the adventures of Alice in Wonderland. It sounds like it has the potential to be a good special.

Between 10am and 11am - Super Why! “The Little Mermaid” episode about Pig feeling different than his friends and going into the story of The Little Mermaid to talk to the mermaid and what makes her different from the kids on land. I assume there is also another episode of the show during the time slot.

Between 2pm and 3pm - Sid the Science Kid: I am not sure what the episode(s)’ title is called, but it is the one that he learns about germs.

3:30pm - Martha Speaks “Best in Show” episode about Helen entering Martha into a dog show to try and show up Carolina and her dog, Francois

Postcards from Buster is a spin-off from Arthur. The show features Arthur’s friend Buster traveling with his father, who is a pilot for a band that is on tour. The show is basically about Buster making video postcards about his travels that he sends back to Arthur and friends. The show is part animation and part live action.

In the show Buster meets kids in the local place he is and goes on different adventures that usually involve learning about local things. It is usually a pretty interesting show and it shows kids of a variety of backgrounds going about their lives. The show tends to show how the life of the kids are different from Buster’s while also pointing out things that make them similar.

In the first two seasons Buster traveled around the US and the episodes show him meeting kids in the local places. I have seen a lot of these episodes and I have yet to see a bad one. The new season started this month and features Buster going to international destinations. I imagine these new episodes are even more interesting if not way better than the first two seasons, however, I have not been able to see them. My local listings showed the new episodes playing several times, but then as the day approached the listings changed and the new season has yet to air on my local station. I have a feeling this show is continuing to be banned from some stations due to the controversies that contributed to the third season taking so long to come along. Please share if you have been able to see the new season.

With the Presidential Elections coming up it is a very appropriate time for there to be an Election themed episode of WordGirl. I had the honor of previewing this episode and below is a brief recap of it. Overall I found it do a good job of teaching the key words, especially the election words in a context that kids can more easily relate to.

The first part of the episode is called “A Vote for Becky” and the key words are “candidate” and “elect.” In this part Becky’s mom is running for reelection as District Attorney and Becky running for class president against Tobey, one of her enemies. The campaigning between Becky and Tobey turns into Tobey being unfair and stealing her ideas and using them as his own. Becky tries to stay on the fair path and use WordGirl as a celebrity backer of her and Tobey distracts her from campaigning for herself by sending his robots to create trouble. So, will good or evil win the election?

The second part is called “Class Act” and this part’s key words are “ramble” and “articulate.” In this part Butcher is tired of having problems with choosing the right words, which is making it hard for him to successfully commit crimes. He enrolls in an adult education class, which helps him improve his crime committing and causes WordGirl problems as she tries to prepare for a speech she is giving to a class. As she prepares her speech WordGirl discovers she rambles and leads to a final battle with the Butcher.

Tune in to your local PBS station on November 4, 2008, to watch the premiere of this episode.

WordGirl is one of several current PBS shows that have a main educational focus on language arts. The specific educational focus of WordGirl is vocabulary. While it is not exactly unique in its educational focus, the format of the show certainly makes it stand out as unique from the other vocabulary teaching shows, such as Martha Speaks.

The main character of the show is Becky, who is a fifth grader with a large vocabulary and has a secret life as the super hero named WordGirl. In the show she leads her life as a regular girl and also ends up fighting villians. Some episodes seem to have more WordGirl appearances while other episodes she ends up mostly being Becky. The action packed super hero parts thus really vary to lots of good vs. bad scenes to sometimes very little. Most of the battles end up involving word fights, i.e. there is not too much violence in this super hero show, which is a good thing since the target audience is early grade school kids. In the battles or other scenes at least two new key words end up being defined in an appropriate context, which really helps kids learn new words much better than a spelling/vocab book that most schools solely rely on.

Overall I think this is a good show for its target audience of kids ages 6 to 8, but personally I do not get the entertainment grab. However, I never have been much into superhero shows, so that is a personal bias. I do realize that many kids do like super hero stuff and thus I think this show does a good job of entertaining those types of kids and at the same time teach them some new words.

