[upbeat music] - [Announcer] Ready to learn?

- Hi!

- Hi!

- [Announcer] It's time to share a story, read, and write.

- Let's read it back.

- [Announcer] Discover science, sing.

♪ Somewhere ♪ - [Announcer] Play, and so much more.

- Cupcakes!

- Very good.

- [Announcer] Stay tuned for lessons and activities.

- We're gonna start making some words.

Isn't that fun?

- [Announcer] Funding for this program was provided by the JPB Foundation.

- Welcome.

My name is Yvonne Roen.

I'm a teaching artist with New York City Children's Theater and I'm here to share a story with you today.

Our story is called "Enemy Pie."

It's written by Derek Munson with illustrations by Tara Calahan King.

Do you know what an enemy is?

That's right.

An enemy is someone who makes us feel badly about ourselves, or somebody who we think is always working against us.

Has someone ever hurt you so deeply that you're convinced they're your enemy?

That's exactly what happens to the boy in our story.

Let's read it and see what he does about it.

"Enemy Pie."

"It should've been a perfect summer.

My dad helped me build a tree house in the backyard, my sister was away at camp for three whole weeks, and I was on the best baseball team in town.

It should've been a perfect summer, but it wasn't.

It was all good until Jeremy Ross moved into the neighborhood right next door to my best friend Stanley.

I did not like Jeremy Ross.

He laughed when he struck me out at the baseball game.

He had a party on his trampoline and he didn't even invite me, but he invited Stanley.

Jeremy Ross was the one and only person on my enemy list.

I never even had an enemy list before Jeremy Ross came to town.

But as soon as he came around, I needed one.

I hung it in my tree house, where Jeremy Ross was not allowed to go."

Our main character seems to have some strong feelings about Jeremy Ross.

Will you play a game with me?

I'm gonna count to three and when I do, we're gonna make our bodies look like a frozen image or a statue of what we think the main character feels like when he thinks about Jeremy Ross.

Are you ready?

One, two, three.

[inhales] Oh, wow.

Those are some strong feelings.

How does that feel?

Does it feel very good?

Mine didn't feel very good either.

Let's breathe it out.

[breathes] And shake it out.

Let's go back to the story and see he does about it.

"Dad, he knew things about stuff like enemies.

He said that he had had enemies too when he was my age, but he knew of a way to get rid of them.

I asked him if he would tell me how.

'Tell ya how, I'll show ya how,' he said, and he pulled an old dusty recipe book off the kitchen shelf.

Inside was a worn scrap of paper with faded writing.

He held it up to the light and squinted.

'Enemy Pie,' he said, satisfied.

You're probably wondering what exactly is in Enemy Pie.

I know I was.

But Dad said the recipe was so secret he couldn't even tell me.

I decided it must be magic.

I begged him to tell me something, anything.

'I'll tell ya this,' he said.

'Enemy Pie is the fastest known way to get rid of enemies.'

Now, of course my mind was working.

What kinds of things, disgusting things would I put in a pie for an enemy?

I brought Dad some weeds in the garden, but he just shook his head.

I brought him some earthworms and some rocks, but he didn't think he'd need those.

I gave him the gum I'd been chewing all morning long.

He gave it right back to me."

If you were making a pie for an enemy, what would you put inside it?

Oh, how do you think that would make your enemy feel?

How would that make you feel?

Hmm.

Well, we'll come back to that.

Let's see how our story goes.

"I went outside to play alone.

I shot baskets for a while, until the ball got stuck on the roof.

I threw a boomerang, but it didn't come back to me.

And all the while I listened to the sound of my father chopping, and stirring, and blending the ingredients for Enemy Pie.

This could work out to be a great summer after all.

Enemy Pie was going to be awful.

I tried to imagine how horrible it must smell, or worse still, what it looked like.

But when I was in the backyard looking for lady bugs, I smelled something really, really, really good, and it seemed to be coming from our kitchen.

I was a bit confused.

I went in and asked Dad what was wrong.

Enemy Pie shouldn't smell this good.

But he was so smart.

'If Enemy Pie smelled bad, your enemy would never eat it,' he said.

I could tell he'd made Enemy Pie before.

The buzzer rang and Dad put on the oven mitts and pulled the pie out of the oven.

It looked like plain old pie.

It looked good enough to eat.

I was catching on, but still, I wasn't really sure how this Enemy Pie worked.

What exactly did it do to enemies?

Maybe it made their hair fall out.

Maybe it made their breath really stinky.

Maybe it made bullies cry.

I asked Dad to tell me, but he was no help.

He wouldn't tell me a thing.

But while the pie cooled, he filled me in on my job.

He talked quietly.

'There is one part of Enemy Pie that I can't do.

In order for it to work, you need to spend a day with your enemy.

