Another resource I've decided to use: Assignment: the World. It's available (at least here in the Hudson Valley) through WMHT. ATW, as it's known, is a fifteen minute news show for kids. It is well done, and holds their interest fairly well, if only because it gives a quiz question at the end of each segment.
Each segment was short enough to hold their attention, and was not dumbed down particularly. The ones we saw were on Haiti's recovery from the earthquake 8 months ago and why it was so slow, and the protests in Russia for the Day of Wrath that didn't end well. They flashed definitions of certain words (i.e. activism and others). Those were the 2 main segments, and then there was a kid segment. The kid-hosted segment in the episode we watched was about soda, how much sugar is in it, and alternative drinks.
They then discussed last week's "clues". Each week, they give three clues about stories they are going to follow for the week. The first clue gives you a lat/long to find the location of the first story. The second clue gives you a word scramble to unscramble for the second story, and the third is a fill-in-the-blanks for the third story. So, they give the answers for last week's location, scramble, and fill-in and give each story as they do. They wrap up the episode by giving the three clues for next week. They suggest that kids follow the news during the week to see if they can find news stories about the clues.
The whole thing is only 15 minutes, but if 1010WINS can do it in 10 minutes, ATW can in 15.
I give this program a high rating!
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