PBS Kids Webisode: Noah Comprende
I attended a brunch back in March during SXSW that was hosted by PBS Kids. Thanks to Corrin from Oh hey, what’s up for setting me up with the invite, I spent the morning with a room full of talented local and national mama bloggers- some of whom I know (A Closet Writer, Loving Austin Living, Kludgy Mom), others whom I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time (The Days are Just Packed, Kidding Around Austin, Wendi Aarons.)
I was excited to attend this special brunch. In addition to it being held at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Austin (who doesn’t love a free, childless brunch at the Four Seasons?), I had an opportunity to meet the people behind the scenes at PBS Kids. Sara Dewitt, VP of PBS Kids Interactive and Linda Simensky, VP of PBS Kids Programming both took a few minutes to tell us about what they do, the process they go through to create what we see on the television. I was quite impressed with the amount of research and testing that goes into the development of the shows and games. PBS is about the only kid television that is on in our house when my four year old sits down to watch TV. It’s a trusted source, one that I don’t have to worry over, and I now know why. I don’t have to do too much television babysitting to know that what she is watching isn’t going to turn her into a potty mouth or introduce her to topics that are more appropriate for a thirteen-year-old than a four-year-old. After all, she has a twelve-year-old brother to help her out with that stuff.
We were introduced to a couple of new webisodes that are being released, one of which caught my attention. Noah Comprende is a webisode that is being released this month, targeted to children ages 6-8 years old. The web-only series follows Noah as he spends time in his grandmother’s village where no one speaks English. The bilingual dialogue is catchy and easy for kids to grasp with a fun storyline to follow. Many of you have asked us here at LiveMom about Spanish immersion programs, camps and classes around Austin. Although watching Noah Comprende is quite a stretch from signing your child up for a Spanish immersion summer camp, it certainly seems like a good way to have your kids pick up a few Spanish words. And vice versa for Spanish speakers who would like to learn more English. To watch the Noah Comprende webisodes, they are available here.
What do you think? Have you watched the new webisodes yet? Are there any other bilingual sources that you use to teach your children a second language?
We don’t watch a lot of stuff to begin with and even when I find good stuff online, there never seems to be appropriate time to sit and watch it. I’ll bookmark this show because my daughter might like it, but she gets Spanish at school so I expect it’s not going to be anything beyond that.
She loves Kai Lan and has for years, being completely obsessed with Mandarin (she’s had multiple languages presented to her but Mandarin stole her heart, no idea why, there’s no family history in that culture). So I’ve purchased Language Tree videos and she takes extra curricular Mandarin at school, but it’s going too slow and she’s getting frustrated and because she’s only 5 my choices for more are limited. I wish there was a decent way to help get her the language instruction she wants but I can’t think of what that is, short of immersion schools, but she likes her current school for other reasons.
There are the dragon boat races in a couple of weeks, I guess…
If I knew of a child-appropriate show fully in Mandarin, I’d absolutely let her watch that. I’d buy the DVD.
PS There’s that local PBS kids’ show that would love to have more of an in with PBS Kids nationally, and a lot of that comes from parental requests, so parents should definitely make their fandoms known to PBS Kids if they’d like to help spread word to other PBS stations. Even something as simple as listing the shows you love when doing your annual PBS membership can help fledgling shows take off or stay on the air.
My 2 year old loves the peekaboo barn app on my iPhone and he figured out how to change it from English to Spanish. So now when the animals pop up, it says the type of animal in Spanish. Then he repeats. He loves it!