Sesame
Street Season 44 premieres Monday September 16
New
movie parody segment, "Cookie's Crumby Pictures",
to teach self-regulation curriculum
Latino
neighbor "Armando" makes his Sesame Street
debut
Courtesy
of Sesame Workshop
August
5,
2013
Sesame
Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization, launches Sesame
Street’s 44th season on PBS KIDS September 16 (check your
local listings) with a funny new segment, “Cookie’s
Crumby Pictures.” In each five-minute segment of “Cookie’s
Crumby Pictures” children will learn many strategies and
activities that promote the self-regulation curriculum. Additionally,
Sesame Street viewers will get to watch the new Latino neighbor, “Armando,” played
by actor Ismael Cruz Córdova. Other season highlights
include new original songs and street stories; new “Elmo
the Musical” segments; new animations and, as always, new
hilarious spoofs and celebrity appearances!
Season
44 of Sesame Street continues the show’s long tradition
of tackling current issues that are relevant to preschoolers and
school readiness. Self-regulation is a set of critical skills for
preschoolers that affects children socially, behaviorally and academically.
Unfortunately, children often begin kindergarten without important
skills, such as being able to follow directions, stay on task with
focused attention and regulate their own emotions using concrete
strategies. In fact, kindergarten teachers view self-regulation
as being more essential for school readiness, than academic skills,
such as counting or recognizing letters.1 Yet, they report that
over half their students start school lacking good self-regulation
abilities1. In the short term, this affects school readiness. In
the long term, poor development of self-regulation is linked with
aggressive behavior, low academic achievement, delinquency and
higher dropout rates.2
Fortunately,
self-regulation skills can be taught during the preschool years
and development of these skills happens rapidly. Children
can learn the behavioral strategies such as regulating emotions,
controlling and resisting impulses and exerting self-control — skills
essential for social-emotional competence and academic success.
“By modeling strategies and behaviors that promote self-regulation
and executive function, Sesame Street’s engaging and loveable
monsters and diverse human cast can help children learn important
school readiness skills and life lessons,” said Dr. Rosemarie
Truglio, SVP Education and Research at Sesame Workshop. “Our
self-regulation curriculum offers opportunities to develop and
build children’s language skills, as well as model appropriate
vocabulary to express themselves, reflect on the feelings of others
and learn strategies for responding to academic or social and emotional
challenges.”
“Cookie’s Crumby Pictures” is a brand new segment
that parodies the coming attractions of popular movies and reinforces
the show’s self-regulation curriculum. For 44 years, Cookie
Monster has struggled with intermittent success to consciously
control his thoughts, actions and emotions. Through seven hilarious
spoofs, including “Life of Whoopie Pie,” “The
Spy Who Loved Cookies,” “Les Mousserables” and “The
Hungry Games,” we’ll see Cookie Monster attempt to
master executive function skills — a key component of self-regulation.
He’ll display self-control (try not to eat the cookie), delayed
gratification (eat the cookie later), flexible thinking (think
about something else so you don’t eat the cookie), working
memory (remember a strategy that worked before to keep from eating
the cookie) and task persistence (being motivated to not give up
while waiting to eat the cookie). Along with Cookie Monster, children
will also learn about identifying and managing emotions and empathy.
Additionally,
new games available on sesamestreet.org and PBSKIDS.org/sesame
will be launching this fall for both desktop computers and iOS/Android
tablets. On sesamestreet.org, kids will steer Cookie Monster as
he drives and races along different learning-themed roads to see
how many laps they can complete before the cookie crumbles! Kids
will need to remember, listen and follow directions as they race
against the crumbling cookie in a variety of exciting executive
function learning-based tracks! Preschoolers will be able to build
their own cart, select from three different tracks and collect
special power-ups that will aid them along the way. On PBSKIDS.org/sesame,
kids will be able to play self-regulation-themed games based on
three new “Cookie’s Crumby Pictures” segments
from the show, and even more new games will be available on PBSKIDS.org/sesame
in the coming months.
“Cookie Monster is the poster child for attempting to master
self-regulation and executive function skills and therefore the
perfect character for preschoolers to identify and learn with,” said
Carol-Lynn Parente, Executive Producer of Sesame Street and SVP
of Content at Sesame Workshop.
