PBS Kids, mimicking, and stuff

I am one of those weird people who does not pay for television. Well, that's not really true, I did get a digital converter recently, and though I did use the government coupon, I still payed a few bucks for it (I don't have a fuzzy picture at all anymore, though). Still, I don't have a monthly cable or satellite bill. So, while other kids at school care about High School musical, Becca can get excited, but she has never seen it.

When other preschoolers are watching Dora or whatever else comes on that I am not really familiar with, my twins are enjoying Curious George, Sesame Street, Super Why, and a new favorite, Sid the Science Kid. Not that they get to watch a whole lot of tv, anyway. Still, our morning activities do include some cartoons.

I know when my girls go to their grandparent's house, they get their fill of cable (or whatever it is that they have) and I go nuts because they watch stuff like Yo Gabba Gabba (I have no idea if that is spelled right) which is really weird and kinda mind numbing. Becca came home repeating one of the songs from that show and it was banned from my house.

I am not saying that PBS is better all the time (Barney the irritating dinosaur, and that really dumb show, BooBah are evidence of this). I am just saying that even if I had the ability to choose, my kids would probably be watching PBS anyway.

The only thing that I would want to pay for, if I had the money, would be channels like the food network or HGTV. Still, I don't think I could justify the huge cable bill for two channels (though Tony would be all over ESPN, so make that 3) when I wouldn't have time to watch tv anyway.

So I guess that there is at least one benefit to being totally broke. My kids watch tv that does give some knowledge (as evidenced by the fact that Zoe recognizes most of her letters (at least the ones featured on Sesame Street lately) and Ali can sing her alphabet (as well as a few other cute songs). Though the counting stuff is probably more from our car rides where we play several counting games all the time. Their knowlege of colors comes more from their older brother and sister's penchant for leaving crayons out for the twins to color all over things.

I totally believe that kids will repeat what they take in, though, and they take in everything. I ran into this video on godtube recently.

If you go to godtube, you will see some debates about this because people taks stuff too seriously, but what I got out of it is that this kid is mimicking what he obviously sees all the time. While I may not appreciate that type of preaching for myself, I still think it's cool that this kid has taken in so much preaching in his young life that he copys that instead of something that he has seen on tv.

So, here's a good verse that I know I quote a lot (it's even written on the wall of my SS classroom), but it still works:
"Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things." Philippians 4:8