Earlier this month WordWorld’s Halloween themed episode calle “A Kooky Spooky Halloween/Sheep’s Halloween Costume” premiered on PBS. I recorded it and just recently got around to watching it.

The first part “A Kooky Spooky Halloween” is about Pig trying to finish the bags of treats the night before Halloween. He just needs the Bs to finish them and is convinced to go to bed by Ant and finish them in the morning. Pig is troubled by not having the Bs and ended up sleepwalking. As he sleepwalks he takes the Bs from different word items in WordWorld. He also ends up scaring some of the WordWorld friends because he sleepwalks with a bed sheet on and ends up looking like a ghost.

The second part “Sheep’s Halloween Costume” is about Sheep helping the other WordWorld friends get ready for Halloween by giving them the last thing they need for their costume. He then ends up without a costume because he gave all the pieces to his friends. In the end his friends return the favor and help him recreate his costume.

Overall this is a fun Halloween episode that includes a very minimally creepy Halloween first part and a very friendly second part. I found it to be a pretty good episode and it is great that both parts are Halloween themed, as it seems that sometimes shows with two parts only have one part themed by the holiday.

If you missed it the few times it has already played this month, then do not worry. You can still catch it Monday, October 27, 2008, and Friday, October 31, 2008, on most PBS channels. Check your local television listings to find out what exact time the episode may be on in your area.

This week the Halloween themed episode of Super Why premiered on PBS. In this episode Pig is too scared to go trick or treating. The Super Readers enter the story “The Ghost Who Was Afraid of Halloween” to help Pig discover that Halloween is not always scary. In the story their is a ghost that is scared of Halloween like Pig.

The educational reading aspects of this particular Super Why show include learning to spell the word pumpkin to help make the pumpkins reappear after the ghost makes them disappear because he is scared of them. Basically everytime the ghost is scared of something he says something that makes the thing he is scared of disappear. Then the viewers supposedly help the Super Readers spell the thing that disappeared, such as a witch, and make the thing reappear.

Overall the show is a fun Halloween themed one. It is great for preschoolers, which the show is geared towards, as it is not scary at all. It portrays the scary things in a way that shows them as being friendly and the things that scary the ghost end up being explained in a friendly way. This includes a witch making odd noises proving to be a friendly witch even though she uses a scary witch laugh. In the end the Super Readers teach the ghost that Halloween is not scary because the things are make believe.

If you kids like Super Why and you missed the Halloween episode in its premiere, then you can catch it again the next two Mondays on most PBS stations. Check your local listings to make sure it is showing and to find out the exact time for your station.

Postcards from Buster is a great spin-off from Arthur, but unfortunately due to some controversial episodes it is not shown much on PBS anymore. The Case of the Coin Purloined DVD is an okay way to get a Postcards from Buster fix. The DVD only has two episodes of the show, but at least the first one is among the best ones in the series.

The first episode is called “The Case of the Coin Purloined.” This episode contains footage of Buster visiting Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. It is interesting in that it shows kids dealing with their fathers off in Iraq and Buster making the video to send to their fathers. In this episode the kids help Buster find out what happened to the special coin of excellence he was holding on to for the band he travels with.

The second episode is called “Buster’s Baseball Merengue.” This episode is okay and somewhat interesting showing culture in Puerto Rice. It, however, annoyed me a lot because it was full of errors in how it referred to baseball plays. This includes Buster several times calling the plays says things like the player is going to steal second when the clip shows the runner already on second. Basically, kids might not notice, but me being a big baseball fan I just cannot say this is a great episode with several errors.

Overall this DVD is only worthwhile because the show is rarely on television nowadays and this is a good show. However, it has a poorly done episode and no special features. The first episode on the DVD is one of the best episodes, though.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.

