Saturday, May 11, 2013

A Love Letter to PBS (Part 1)



My family’s favorite TV station is PBS. It has something for everyone and in the Huggins house it is on 24/7. You think I’m joking. We wake up to Curious George and go to sleep to News Hour or Tavis Smiley or Charlie Rose. We love PBS. There are lots of great shows. I’m not just talking about documentaries or concerts (mainstays of PBS viewing), but PBS kids and all the British shows that are now airing. I want to touch on some of our favorites because I think they are shows worth sharing. I am going to break this Love Letter up into a few segments because there are a lot of good shows and this post would be crazy long if I didn’t. So with that in mind I’m going to talk about kids show today.

Kids shows we DO NOT MISS:

Curious George of course is a popular one around here. This is Paige’s favorite. Has been since she watched the first episode. It’s great that she gets to wake up to this show. It makes our mornings go so easy. With 3 kids sometimes you need one distracted so you can get another one dressed! Curious George is such a sweet little guy it’s hard to turn him off!

Joy has discovered Sesame Street. Of course this show has to be someone’s favorite. It’s been on for 40+ years. That’s right Sesame Street is over the hill! Today was a great episode with a bunch of Grouches. I loved every grouchy minute. One thinks that stuck out is how OLD the original cast members have gotten!!! Seriously think about it; they were adults when the show started 40 years ago. That means the original cast members are over 60. They are not going to be with us much longer. But back to Joy.  She gets into certain segments. She will stop whatever she is doing for Abby’s Flying Fairy School. She loves Abby. She got a little stuffed Abby for her birthday and Abby MUST sleep with her at night. It’s supper cute when she does her bed check and asks for Abby.

Daniel Tigers Neighborhood is a new one based on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Now I loved Mr. Rogers as a child. Dylan barely got to see Mr. Rogers and he did not like him at all. As Dylan says, “Mr. Rogers freaks me out!” Which I think is kind of funny. But back to Daniel Tiger. It’s an animated series and I love the voices on this show. They are soft and soothing. I take a break when this show comes on. Ok I’ll be honest; this show airs when Joy is down for a nap. I watch it alone most days. It’s just really relaxing. They also have little catchy tunes they sing repeatedly as reminders of the day’s lesson. One sung frequently in the Huggins house is. “You gotta try new food cause it might taste goo-ood!” Gets my kids to try new stuff all the time. Stuff that would have never entered a mouth in the Herren house. (For those who don’t know Herren is my maiden name.)

Other favorites include:

Word Girl: Superhero girl who fights crime with her sidekick chimp Captain Huggie Pants. The focus is on vocabulary. Captain Huggie Pants does a dance segment that shows the physical definition of a word, like angry. The girls dance along to this and someday I will post a video on Facebook of them dancing.

Martha Speaks: Martha is a dog that eats alphabet soup and gains the ability to talk. Great theme song! The focus is on vocabulary on this show too.

And last but not least:

Wild Kratts: This show is about 2 brothers who go on animal adventures. They have some friends that help them out with creative technologies. One of them is their Animal Power Suits that give the brothers the attributes of the animals they are with. I highly recommend this show.
Really we love all the PBS kids show. They are educational and I never have to worry about the kids hearing or seeing things they shouldn’t. I don’t always get that with other channels geared for kids. And unlike the other channels PBS is FREE!

Next post:
British Shows!!

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