Contest: Win a PBS Kids Prize Pack! Peg and Cat, Caillou, and WordWorld!

Posted on March 2, 2015 at 11:04 pm

PBS Kids has three magnificent new DVDs, and I have two prize packs to give away!

Peg + Cat: Peg Rocks features seven stories from PBS KIDS’ popular PEG + CAT series. Solving problems is even more AWESOME when music is involved! This new toe-tapping DVD features fun-filled musical escapades, including “The Girl Group Problem,” in which Peg’s girl group, the Pentagirls, has its biggest show ever, and “The Mega Mall Problem,” which features Peg and Cat searching the mall for the teens, so they can all enter the Zebra Guy dance contest! Each PEG + CAT adventure features a story in which Peg and Cat encounter an unexpected challenge that requires them to use math and problem-solving skills in order to save the day. While it teaches specific math lessons, the series also emphasizes resilience and perseverance.

Caillou’s Can Do Collection is a 3-DVD collection featuring 30 classic stories which will have any preschooler taking on life’s small challenges and feeling they Can Do with Caillou. The three fun-filled DVDs featured within this set are “Big Kid Caillou,” “Caillou, The Everyday Hero,” and “Caillou’s World of Wonder.” Lovable four-year-old Caillou has a boundless imagination that makes every experience an opportunity for fun and play. By sharing in his incredible adventures, children can “make believe” along with Caillou and find new ways to understand and enjoy the world around them. CAILLOU is designed for preschoolers and focuses on role-playing and “make-believe.”

Wordworld: Birthday Party This fun-filled DVD includes five birthday-themed adventures, the first of which, “Happy Birthday, Dog,” features a surprise party for WordWorld’s friendly canine. Can Frog get the C-A-K-E safely to Dog’s party without ruining the surprise? Also included on this DVD is “Bugs to the Rescue!” In this story Ant builds Bear a hot-air balloon for her birthday. When Dog accidentally floats away in the B-A-L-L-O-O-N, Ant gets help from other insect WordFriends to save the day. Join the lovable WordFriends for these and three other educational birthday adventures as they playfully demonstrate the connections between letters, sounds, words, and meaning in order to empower children to advance from learning letters to learning how to read. “WordWorld,” which won the 2009 Daytime Emmy Award for outstanding children’s animated program, is designed to introduce, support, and foster literacy skills in children ages three to five. Young children explore the colorful, vibrant world of words with the lovable, legible WordFriends – animals whose bodies are made up of the letters that spell the word they represent. In each story, the WordFriends go on adventures and face challenges that can only be resolved with the right word. That word is built letter by letter, sound by sound. Once the word is built it “morphs” to become the spelled item – C-A-K-E, becomes a cake!

To enter the contest, send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with PBS in the subject line and tell me your favorite PBS show. Don’t forget your address! (US addresses only). I’ll pick a winner at random on March 10, 2015. Good luck!

Family DVDs for Hannukah

Posted on December 10, 2014 at 8:00 am

When all the world is caught up in Christmas, it can help to have some movies on hand to explain that some people celebrate a different holiday at this time of year, especially when the stories and songs are told by familiar friends. Here are some of the best:

Lights: The Miracle Of Chanukah Judd Hirsch, Leonard Nimoy, and others tell the story of the Macabees in this 1987 animated story.
Lambchop’s Chanukah and Passover Surprise Sheri Lewis and her puppet Lambchop bring a sense of curiosity and wonder to the celebration, and a sense of fun, too as they sing while they make latkes.
Rugrats Chanukah This is a charming introduction that includes some historical context and prayers as well as the usual Rugrats silliness. It is available on Amazon streaming.
Chanuka & Passover at Bubbe’s A nice introduction to the history and traditions of the holiday.
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There’s No Such Thing as a Chanukah Bush, Sandy Goldstein This is a rare movie that frankly and sensitively portrays the pressure on kids to conform and how it feels to be left out of a celebration that seems to occupy the entire world in December. It gives families a way to acknowledge and even share the celebrations of others while feeling pride in their own traditions.
A Taste of Chanukah A delightful concert performance with Theodore Bikel.

Family Movies for Thanksgiving

Posted on November 24, 2014 at 3:56 pm

There are some great Thanksgiving movies for adults. And here are some for the whole family to share.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving This is the one with the famous episode about Charlie Brown trying to kick the football Lucy keeps snatching away from him. And Peppermint Patty invites herself to Charlie Brown’s house for Thanksgiving and he is too kind-hearted to tell her that he won’t be there because his family is going to his grandmother’s. When the Peanuts gang comes over for a feast prepared by Charlie Brown himself, Patty gets angry at being served toast and jelly beans. But when she realizes how hard her friend tried to be hospitable, she learns what gratitude really means.

Dora’s Thanksgiving Parade Dora the Explorer has to save the day when the parade float gets away.

Squanto and the First Thanksgiving , Native American actor Graham Greene and musician Paul McCandless tell the story of Squanto’s extraordinary generosity and leadership in reaching out to the Pilgrims after he had been sold into slavery by earlier European arrivals in the New World.

An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving Jacqueline Bisset stars in this warm-hearted tale, based on a short story by Louisa May Alcott (Little Women).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHxcXv4t8co

Is E-Reading to Kids the Same as Analog Reading?

Posted on October 25, 2014 at 8:00 am

The New York Times asks, Is E-Reading to Your Toddler Story Time, or Simply Screen Time?

In a 2013 study, researchers found that children ages 3 to 5 whose parents read to them from an electronic book had lower reading comprehension than children whose parents used traditional books. Part of the reason, they said, was that parents and children using an electronic device spent more time focusing on the device itself than on the story (a conclusion shared by at least two other studies).

“Parents were literally putting their hands over the kids’ hands and saying, ‘Wait, don’t press the button yet. Finish this up first,’ ” said Dr. Julia Parish-Morris, a developmental psychologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the lead author of the 2013 study that was conducted at Temple University. Parents who used conventional books were more likely to engage in what education researchers call “dialogic reading,” the sort of back-and-forth discussion of the story and its relation to the child’s life that research has shown are key to a child’s linguistic development.

Complicating matters is that fewer and fewer children’s e-books can strictly be described as books, say researchers. As technology evolves, publishers are adding bells and whistles that encourage detours.

“What we’re really after in reading to our children is behavior that sparks a conversation,” said Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a professor of psychology at Temple and co-author of the 2013 study. “But if that book has things that disrupt the conversation, like a game plopped right in the middle of the story, then it’s not offering you the same advantages as an old-fashioned book.”

Contest: Scholastic’s Halloween DVD

Posted on October 17, 2014 at 8:00 am

Get ready for Halloween with Scholastic’s “Day of the Dead” DVD, featuring four spooky (but not too scary) tales. In the title story, by Bob Barner and narrated by Rita Moreno, two children celebrate their ancestors on this Latin American holiday. A kitten has a wild adventure in “Kitten’s First Moon,” by Kevin Henkes. “Fletcher and the Falling Leaves,” by Tiphanie Beeke, celebrates autumn. And in “The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything,” by Linda Williams, some creepy noises give the title character the first scare of her life.

I have one copy to give away! Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Halloween in the subject line and tell me your favorite thing about this time of year. Don’t forget your address! (US addresses only.) I’ll pick a winner at random on October 21, 2014. Good luck!