Martha Speaks is one of the newest shows on PBS Kids. It is an animated show with the main character being a dog named Martha. The animation is not anything special, but the story line of the show is imaginative and makes up for that. The show basically is about Martha learning to talk like a human after eating alphabet soup. In each episode she learns new words and as she does viewers also increase their vocabulary.

The learning the new words is further emphasized in segments with a professor character that helps explains the words a little better and ties the new words all together in some sort of theme. While as a child caregiver I think this segment is great to further the educational value of the show, at the same time I think it lessens the children’s interest in the show and the show can be educational without these professor segments. At least the professor segments try to be kind of funny and not too seriously educational. The plots themselves can definitely be funny and entertaining making kids not really realize they are being exposed to new vocabulary.

Overall I think for certain kids this may be a fun show, especially those that like dogs and animals in general, but others will be turned off by the absurdity of a talking dog because of alphabet soup or the professor segments. It certainly is worth checking out and see if your preschooler enjoys it because it does have potential to help increase their vocabulary and desire to learn new words.

Tomorrow 2 new PBS Kids shows premiere. The shows start with their first four episodes in two hour blocks for each show. The new episodes then repeat later this week. At least that is the line up for these two new shows on my local PBS station. Be sure to check your TV Guide, as PBS shows do tend to vary often.

The first new show is Martha Speaks. This new cartoon is about a dog learning to talk after she eats Alphabet Soup. It is based on the children’s book series by Susan Meddaugh, which might be a good idea to check out and encourage kids to read if they like the show. The show promotes learning new vocabulary daily and helps teach vocabulary through the way Martha is always trying to learn new words. The targeted age group is ages 4 through 7.

The second new show is called Sid the Science Kid. This new cartoon show is not just an interesting new educational science show, but the style of animation is new, too. The animation style used is Digital Puppetry. This show teaches about different science concepts while encouraging kids to do science on their own. It does this through the role model of Sid, who is a 5-year-old that finds science around him and discovers new things. It also teaches about the how to do things in a scientific way, which including thinking, talking, and working like a scientist. The targeted age group for this show is ages 4 to 6.

I just heard about a new Sesame Street Official Website called SesameStreet.org. It is a great website for fans and parents/caregivers of fans of Sesame Street. The site is full of things to do and information about Sesame Street.

One of the best features of the site is Play Safe mode, which is easily activated from the top of game and playlist pages. Once clicked they can only do things on the games or playlist part of the site and cannot navigate to anywhere else on the web. It is deactivated by holding down Alt+ P+S. This sounds like a great thing to allow you to let preschoolers play without having to keep such a close eye on the computer screen while they play. Unfortunately, this only currently works for Windows users using Internet Explorer. I hope they it make Mac (I grew up on Macs and still only use them) compatible soon, especially if they do it for Firefox.

One main section of the site is the Games section. This area has about 400 flash mini games and 90 full games. That is a lot of play time if you like Sesame Street. Yes, they are often educational along with being fun just like the show, so you do not have to feel too guilty letting the kids play them regularly.

Another main area is Videos. This section has many Sesame Street segment videos that you can watch anytime. You can look for them by subject, theme, character, and songs. There is even a Classic Clips section.

The Playlist section brings together games and videos to create interactive preschool education units. There are several different units that have video clips and games that work together to teach the unit’s theme.

One last interesting feature of this site is My Street, which is a customizable page. This page lets you create your own Sesame Street home page adding your favorite videos and games from the site. Note that you do have to register to do this.

Dragon Tales is an animated series on PBS. The show features kids that visit the magical Dragon Land by using a dragon scale. With their dragon friends they have different adventures. The animated show usually features a song between the two short stories that make an episode. The DVD Dragon Tales - Let’s Start a Band is a compilation of some of these songs that have been part of Dragon Tales regular episodes. This episode is unique in that it has a live action main plot that the Dragon Tales songs are weaved into at appropriate segways.

