PBS Kids is doing their part to help kids 5-8 learn math. The network is creating a live-action series titled Odd Squad that will help children build their math skills while having fun. According to PBS Kids, there’s a math concept central to each episode of the series, which was created by Tim McKeon (The Electric Company) and Adam Peltzman (The Backyardigans).
PBS Kids hasn’t yet set a premiere date.
“Research shows that children who have positive, enriching experiences with math learning at a young age will have greater long-term success,” said Lesli Rotenberg, General Manager, Children’s Programming, PBS. “These early math experiences are especially important for kids from low-income families, who typically start school with lower scores in math than their middle-income peers. Grounded in a standards-based math framework, Odd Squad is designed to help children build these critical math skills and skills such as problem-solving, resilience and collaboration, to help them establish a solid foundation for success in school and in life.”
“Odd Squad will invite viewers to take an active role in learning, as they get wrapped up in the unusual cases on-air and then have the chance to become Odd Squad agents themselves through digital content,” said Paul Siefken, Vice President, Broadcast and Digital Media, The Fred Rogers Company. “At the Fred Rogers Company, we are excited to work with such extraordinary talent on this uncommonly creative series that bolsters our mission to produce high-quality educational media for children.”
The Plot of Odd Squad:
Each episode of Odd Squad includes two 11-minute cases in which the agents investigate weird and unusual phenomena around them and use math to put things right. From recapturing a gallon-sized blob that has separated into smaller pieces, to dealing with a slew of unicorns, dinosaurs and wizards that have escaped from books, there is no occurrence that is too strange for the Odd Squad as they face off against various villains that wreak havoc around town.
From time to time, Olive and Otto are overwhelmed with information and need to work out a problem, at which point they teleport to the futuristic “Mathroom,” where they have all the tools they need to work toward a solution. In each adventure, the Odd Squad agents navigate a complicated underground system of giant tubes that allow them to travel to and from headquarters in just seconds. Each case is followed by an interstitial, such as an agent training video, a guide to the Odd Squad headquarters or demonstrations of how to use the Odd Squad’s odd gadgets – from the “Pudding-Inator” to “The Make-Anything-Within-Reason-Machine.”
