PBS KIDS GO! is offering children a fun way to polish their math skills as it presents a three-week back to school TV and web event revolving around the Emmy-winning animated math-related series, Cyberchase. The festivities kick off with the Labor Day premiere of “A Fraction of a Chance,” a new episode that sees loveable cyberbird Digit teaming up with Wicked the witch to rescue his friends, who are trapped in a cyber portal.
“Kids are coming off a vacation and need to sweep away their mental cobwebs and refresh the math they have learned,” says Carey Bolster, co-director of math content for Cyberchase. “In our Back to School with Cyberchase initiative, we have selected episodes that deal with core math skills and concepts that will energize and extend their understanding of mathematics as they enter a new school year.”
The final week of Back to School with Cyberchase will be devoted to financial literacy, with shows that focus on saving, spending and budgeting to help give kids the math tools they need to make smart money choices.
Fans of the show can log onto Cyberchase Online for math-based web games, activities and special features for parents and teachers to use at home or in the classroom. Beginning August 27, online visitors can preview “Harry’s Sweet Job,” the new Cyberchase For Real segment from “A Fraction of a Chance,” in which Harry (Matt Wilson) gets a new job in a chocolate shop. Other new online features will debut this fall, accompanying community outreach programs across America.
Produced by Thirteen/WNET New York and Nelvana Ltd., Cyberchase will enter its sixth season this fall on PBS KIDS GO! Major funding for the series is provided by the National Science Foundation, Ernst & Young LLP, Northrop Grumman Corp., PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by The Volckhausen Family.
CYBERCHASE is Executive producers are Sandra Sheppard, Thirteen’s executive director of Children’s and Educational Programming, and Frances Nankin. Ellen Doherty is senior series producer.
This press release is available in its complete form along wth ‘Back to School with CYBERCHASE’ images and further details about CYBERCHASE are available in the Thirteen Online Pressroom: www.thirteen.org/pressroom.
