Education | Illinois Public Media
Don’t know your Apatosaurus from your Zigongosaurus? Meet all 26 species that make up the rollicking, rock-and-roll Dinosaur Train hit song “Dinosaurs A to Z” in the all-new, one-hour “Dinosaurs A to Z” special premiering at 8 am Monday, May 14, on WILL-TV.
While riding the Dinosaur Train with Buddy and Mom, Tiny gets the idea to gather all the dinosaurs in the "Dinosaurs A to Z" song for a picnic at Troodon Town. The Conductor agrees, and as the Train starts picking up dinosaurs, Tiny, Buddy, Shiny and Don help keep track of how many of the different species have come on board. They learn about classification and organize the dinosaurs by their species, features, and size. When all 26 dinosaurs finally come on board, the Train has more extra cars than it ever has -- and they need an additional engine to help pull it! Once they arrive at Troodon Town for the picnic, Tiny leads the 26 different "A to Z" dinosaurs in a fun, rousing, and historic singing of the "Dinosaurs A to Z" song!
Watch for repeats at 8 am Friday, May 18, and 7 am Saturday, May 19.
Expanding its PBS KIDS Lab site, which offers more than 50 cross-platform games designed to help children ages 2-8 build critical math skills, PBS announced new additions that will provide even more support to caregivers and teachers. More info on additions.
Illinois Public Media and other public broadcasters in the state have launched Illinois Edition, a media on-demand service that integrates technology into the classroom to teach core subjects. Teachers from 43 Illinois schools tested the service last fall.
--Brings the best of public media content together into one place for teachers.
--Offers more than 16,000 research-based digital resources including videos, interactive images, audio files, mobile apps and lesson plans.
--Provides easy access to classroom-ready, curriculum-targeted, multi-platform digital resources.
--Was developed for preschool-college teachers.
Try some of the Illinois Edition activities :
Animal classification (with sound effects!)
Coast to Coast interactive
Frozen frogs video
Area of a Circle with Dive Dog interactive
How Big Are You interactive
Gibson City teacher tries the service
Among the teachers trying the service in the pilot project was Amanda Wetherell, a Gibson City first grade teacher. She's used videos, games and related digital activities, including the mammal classification game pictured. "My students are so engaged by digital materials. There's a place for books, but the kids really connect and learn from interactive activities," she said.
Covering K-16 science, math, English language arts, performing arts and the social sciences, Illinois Edition draws from popular and trusted PBS shows, such as NOVA, Frontline, Nature and Cyberchase, as well as materials from universities, museums and libraries.
Illinois Edition enables teachers to search for activities by grade level and topic and to bookmark them so they can find them again. “Having this free resource is such a benefit,” Wetherell said. “I think more and more teachers will begin using it.”
Quotes from four teachers using Illinois Edition
Great to use as a tool to help with concepts students are struggling with to reinforce what has already been taught.
I didn't think I would use the interactive games as much as I did. The children were engaged and eager to wait for their turn. I was amazed. I think it brought video of exceptional quality into my classroom.
It was user friendly and easy to narrow down my searches and navigate. It was nice to be able to search topics without fear of what would be found on the Internet! I did not worry about having to censor any videos.
The students were always excited and became very attentive to the lesson when I used Illinois Edition ... the program was excellent!
Have you heard about NPR's Back-Seat Book Club for kids ages 9 to 14? They're asking young people and their parents to join them in reading a special book each month. They also want young readers to join in the conversation with that book's author. Find out more about the book club and this month's book selection.
As teachers prepare to talk about the history of the September 11, 2001, attacks to their students, Illinois Public Media’s Sean Powers visited a group of freshmen at Oakwood High School, right outside of Danville. Their social studies teacher says he doesn't want them to forget about 9/11, even if they don't personally remember it. Listen to the story.
Tavis Smiley Reports examines one of the most disturbing aspects of the education crisis facing America today — the increased dropout rate among black teenage males. If you missed the program on WILL-TV, watch it online now.
Over the last year, Illinois Public Media's Sean Powers has visited a third grade class at Booker T. Washington Elementary School in Champaign. Just about all the students are native Spanish speakers and they are learning English as a second language through self espression. Shortly before they left for the summer, Sean checked out their final class project. Listen to the story.
More and more kids under age 13 are using Facebook and other social networking sites. Is this a good thing? More from NPR News.
PBS KIDS makes it easy to help kids bridge the summer learning gap by offering fun and educational content and tools to families for free via PBSPARENTS.org/read and special reading-themed PBS Kids shows. Keep reading for July dates and times.
Each week will feature reading-related episodes from a different PBS KIDS series. Coming up: Reading-themed shows on The Electric Company (4:30 pm Mon-Thurs; 9 am Sun) the week of July 4 and from WordGirl (3:30 pm weekdays; 9:30 am Sun) the week of July 11. The literacy fun continues on Wild Kratts (4 pm weekdays) the week of July 18 and on The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That (7:30 am weekdays; 6:30 am weekends) the week of July 25.
PBS Kids has partnered with iVillage on a six-week Summer Reading Challenge that starts Monday, June 6. Try Soar with Reading, featuring a social media project, library events and other fun. The program website has reading games and word challenges for kids, plus tips and activities for parents and educators to encourage and make childhood reading fun.
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