Learning from Curious George

Tobey has been hooked on this one new episode of Thomas. It's the one with Jeremy the Jet Plane which, admittedly, is kind of cute, especially when he runs into the summer storm and closes his eyes and wobbles in the wind. But Tobey has been watching it AD NAUSEAM and I was more than ready to try to entice him to watch something else for his daily TV fix.

He previously was hooked on Mr. Rogers and more recently the new PBS Curious George. I thought Curious George was just going to be another cartoon but it was kind of nice to read online that it has a specific science, engineering and math bent, as Curious George is just so curious about things. So of course, we're all for him watching it.

I finally got him to watch something other than Jeremy the Jet Plane by turning on Curious George without asking him. When he walked in the room, he joined me and Eli (so much for no TV before 2 years) and watched an episode about magnets. As soon as it was over, he asked to play with our magnets (we had some shaped in the traditional red horseshoe, just like on the cartoon) and paper clips. He was engaged for another 20 min. by himself while Eli toddled around and I got to fix dinner.

I was glad for the learning idea. Maybe more glad than getting to watch something other than that Thomas and Jeremy show.