Thursday, March 27, 2014

Sid the Science Kid....teaching us how we process


             It may not have been Shakespeare or even Shultz but the colorful, giant characters from the Sid the Science Kid television show stirred some scientific knowledge into the burgeoning brains of children as they performed various skits centering around our 5 senses at the Valley Performing Arts Center on Saturday the 8th of March.
            In the skits, Sid and his friends, May, Gerald and Gabriela, performed experiments and answered questions posed by Teacher Susie that helped them discover the mysteries of their own bodies and how they process the information they gather from living in our world.
Sid and his buddies with Teacher Susie

            The stage was brightly colored, the costumes were captivating and larger than life and the auditorium, filled with hundreds of children, was unusually quiet for most of the performance while the kids sat mesmerized watching Sid and his friends make their scientific explorations. 
            I brought my 5 year old, who has seen the show but isn’t allowed to watch much television, so he enjoyed the performance but not on a visceral, ‘oh these are my friends’ kind of level. 

           However, we did run into some friends, the Attars, after the show and they do watch the show regularly and had a much more enthusiastic response. Three year old Gavin really like the music and dancing while 6 year-old Jordan thought the character, Gerald was really funny and wished the audience could have actually made some of the concoctions created by Sid and his friends during the 5 senses exhibit the adults held after the show. 
           The ‘after show’ exhibit was a lot of fun too. Kids didn’t get to make them but they got to try tasting various concoctions designed to let them experience sensations like sweet, sour and salty. They also got to smell a variety of scents and touch various textures.
            My only complaint was the sound quality seemed distorted during the song portion of the performances. While the talking was clear, the singing seemed blown out and was hard to decipher.
            Overall, it was an entertaining afternoon wrapped in a healthy dose of education. Mother Marni Attar said, “It was fun for the whole family and we hope they put on another show with a different concept soon.”