What’s New from WordWorld…

There have been a lot of strong emphasis for “No TV for children under two“. And while it was always my plan to observe this rule for Gavin from birth, living with the extended family has made this practice quite impractical, if not impossible. As a result, I made certain concessions by controlling what he could watch. Programs that were “educational” in nature, like Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse Club House, WordWorld, and, to a certain extent, the original Thomas and Friends series (because it plays very much like a story being read from a book with moving pictures) were acceptable. As Gavin grew older and went past the two-year-old limit, I relaxed a little more.

The problem with an older child that watches TV is that you can forget about setting restrictions for your younger child because he will watch whatever his older brother is watching. My only comfort lies in the fact that TV does not appear to have negatively impacted Gavin. If anything, he appears to have learned quite a bit from the idiot box. For example, he picked up the lesson on plurals from WordWorld (not that he couldn’t have learned it without WordWorld, but my point is that he did learn some things from TV so it can’t be all bad).

So when the second season of WordWorld episodes came out in DVD, I added them to Gavin’s collection. In this season, they have gone from single letter sounds to the sounds of letter combinations. For instance, “oo”. Although Gavin can already read and I doubt that there is anything new for him to learn here, I figured this can serve as a fun way to reinforce what he already knows. Besides, what Gavin watches, Gareth is watching, so it is still worth my while to make it’s educational in value.

If you have never seen or heard of WordWorld, take a look at a couple of the following Youtube previews:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVF4V8sN5EE

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvrLy8OFoSo

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87U0oBjarIM

This is the original collection of DVDs which we found locally (the list on Amazon differs somewhat):

• Bit by Bit
• Super Hero Sheep
• The Race to Mystery Island
• Duck’s Sleepover
• Flying Ant
• Boppin’ with the BugBand
• Runaway O
• Radio Read-A-Thon
• Dog’s Camping Adventure
• Rocket to the Moon
• Sh-Sh-Shark
• Castles in the Sea
• Kooky Spooky Halloween
• A Christmas Star

These are the New DVDs that I found recently in Rock Corner:

• You Can Never Have Too Many “oo”s
• Mmm…Mmm…Milk
• Sheep’s First Bike Ride
• My Fuzzy Valentine

If your child enjoys WordWorld, the PBS WordWorld website has games like Duck’s Alphabet, activities which are related to each of the episodes so you can reinforce what your child is learning, and WordWorld eBooks. If you have an iPad, iPod Touch, or iPhone, there is also a WordWorld App and WordWorld ebooks: Totally Terrific Duck, Duck’s First Sleepover, A Smile for Crocodile, The Big Race, and Snug as a Bug in a Rug.

What do we think?

If you’ve read our earlier post on WordWorld then you’ll know that what Gavin thinks about WordWorld – it’s one of his favourite TV shows. As for Gareth, he enjoys the musical segments. If he’s going to watch TV by default, I’d rather he watch this than some other shows I’ve seen on Astro. Although Gareth is already learning to read with Little Reader, WordWorld is a pretty fun way to reinforce his phonics.