Monday, April 5, 2004 marks the beginning of Sesame Street's 35th Anniversary Season! To celebrate this historic event, Sesame Street will air "The Street We Live On," a special prime time episode at 8 PM on April 4 on PBS. This special program takes viewers on a journey through some of Sesame Street's most magical moments as Elmo learns more about the street on which he lives.
"As always, Sesame Street is there to introduce basic academic building blocks and life lessons in a way that entertains and engages children as they embark on each new phase in their development," says Rosemarie Truglio, Ph.D., Vice President of Education and Research, Sesame Workshop. "We continue to focus on the "whole child" curriculum where we look at all aspects of a child's development: cognitive, emotional, social and physical. Research continues to prove that children truly benefit from learning the Sesame Way. Not only are they using knowledge based on what they learn, but they're encouraged to think, dream and discover for themselves. Our goal continues to be for children to strive to reach for their own highest potential in school and in life."
Sesame Street will remain true to its mission of preparing kids for school and life, and in this, its 35th season, the critically-acclaimed series introduces new live action and animation segments and a list of well-known celebrities to support pre-schoolers in learning more about their ABC's and 123's.
Sesame Street continues to address the needs of today's children by emphasizing the important lesson of "respect and understanding." Two features introduced last season, "Global Grover" and "Global Thingy," return with all new segments. Created to help young viewers have an appreciation of other cultures and to understand the world we live in, "Global Grover" presents short live action films of children in other countries. Grover crosses the globe to visit countries including Mexico where children learn the art of pottery making; Israel, where kids from a kibbutz make a "play house" together; and Poland, where grandparents teach youngsters how to make scarecrows.
The imaginative, animated short "Global Thingy" puts the emphasis on the importance of social reasoning, cooperation, sharing and empathy; and new to the series" lineup is Madlenka, animated segments based on the children's book of the same name about a little girl who lives in a diverse neighborhood. Also new this season, a closing segment sure to be the newest model for storytelling: in Trash Gordon, Oscar reads a bedtime story to Slimey.
Tune into GPB Television at 9 AM to share the wonderful world of Sesame Street with your students!