The live action plot is about Nina babysitting entertaining two bored kids by singing, dancing, and creating a band with some other neighborhood kids. It is a fun show, but some kids who love the Dragon Tales animate show may be a little disappointed about this DVD unless Dragon Tales songs are their favorite parts of the episodes. Overall I think it is a fun musical adventure to get kids to think about the different ways they can make music and it encourages kids to dance along. Just make sure your kids are not expecting a normal Dragon Tales episode when they watch this or they will be disappointed and might not even give this DVD a fair chance.

Dragon Tales songs included in this movie include “Wake Up,” “Doodli-Do,” “Cassie,” “The Hello Song,” “Be A Dragon,” “Shake Your Dragon Tail,” “Clap,” “Betcha Can,” “Try,” “The Wiggle Song,” “Dance,” “Ord Shuffle,” “The Silly Song,” “Hum,” “Friends,” and “The World Goes Round and Round.” There is a special feature of sing alongs for five of the songs.

Fetch! With Ruff Ruffmann is an interesting kids game show on PBS Kids. This shows game host is an animated dog name Ruff Ruffmann. The contestants are real kids, though, and the game show is also real. In the episodes Ruff Ruffermann sends them the kids on different challenges and the kids earn points as they complete their challenges or answer trivia. For the most part the challenges are related to science and experimenting. It is geared towards kids ages 6 to 8.

One of the series goals is to “introduce children to science and the world of scientific inquiry.” The show also shows kids that it can be fun to learn problem solving and team building skills as demonstrated in the fun activities the contestants participate in such as creating their own good tasting ice cream flavor using vegetables in one episode. The show is formatted so that the contestants work as teams, but from episode to episode the teams change, so it shows that it is more about the experiences and not winning or losing, i.e. it is for the fun of playing and not all about winning.

Check the TV Guide listings of upcoming episodes here to see when this show airs on your PBS station.

Also, for a hands on Fetch! experience check out the locations of Fetch! labs at science museums across the U.S. Perhaps one is near you or near a future vacation destination for your family. A list of locations can be found here. If you are not near one, though, you can still enjoy some great science activities based on the Fetch! episodes. The activities are meant for kids ages 8 to 10 and can be found here.

May 13th is quickly approaching and mothers everywhere will be celebrating one of their most important roles in life. If you are still searching for a gift, you can check out the great lists here, here, or here. However, sometimes the best gift for Mom is letting her have some quiet time to relax. I suggest bringing her breakfast in bed (along with hand-made cards from the kids), then whisking the kids away for a while so that Mom can have some quiet time to read a book, peruse her favorite blogs, or just take a nice hot bath without any interruptions. If you need a way to entertain the tots while Mom is relaxing, you can always keep them busy with some of these Mother’s Day specials, new episodes, and activities:

• Dora the Explorer’s Mother’s Day Marathon will be airing on Nick Jr. Friday, May 11th, from 12:00-2:00p.m ET/PT, but you can always record it to a VCR, DVR, or TiVo and save it for the big day.
• Noggin will be celebrating by airing an all-day Mother’s Day marathon on Sunday, featuring an all new episode of Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends. The marathon will run from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET.
• Playhouse Disney will be airing new episodes of My Friends Tigger and Pooh at 10:00/9:00c and Handy Manny at 10:30/9:30c on May 13th. The Handy Manny episode will feature special guest Marion Ross as Mr. Lopart’s mother. Kids can also find some great Mother’s Day craft ideas on the Playhouse Disney web site.
• The PBSParents web site also has some great craft ideas and activities, as well as Mother’s Day breakfast recipes that are definitely worth checking out.

If those don’t interest your kids (but I’m sure they will) you can always watch their regularly scheduled favorite shows. Of course, you could just take the kids out to the park for a couple of hours. I’m sure when you return, Mom will be ready for some snuggly family time.

If you have any other great Mother’s Day tips you want to share, please leave them in the comments section below.

Mother’s Day, Mother’s Day Tips, gift ideas, Dora the Explorer, Mother’s Day Marathon, Nick Jr., Handy Manny, My Friends Tigger and Pooh, Playhouse Disney, PBS Parents, crafts, recipes