Many of our favorite authors, actors and organizations are stepping up right now to provide resources and emotional support during the coronavirus shutdown, but Sesame Street wins this week. First they offered us a “pandemic playdate” special with Elmo, and now they’re giving kids the option to “call” a beloved character for advice about getting through the crisis and offering us an animated short series called “Monster Meditations.”
Grover and Oscar the Grouch have each recorded messages with helpful advice for kids (or adults, let’s be honest). One is sweet and uplifting; the other is, well, grouchier. Both were recorded for Southern California public radio station KPCC and premiered on the newsroom’s public affairs show, AirTalk with Larry Mantle. You can listen to the messages online or you can actually call 626-831-9333 to hear the recordings over the phone.
A representative from KPCC told Scary Mommy that they asked the Sesame Street voice actors to record social distancing messages for their listeners:
“It’s something we thought would serve parents who need something to help them explain the importance behind social distancing to their children,” KPCC tells us. “The call in number that’s listed was developed through our Community Engagement team using GroundSource, which we use to text community members with resources. We received over 600 calls in the first 24 hours. We’re hoping to see even more calls come through!”
Here is Grover’s message:
And here are some words from Oscar, who is unsurprisingly a big fan of social distancing:
Meanwhile, Sesame Workshop recently announced a partnership between Sesame Street and Headspace to produce a video series to “help children learn the fundamentals of mindfulness, meditation and social and emotional learning.” The series will include six animated short films, each approximately 3 minutes long and released bi-weekly, starting with Cookie Monster impatiently baking cookies:
It’s great that the Sesame Street gang is here to support our kids, but their most important message this week may have been for us parents; it came to us from Elmo’s dad, Louie, during the playdate special:
Deep breath in... slow breath out... then go build that pillow fort. Itmakes as much sense as anything else right now.
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