Hurray for Super WHY!

If your kids have never seen Super WHY! on PBS, they are missing out! It’s one of our favorite shows. As I type this, my girls are just finishing up watching a special two-hour Super WHY marathon – Hurray for Heroes. It features two new episodes – George and the Dragon and The Swiss Family Robinson, and two returning favorites – Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel, and in between episodes there are fun interviews with kids about what it means to be a hero. Hurray for Heroes will air again later this afternoon, but if you miss today’s episodes, no worries! They’ll be rerun individually later this month and throughout the summer, so check your local listings.

This special Super WHY! – Hurray for Heroes TV event kicks off a jam-packed summer of reading-powered fun that also will feature special Super WHY! theme weeks, online games and free downloadable materials designed to help families reinforce the literacy skill building lessons within the series and help nurture their own “super readers” at home.

Earlier this month, I, along with a bunch of DC Metro Moms, had the pleasure of visiting PBS headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, and meeting Angela Santomero, creator and Executive Producer of Super WHY!, and Lesli Rotenberg, Senior Vice President of Children’s Media at PBS. Angela broke down an episode of Super WHY! for us, explaining in detail what goes into the development of the show.

I’ll share more from our time at PBS over the next five days, as I work with my 4-year old on the Learning With Super WHY activities. You could even call it a mini Super WHY Reading Camp, of sorts. I would LOVE it if you and your kids participated along with us! If you’d rather wait until your kids are out of school, that’s fine, too. Just remember to bookmark Learning With Super WHY so you can go back to it.

If you’d like to join in this week, this is your homework for tonight –

• Print the Pre-Assessment Instructions and the Worksheets.
• Ask your child the pre-assessment questions, referring to the worksheets. This assessment is just to see where your child stands when it comes to literacy skills.
• Watch The Three Little Pigs episode with your children. You can watch it on PBSKids.org, or download it for free by subscribing to the Super WHY Podcast on iTunes.

Please leave a comment if you’re participating, and come back tomorrow for Day 1!