Even worse, you have to be nice to him.

It's not easy, but that's the only way that Enemy Pie can work.

Are you sure you wanna go through with this?'

Of course I was.

It sounded horrible, it sounded scary, but it was worth a try.

All I had to do was spend one day with Jeremy Ross then he'd be out of my hair for the rest of my life.

I rode my bike to his house and I knocked on the door.

When Jeremy opened the door, he seemed surprised.

He stood on the other side of the screen door and looked at me, waiting for me to say something.

I was nervous.

'Can you play?'

I asked.

He looked confused.

'I'll go ask my mom,' he said.

He came back with his shoes in his hand.

His mom walked around the corner to say hello.

'You boys stay out of trouble,' she said.

We rode bikes for a while and played on his trampoline, then we made some water balloons and threw them at the neighborhood girls, but we missed.

Jeremy's mom made us lunch and after lunch, we went over to my house.

It was strange, but I was kind of having fun with my enemy.

He almost seemed nice.

But of course I couldn't tell that to Dad since he had worked so hard on this Enemy Pie.

Jeremy Ross liked my basketball hoop.

He said he wished he had a basketball hoop, but they didn't have room for one.

I let him win a game, just to be nice."

Wow.

This is interesting, isn't it?

How do you think these two boys feel when they're playing together?

Let's play our game again.

I'm gonna count to three and we're gonna make frozen images or statues of the way we think these boys feel when they're playing together.

Are you ready?

One, two, three.

Wow.

Those are also some strong feelings.

How does that feel in your body?

Is that a feeling that you associate with an enemy?

Hmm.

Let's breathe.

[breathes] And shake it off.

Let's see where our story goes from here.

"Jeremy Ross knew how to throw a boomerang.

When he threw it, it came right back to him.

When I threw it, it went over the house and landed in the backyard.

When we climbed the fence to look for it, the first thing Jeremy noticed was my tree house.

My tree house was my tree house.

If my sister wanted in, I didn't have to let her.

If my dad wanted in, I didn't have to let him.

If Jeremy wanted in?

'Can we go inside?'

He asked.

I knew he was gonna ask that, but he was the top person, the only person on my enemy list, and enemies weren't allowed in my tree house.

Still, he had taught me how to throw a boomerang, and he had me over for lunch, and he let me jump on his trampoline.

He wasn't being a very good enemy.

'Okay,' I said.

'Hold on a minute.'

I climbed up the ladder ahead of him and I tore the enemy list off the wall.

I had a checkerboard and some cards in the house and we played games until my dad called us down for dinner.

We pretended we didn't hear him and when he came out to get us, we tried to hide from him.

But somehow he found us.

My dad made macaroni and cheese for dinner, my favorite.

It was Jeremy's favorite too.

Maybe Jeremy Ross wasn't so bad after all.

I was thinking that maybe we should just forget about Enemy Pie, but sure enough, after dinner, Dad brought out the pie.

I watched as he cut the pie into eight thick slices.

'Dad,' I said, 'it sure is nice having a new friend in the neighborhood.'

I was trying to get his attention, and trying to let him know that Jeremy was no longer my enemy.

But Dad only smiled and nodded.

I think he thought I was just pretending.

Dad dished up three plates side-by-side with big pieces of pie and giant scoops of ice cream.

He passed one to me and one to Jeremy.

'Wow,' Jeremy said looking at the pie.

'My dad never makes by like this.'

It was at this point that I panicked.

I didn't want Jeremy to eat Enemy Pie.

He was my friend, I couldn't let him eat it.

'Jeremy, don't eat it, it's bad pie, I think it's poisonous or something!'

Jeremy's fork stopped before reaching his mouth.

He crumpled his eyebrows and looked at me funny.

I felt relieved.

I had saved his life.

I was a hero.

'If it's so bad,' Jeremy said, 'then why has your dad already eaten half of it?'

I turned and looked at my dad.

Sure enough, he was eating Enemy Pie.

'Good stuff,' he mumbled through a mouthful.

And that was all he said.

I sat there watching them eat Enemy Pie for a few seconds.

Dad was laughing, Jeremy was happily eating, and neither of them was losing any hair.

It seemed safe enough.

I took a tiny taste.

Enemy Pie was delicious.

After dinner, Jeremy rode his bike home, but not before inviting me over to play on his trampoline the next morning.

He said he'd teach me how to flip.

As for Enemy Pie, I still don't know how to make it, and I still wonder if enemies really hate it, or if their hair falls out, or if their breath turns bad, but I don't know if I'll ever find the answer because I just lost my best enemy."

In our book, the main character had a tree house.

Do you remember what he had in his tree house?

That's right, his enemy list.

And what else?

That's right, cards and a game of checkers.

So sometimes the tree house was a place to be alone and sometimes the tree house was a place to share with friends.

