PBS
Talk about a defining moment! PBS' crime-fighting, language-loving, syntax superhero WordGirl is hosting a live vocabulary competition with real classrooms on May 11 at 1 pm ET. In the WordGirl Definition Competition, presented by Scholastic, WordGirl and announcer Beau Handsome will ask questions to fictional contestants, while real kids in registered classrooms submit their own answers online for a chance to be honored during the webcast. Remember when the best thing we could hope for in class was a filmstrip? Classes have until May 7 to register.
Kids may take this kind of interactivity for granted, but it's something I wish I had growing up. The closest I came to interacting with cartoon characters during school was carrying a Super Friends lunchbox.
Great ideas like this are only possible when you have exciting, funny, contemporary educational programming for school-age kids -- smart shows like WordGirl, Cyberchase, Fetch and The Electric Company. A SpongeBob or Kick Buttowski Vocabulary Challenge just doesn't ring true. But this competition is right in line with WordGirl's mission: "Truth, justice and use of the right word."
And if WordGirl can't make vocabulary-building heroic, no one can.
Are there enough educational TV shows for school-age kids? Chime in below!
