Beyond Sesame Street - and I love it!
Written: Mar 07 '01 (Updated Mar 12 '01)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: educational, witty, well-produced, phonics-based
Cons: may be a bit too fast-paced for some
The Bottom Line: This witty, engaging, program is well-produced, educational, and all-around enjoyable for pre-schoolers through younger elementary students.
|
|
|
| amknight's Full Review: Between the Lions |
This past year has been a very rich one for new educational programming on PBS, and as my toddlers are growing into preschool-hood, I am always on the lookout for quality educational programming. After tripping upon "Between the Lions," I became hooked!
The program is based in a library, with a family of lions that lives in and runs the library. I love the fact that reading is such a part of their daily life. The son, Lionel, and daughter, Leona (just learning to read), love to find adventures in their various books. This program is up-to-date, as the mouse "click" helps run the library and can "drag and drop" characters from books or from websites to come out and interact with the lions and others who may be in the library at the time. Much like Sesame Street, a main storyline pervades each episode, with related action and song segments inserted throughout.
Each day, the lions end up reading some sort of book that has a particular vowel sound prevelant (like the "uh" sound in "mud"). What I love is how music is interwoven with each theme. Colored-lip puppets, called the "Vowelles," sing a soul-filled version of the "uh" sound (or whatever vowel sound is picked for that day), in "Gawain's Word" (a take-off of the old SNL "Wayne's World" for my generation's benefit), two knights will come together on blending fields to duel and bring together two parts of a word with the vowel sound in it, on "Chicken Jane," Scott and Dot will be saved from a mud puddle by Chicken Jane, who becomes mucky and muddy... and the list goes on. When appropriate, the words of a story (like "Chicken Jane" or "Cliff Hanger") will appear across the bottom of the screen, highlighted much like a sing-a-long video.
Overall, "Between the Lions" makes cracking the reading code FUN. Songs like "Trouble with the letter W" make confusing things make sense... "I've got Doubleyou trouble and I know what's to blame - it's because there's no "wuh" sound in Doubleyou's name..." (picture this sung with a country twang by the mother lion dressed as a rancher by several stacks of hay, with monkeys dressed the same way perched around as her background singers).
For those who may be aware of best practice educational research that shows that phonics should only take up about 20% of children's reading instruction (and only through the second grade), do not despair. "Between the Lions" also emphasizes sight words, with a "sight word song" that is sometimes performed by a dinosaur (I think he is a Thesaurus?) in the library, emphasizing that there are words you should know without sounding them out, and listing what those words are. I would also argue that educational television should definitely make up less than 20% of children's reading instruction, so a bit of emphasized phonics can only help!
Without realizing it, children who watch "Between the Lions" may also be exposed to... gasp!... history and literature! Houdini is the main character in one episode, and "Pandora's Box" and "Pygmalion" are stories that I have seen appear. "Charlie Parker Played Be-bop" is also the theme of one episode, while I also saw one episode about tall tales, one about tongue twisters, and the list goes on. The variety is great!
Okay, you're probably wondering if the mother or daughters watch this program... we catch it about once a week, and my girls actually like the opening the best, as they yell out the names of letters that appear on the screen. My daughter likes to dance to the songs, too (yesterday we saw a "Rock" who had fallen out of the "R" page of the dictionary singing a rock song). As an elementary teacher who is now staying home with her children, I find this program filled with useful content and an excellent source of edu-tainment.
Recommended:
Yes
Type of Program: Educational
Program Quality: Thought-provoking, original material
Best Suited For: 6 to 8 Years
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
amknight
|
|
Member: Angela Knight
Location: Indiana
Reviews written: 24
Trusted by: 18 members
About Me:
Mother of twins and teacher by trade, I love my husband, daughters, and my Lord!
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.