I don't know about you, but I don't have a tree house, but sometimes I do want a place to be alone, or a special place to share with friends, and when I do, I build myself a pillow fort.

Do you ever build yourself a pillow fort?

Would you come join me and my pillow fort?

Thank you, so nice to have friends here.

Friends are really important, aren't they?

You know what?

Let's make a friends pie.

I'm going to count to three, and when I do, I want you to shout out loud all the words that you think of when I say the word friends, and then we'll put them all into a pie together.

Are you ready?

One, two, three.

[sighs] Wow.

We made a really good pie.

[sniffs] I wish you could smell it, it's so good.

You must have some really good friends because you came up with some really wonderful words.

You know, maybe when the video ends, you can draw a picture or write a poem about what it means to be a good friend.

Thank you so much.

I've had a great time with you today.

- Hi, movers and shakers.

We're gonna sing one of my favorite songs, "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes."

And this time, my friend Rizok is gonna help us by singing in Somali.

You can sing in whatever language you want.

I'm going to sit up straight, you can sit up straight on the floor, or you can stand up to do this, whatever you want.

Are you ready?

♪ Head, shoulders, knees, and toes ♪ ♪ Knees and toes ♪ ♪ Head, shoulders, knees, and toes ♪ ♪ Knees and toes, ♪ ♪ Eyes, and ears, and mouth, and nose, ♪ ♪ Head, shoulders, knees, and toes, ♪ ♪ Knees and toes.

♪ [singing in foreign language] ♪ Eyes, and ears, and mouth, and nose ♪ ♪ Head, shoulders, knees, and toes ♪ ♪ Knees and toes ♪ Thank you.

[upbeat music] - Hello, scholars.

Welcome to a wonderful day of learning.

My name is Anna and I am so excited to be working with you.

Today, we will be doing a lot of fun activities, all focusing on the short E sound.

First, we will practice reading words with the short E sound, then we'll do a word sort.

It sounds like fun, right?

Okay, let's get to it.

Today, we will be reading words with a new vowel, the short E sound.

So short E says, eh, like elephant.

Repeat after me.

Eh, eh, elephant.

Perfect.

All right, let's also review a few consonants that we're going to be working with today.

Here's the first one.

Okay, this is the letter Q.

Now we normally don't see it without its buddy letter U. Q represents the quh sound.

Repeat after me.

Quh, quh, queen.

Alright.

The next consonant is the letter X, and that represents the kss sound.

Repeat after me.

Kss, kss, fox.

Great.

And then the last letter that we're going to be looking at as well, is the letter Z.

And that represents the zz sound.

Repeat after me.

Zz, zz, zebra.

Great.

All right, I'm going to say some words and I want to see if you can identify the beginning sound that you hear.

So listen, if I said the word queen, well, the beginning sound in the word queen is quh.

Right, quh, quh, queen.

All right, now you give it a try.

I'm gonna say the word and I want you to say the beginning sound that you hear.

You ready?

Here we go.

Your first word is zoo.

That's right, zz is the beginning sound.

How about the word quilt?

That's right, quh is the beginning sound in the word quilt.

How about the word end?

Great.

Eh, our sound for today, that's what you hear at the beginning of the word end, eh.

How about the word zero?

Great, zz is that beginning sound in the word zero.

How about the word question?

That's right, quh is the beginning sound in the word question.

All right, how about the name Zach?

What's the beginning sound?

Excellent, zz is the beginning sound in Zach.

All right, last word.

Egg.

Give that brain of yours a kiss, that's right.

Eh is the beginning sound in the word egg.

Eh.

All right, now I want you to identify the ending sound in words.

So for example, if I said the word fox, the ending sound you hear, so fox, kss is the ending sound.

Okay, so I want you to tell me the ending sound you hear in these words.

How about the word jazz?

That's right, zz is the ending sound in jazz.

How about the word wax?

Great, kss is the ending sound in the word wax.

How about the word mix?

Right again, kss is the ending sound in the word mix.

All right, how about the word his?

That's right, zz is the ending sound in the word his.

All right, last word.

Buzz.

That's right, zz is the ending sound you hear in the word buzz.

Awesome job.

You know that the vowels are A, E, I, O, and U, and they stand for many sounds.

Well, today we're gonna be working with the short E sound.

Elephants begins with the short E sound.

The letter E can stand for the short E sound at the beginning or in the middle of a word.

The sound is, eh.

Everyone repeat after me.

Eh, eh, elephant.

Awesome.

Now, before we begin our real work, let's make sure we understand all the letters and sounds that we'll be working with today.

So I'm gonna write a word for you.

Okay, now remember, when there's only one vowel and it's followed by a consonant, usually the vowel represents its short vowel sound.

So the sound that E is representing in this word is the eh sound, so this word would be red.

