by Donelle Blubaugh One of the chief pleasures of working for PBS is being in a position to help Big Bird, Elmo, Grover and the rest of the gang find their way from Sesame Street to homes and preschools. I was 13 when the series launched 40 years ago and I was more conscious of Batman and the Beatles than of Joan Ganz Cooney’s television miracle, but in the course of time the show and its characters took up residence in my heart and mind as if they had always been there–just as they did…
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by Donelle Blubaugh A new adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank will premiere this spring on MASTERPIECE Classic on PBS. The two-hour film will air on April 11, 2010, which is Holocaust Remembrance Day. And, of course, the MASTERPIECE Classic team at WGBH will be creating resources to help educators introduce this timeless and timely story to students. I’d like to invite you to lend them a hand. Whether you have been teaching The Diary of Anne Frank as part of your curriculum for years or…
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By Janet English What’s more endearing than a child asking, “Why?” We love watching our kids go on self-directed adventures, learning about everything they see, feel, touch or hear. They’re natural-born scientists. They spend their days testing and experimenting with toys and playthings; always searching for a new discovery. It’s a joy to watch and an important part of their intellectual growth. This month’s Media Infusion challenge is designed to capture this natural curiosity, help our…
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As you’re hopefully aware, Ken Burns’s The National Parks: America’s Best Idea began airing on September 27. This highly anticipated new series is accompanied by a collection of standards-based classroom resources that we hope you will use with your students. The National Parks: America’s Best Idea traces the birth of the national park idea in the mid-1800s and follows its evolution for nearly 150 years. Using archival photographs, first-person accounts of historical characters,…
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PBS Teachers is delighted to welcome Janet English to the new Media Infusion. Each month, Janet will share her award-winning teaching experiences and challenge readers to try new instructional approaches. This month, Janet suggests using VoiceThread and clips from Ken Burns’s The National Parks: America’s Best Idea to practice cross-disciplinary narratives. Take the challenge and let us know how it goes!…
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