Sesame
Street is constantly evolving and has a long-standing history
of modeling
a diverse community. As producers were identifying
the realities of the changing American population, it was important
to represent that diversity in the new addition to the cast. “Armando,” a
writer from Puerto Rico, will join Sesame Street’s bilingual
community and share his heritage and culture with the rest of the
neighborhood. In “Mando’s” premiere episode,
it’s a Latino Festival on Sesame Street! The neighborhood
is filled with people from all around Latin America. “Mando” teaches
Rosita and friends about how each country in Latin America is different
but there is one special thing that Latinos have in common — most
of them speak Spanish! The journey to find the new cast member
began in August 2012 when hundreds of young hopefuls turned up
for Sesame Street’s first-ever open casting call held in
New York City. Actors showcased their Spanish fluency, comedic
timing and vocal abilities during a day of auditions and subsequent
call-backs. You can follow Sesame Street’s quest to find “Mando” here.
New
street stories and segments will not only highlight the 44th
season’s curriculum, but also delight fans of all ages. In “Simon
Says,” Simon, played by Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage,
comes to Sesame Street to have players compete in the game and
gives Telly and Elmo some advice on how to pay attention and follow
directions. In “The Wild Brunch,” the zookeeper, played
by Audra McDonald, helps Snuffy learn some strategies on remembering
directions and task persistence. Additionally, a re-make of the
popular Sesame Street song, “I Love My Hair,” is now
sung in Spanish by “Mando” and the same inspirational
puppet-girl from the original video.
An
impressive line-up of celebrities and headline makers are featured
in the
new season, including Academy Award-winning and nominated
actors Charlize Theron, Forest Whitaker and Anna Kendrick; Golden
Globe-winning and nominated actors Lauren Graham and Sarah Michelle
Gellar; Emmy Award- winning and nominated actors Hank Azaria, Audra
McDonald, Tyra Banks, Benjamin Bratt and Tom Bergeron; Grammy Award-winning
musicians Usher, Dave Matthews and Romeo Santos; Superman’s
Henry Cavill; Game of Thrones’ Lena Headey and Peter Dinklage;
True Blood’s Rutina Wesley; The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal
Nayyar; How I Met Your Mother’s Cobie Smulders; Grey’s
Anatomy’s Jesse Williams; Once Upon A Time’s Ginnifer
Goodwin; Mike & Molly’s Billy Gardell; actors Tyler Perry,
John Cho, Josh Gad and J.R. Martinez; Pittsburgh Steelers’ and
NFL star safety Troy Polamalu; Houston Rockets’ center and
NBA Slam Dunk Champion Dwight Howard; Los Angeles Angels’ star
and three-time National League MVP Albert Pujols; Olympic Gold-medalist
Evan Lysacek and musical group Pentatonix.
As
always, Sesame Street is filled with hysterical moments for both
children
and their caregivers. This season’s spoofs
include: “Homelamb,” a spoof of the television show
Homeland where the sheep agents try to discover if Brody is or
is not the Big Bad Wolf by comparing him to a picture of a real
sheep. In “Sons of Poetry,” a spoof of the television
show Sons of Anarchy, The Sons of Poetry help finish a poem by
coming up with words that rhyme with “blue.”
Produced
by the nonprofit educational organization, Sesame Workshop, season
44 of Sesame Street is funded in part by a grant through
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers.
Sesame Street is underwritten in part by Beaches Resorts, Earth’s
Best Organic, PNC, UnitedHealthcare and Party City.
MORE
SESAME NEWS
• Sesame
Street Season 45 premieres Monday September 15
• Elmo
Muppeteer Kevin Clash resigns from Sesame Street
• Kevin
Clash takes leave from Sesame Street
• Sesame
Street to air hurricane special Friday November 9
• Sesame
Street Old School Volume 3 coming to DVD November 6
• Sesame Street Season 43 begins September 24 on PBS
• Fan
support essential for production to begin on "I Am Big
Bird"
• "I
Am Big Bird" Caroll Spinney documentary in development
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