Saturday, January 24, 2009

The New Electric Company

My kids LOVED it.

When asked what they thought, 7 year-old daughter said, "fantastic!" Even 5-year old son was riveted for the entire 30 minutes. Heck, I was impressed and I did not expect to be.

The new version has some great changes that really work for today's kids.

The Electric Company is a "club" of kids (played by 13-20 year olds) with special SKILLS to do cool things with words. Here they are.



There is an enemy group, Pranksters (I think) and the interaction between the Electric Company and the Pranksters forms a storyline.

The story is fast-paced and woven through a network with nodes that represent cool teaching snippets (not part of the storyline) emphasizing certain aspects of English words e.g. hard versus soft "c".



Those of you teaching English as an alternative language can show clips to your students. Although TEC is targeted towards children 6-9 years old, the ideas and special effects are engaging for kids of all ages. Check out the "Matrix.


My favourite is Music Man. He is the grooviest. Here's Music Man with his love of that silent "e."



The website is great too. It has games, video clips, and you can watch entire episodes on it.

So much creativity and resources put towards teaching and empowering kids. I love it.

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