View, Do, and Read

Back to School with Between the Lions

It's back to school season again which means popping open the books and turning on the TV. That's right! The PBS award winning show, Between the Lions, is the perfect complement to enhance what your child is learning is school. The show is designed to improve literacy skills while fostering a love of reading and learning. Between the Lions equips children ages 4-7 with the necessary skills that they need to become successful young readers.

The "mane" characters, lions cubs Lionel and Leona, are joined by a cast of characters including the Motown-style vocal group, the Vowelles, who sing only in vowel sounds. This is just one example of how "Between the Lions" incorporates phonics into this entertaining and educational reading adventure.

Each episode begins with a story or poem that the Lion family reads together. The lions then discuss the themes of the story, word meanings and real life connections.

Between the Lions focuses on several building blocks of reading including: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary development and text comprehension. Through songs, rhymes and engaging stories children can begin to appreciate text structures and learn the relationships between letters and sounds, words and meanings, and reading and fun.

VIEW

Join the family of Lions, and watch Between the Lions on WHYY TV-12 weekdays at 1:30pm. Open the doors to the Lions' magical library and enter a world of animation, puppetry, stories, songs and rhymes.

DO

Materials:

• Magazines
• Scissors
• Index cards
• Tape or glue sticks
• Markers and/or crayons

With your child, collect old magazines and cut out pictures that relate to school (examples: School bus, pencils, apples, books). Paste them on index cards and write the appropriate words for the pictures. Decorate the index cards with markers and crayons.

Create several more index cards with simple verbs and adjectives such as: is, are, the, He, She, The Students. Lay out all the cards and try and form simply sentences and phrases with the cards.

READ

Don't Eat The Teacher by Nick Ward

In the humorous back to school story, Sammy the shark is so excited about starting school that he can't control his jaws. He bites through the kitchen table, then eats a classmate (but spits her out). He eats his painting, chews up the classroom, and then he almost eats the teacher. The lively illustrations show colorful, cartoon fish swimming through a classroom and smiling Sammy eagerly crunching everything in sight. Children will enjoy this as a read-aloud, chiming in on the chorus, "Oh, Sammy! Don't eat-." Recommended for ages 4-8.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Mark Teague

An original fantasy told in rhyme. Wallace Bleff, delivers an oral report on the classic topic: How I spent My Summer Vacation. He tells of his travels out West and recounts the story of how en route to his Aunt Fern's house, he is kidnapped by cowboys and becomes Kid Bleff. He joins the rawhide crowd; learns to rope, ride, and build fires; and becomes a "first-rate cowhand." In celebration of the end of the roundup, Aunt Fern invites Wallace and new friends to a barbecue. When a cattle stampede nearly ruins the party, the young hero saves the day as he displays hidden talent as a matador and reverses the direction of the herd. Recommended for ages 4-8.

The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn

Chester Raccoon doesn't want to go to school--he wants to stay home with his mother. She assures him that he'll love school--with its promise of new friends, new toys, and new books. Even better, she has a special secret that's been in the family for years--the Kissing Hand. This secret, she tells him, will make school seem as cozy as home. She takes her son's hand, spreads his tiny fingers into a fan and kisses his palm--smack dab in the middle: "Chester felt his mother's kiss rush from his hand, up his arm, and into his heart." Whenever he feels lonely at school, all he has to do is press his hand to his cheek to feel the warmth of his mother's kiss. Chester is so pleased with his Kissing Hand that he--in a genuinely touching moment--gives his mom a Kissing Hand, too, to comfort her when he is away. Audrey Penn's The Kissing Hand, is just the right book for any child with the first day jitters. Recommended for ages 4-8.