Super Why

My girls watch SuperWhy every morning. I got them in the habit of watching TV in the morning before breakfast to keep them out of my hair, as I an not an early riser. The choice of program is primarily dictated by the PBS broadcast schedule, but I also figure that it's helping Glitter learn her letters.

In general, I try to tune the show out because I think that they mangle classic storylines, and they show the same episodes over and over and over again. However I overhead that there would be SuperWhy storytimes at various local libraries and then yesterday when I was at our library, I saw a flyer for its SuperWhy storytime. I don't know why I pointed the flyer out to Sparkle, but point it out I did, and she instantly wanted to go and suddenly SuperWhy was her favorite #1 show, even though she often complains about it.

Glitter would be in preschool during the storytime, but and Sparkle was a bit old for the storytime, but she seemed really eager to go. I was lothe to spend an hour at the storytime, but after talking to the children's librarian, I figured out a gimic that would make it worth my while. During storytime, the librarian would read a picture book of the "Little Red Hen" story and then show that SuperWhy episode. I told Sparkle that I would take her if she did enough morning school before the storytime and if she gave me a "compare and contract" report on the different versions of the story.

Here's Sparkle doing school in the back of the car in the library parking lot before the library opened.



After storytime, I had Sparkle tell me 5 ways the two stories were the same, 5 ways they were different, and which version was her favorite. Here are her answers. I was proud of her for coming up with all the answers on her own, without any hints, although I did have to ask for clarification on some.

* 5 Ways the Versions are the Same *
1) All the animals said "Not I."
2) The Little Red Hen had to do all the work.
3) The Little Red Hen had to bake the bread.
4) Both versions had a duck, a cat, and a pig.
5) There was a hen in both versions of the story.

*5 Ways the Versions are Different *
1) SuperWhy (the character) wasn't in the book.
2) The Little Red Hen had chicks in the TV version.
3) The Little Red Hen had corn in the book version and no corn in the SuperWhy version. In the SuperWhy version, AlphaPig grew corn.
4) In the SuperWhy version, SuperWhy got the Little Red Hen's friends to help.
5) In the book, the Little Red Hen ate the bread all by herself.

*Her Favorite Version and Why *
"I like the SuperWhy version better because I watch the SuperWhy TV show every morning."

* Bonus Activity *
I did a little bonus activity at the end. I had been writing down Sparkle's answers on a piece of paper. I asked her to look at my handwriting and eventually coaxed it out of her that it was really slopply handwriting. I pointed out badly shaped letters, incorrect capitalization, and scribbled out letters. Then I explained that it was okay to not have beautiful handwriting when the main purpose was to get the ideas from her head onto paper. (For school I insist that Sparkle try to form beautiful letters, but so far she doesn't have to handwrite anything original, just dictation, copywork, and math.)

So, all in all, I'm glad I went, even though I had to slip out of the meeting room for the program because I couldn't stomach watching SuperWhy twice in one day.