Heartbeat Magazine : I love Cookie Monster

Monday, September 23, 2013

I love Cookie Monster

I watched the recent Spreecast with Cookie Monster from Sesame Street with my daughter Elizabeth. She is seven and during the show she was asking me if Cookie Monster was real! I asked her what she thought, she said he is very funny and she loves his rolling eyes.

This year is the new Season 44 of Award-Winning Preschool series Sesame Street on PBS Kids with a hilarious new segment "Cookie's Crumby Pictures." I grew up watching Sesame Street, and always loved the fun cast members and the many celebrity appearances.

Did you know that Cookie Monster is teaching our kids a message? During the program new self-regulation curriculum teaches children to learn critical skills directly linked to school readiness and future academic success. In each five-minute segment of "Cookie's Crumby Pictures" children will learn many strategies and activities that promote self-regulation.

What is self-regulation? They are critical skills, such as being able to follow directions, stay on task with focused attention and regulate emotions using concrete strategies.

There will be seven upcoming 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).

After we watched the Spreecast, I talked to Lizzie about her day. During our ride home she wanted a drink of water so bad, she was a bit like Cookie Monster. We talked about tolerance and self-control and how Cookie Monster waited to eat his cookie. It was fun being able to use him as a learning example. Even though Sesame Street is to help get Preschoolers ready for school, I believe we can all learn something from the sweet and funny characters on the program.

Now, I'm off to eat a cookie!