Our television has not been hooked up for 2.5 years. What started out as laziness (gosh the cable to hook it up is far away and too short, and I'm too lazy to buy a new one), has morphed into a lifestyle. I have never seen a full episode of American Idol, and I'm not sure where the romance between Jim and Pam stands (once I watched part of AI on youtube and it was David Archuleta vs. that other David and old episodes of the office have somehow found a home on our xbox).Sometimes I have a hard time fitting in with others because I don't know about the latest episode of Lost, or Dancing with the Stars, or some other tv show. This can usually be remedied by reading magazine titles in line at the grocery store and reading the entertainment section of the paper. (I don't watch tv shows, I read about them, how's that for nerdy?)
But mostly, I forget how strange it is to not be joined into the fantasy world o' fun until we have a baby sitter come over. Here is my rushed explanation to said b-sitter, "So once the kids are in bed, I guess you could watch a movie, if you can figure out the Xbox, it's really quite simple, no never mind. Well, I have a lot of books. And if those are boring, you can use the computer. Nevermind, I don't have any parental controls on the computer and I don't want you inviting any online predators over. So here's a deck of cards and instructions on how to play Solitaire. Have fun."
This usually isn't an issue, since our family lives close enough that they baby sit for us a lot. (Which reminds me, I am in serious favor-debt for all these hours of b-sitting.)
So our prime-time-less situation is not usually at the forefront of my mind. But then I read somewhere that educational programming after the age of 2 is beneficial to children and helps them learn their numbers and letters. Then I started pining after Sesame Street. I felt the need to incorporate educational programming into my children's life (and did they really say 2 years old? What about 18 months? Isn't that good for children too becuase I need something to do with Hannah after all the coloring, dancing, eating, reading fun is over). I even asked Mike to hook up the t.v. Luckily, laziness hit again (or actually in Mike's case busy-ness because he is working on his supersecret alien project "The Host", you know). And before Mike hooked up the tv I found this:
http://www.sesamestreet.org/home
It's a new version of the Sesame Street home page that has playlists of games mixed with old and new sesame street episodes. It is wonderful! We love it! Hooray for Sesame Street! I even found my new favorite singer--- Feist-- on this website. She does a guest appearance and sings 1,2,3,4.
So does anybody else have some good suggestions for educational preschooler websites?
7 comments:
You are amazing. I rely too much on TV, sometimes I get fed up with myself and unplug it...last fall I made us all without it for an entire week, no movies or anything, it was nice, but then we sprung at Christmas and got one of those cable deals (that we cancled after 6 months!)...that's what we have now, a deal, I"m sure it won't last after the bill goes up.
I love that Mike told the babysitter to read a book too! Funny.
As far as sites, we love pbskids.org, Gage really likes playing superwhy games. I've played around with starfall.com, but it seems old at times.
Hey Steph. We ditched our TV about 3 years ago too. And, though I was feeling great about all our new-found free time and all the crap that wasn't coming into our home. (no offense to any readers who love their tubes--i know you can tivo and this and that and that there are lots of great things on tv, this just worked for our fam.) Anyway, I too was missing PBS and other educational stations. One of my favorite shows is "Between the Lions" it's a great reading show for kids. Anyway I found you can pretty much buy episodes of lots of those shows on amazon. Or find them on the net in some version like you just demo-ed. Anyway...
Super-Why games rock on PBS and the TV shows are good if you can get back-episodes, also Rusti likes Curious George games and Caillou, all on PBS.
Milo likes to play fun games on two main websites. The links are below. There are quite a few more out there too.
Playhouse Disney - http://atv.disney.go.com/playhouse/index.html
PBS Kids - http://pbskids.org/
www.pbskids.org is a great one! If you are interested in educational tv shows there is one called "In Between The Lions". This show is on PBS and it is like 10 gazillion times better then Sesame Street.
I always love your posts Stephanie. You are such a writer!! Good luck with all of that. Matt couldn't live without ESPN and I would be lost without HGTV.....but I think you can accomplish alot more in a day without it. Just another thing I love so much about you and Mike!!
Good for you, I actually hate T.V. Sean on the other hand would watch it till his eyes bleed. Which is why we never have and never will have cable. My kids do like videos and I still have all the Disney songs memorized so I don't mind watching them over and over. The PBS websites has lots fun interactive games and activities.
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