Red.

Okay?

Let's try this.

Remember this was the sound we practiced in the beginning.

So what would this word be?

Because the Z is representing the zz sound.

Zip.

Zip.

Okay?

Now let's try this.

Now remember, the letters Q-U stand for the quh sound, okay?

And remember Q never goes anywhere without U, they're truly best friends, they're buddies.

Okay, but we don't actually make U's vowel sound.

Okay, it lets Q do the shining when it comes to the sound.

So they're going to say quh.

So when I cover that first sound, notice my vowel is still followed by one consonant, so it's going to be that short I sound, which is ih.

So if I blend this, quh, ih, tt.

Quit.

Okay, let's do one more.

Because this was the other sound we were focusing on.

So remember the X represents the kss sound and it usually comes at the end of a syllable.

So this word, ff, ah, kss.

Fox.

All right, let's practice reading some words with our sound-by-sound blending routine.

Now, if you remember, when we do this, we start with each individual sound, then we blend the first two together and add on the third sound, and then finally we blend all three sounds together.

So let's try this word.

You ready?

Okay, individual sounds first.

Mm, eh, nn.

Let's put the first two together.

Meh, nn.

Now let's put them all together.

Men.

All right, let's blend some more words.

Let's blend sound-by-sound.

Mm, ih, kss.

Mih, kss.

Mix.

Let's blend sound-by-sound.

Quh, ih, zz.

Qui, zz.

Quiz.

Let's blend sound-by-sound.

Buh, eh, duh.

Beh, duh.

Bed.

Next word.

Nn, eh, tt.

Neh, tt.

Net.

Ff, ih, kss.

Fih, kss, All together, fix.

Last word.

Tt, eh, nn.

Teh, nn.

Ten.

Wonderful.

Word sort activity time!

Alright, so like I promised, at the beginning I said we would be doing a word sort activity focusing on that short E sound, which is eh, right?

Eh, eh, elephant, say it.

Awesome.

So you'll notice I have a chart here set up with two columns.

The first column is where we're going to put all of our short E words like web.

Eh, eh, okay?

The other column is where we're going to put other words that had the short U sound like tub.

Uh, okay?

I'm gonna say a word, if it has the short E sound, we're gonna put it in this column.

If it has the short U sound, we're going to put it in this column.

So listen to me first.

Hmm, where would I put the word yet?

Hmm, yet?

Yet.

I like to stretch the word to really help me hear that vowel in the middle.

Yet, oh, I hear that short E sound like web.

Eh, well, that's yet, eh, is going to go into this first column.

All right, what about the word nut?

Help me out with this one.

Where would I put the word nut?

In the eh like web column or the uh like tub column?

That's right, I would put it in the uh column, like tub, because they both have that short U sound, which is uh.

All right, let's keep sorting some words.

Which column would the word wet go into it?

If you said the web column with short E, you are correct.

Both web and wet have the eh sound in the middle.

Which column would the word pen go into it?

If you said web, you are correct again.

Pen and web both had the short E sound, eh, in the middle.

Which column would the word mud go into?

That's right, mud would go into the same column as tub.

Which column would the word hen go into?

If you said the web column for short E, you are correct.

Hen and web both have the short E sound, eh.

Which column would the word let go into?

If you said web, you are correct.

Let and web both have the short E sound, eh.

Which column would the word bug go into?

If you said the tub column, you're correct.

Bug does not have the short E sound of eh.

Terrific job.

Scholars, you did an excellent job today.

You were able to blend and read words with the short E sound, eh, and you were even able to sort words with that short E, eh, sound.

Keep practicing blending words as you read.

Well until next time scholars, be safe, keep learning, and have fun.

Bye.

[upbeat music] - Hello, friends, and welcome to Math Time.

- Math Time.

- Today, we're gonna be learning about addition and subtraction.

My name is Maya.

- Eva.

- And I'm Rachel and we are so happy you're here.

Addition and subtraction.

Hmm.

Have you heard those words before?

I feel like I hear them all the time in math class.

Add, subtract, but what do they mean?

- Well, I think addition means adding more things from objects or numbers like these two pencils, and you can add more, like the other two pencils, to make a bigger number of four.

- So Maya has an idea that adding means putting two numbers together and you wind up with a bigger number.

What about subtraction, Eva?

- Well, I think that subtraction is the opposite, it's taking away a number from a different number to create something smaller.

Like I have these three pencils right here, and if I take away this one, then it's a smaller amount of pencils.

- Hmm.

So you're thinking of subtraction as takeaway and then you wind up with a smaller number.

- Yeah.

- So Maya described addition as taking two numbers and putting them together to make a new, bigger number.

And that is one way of thinking about addition.

Eva started with a number, she said she started with three, and she took part of it away, and she was left with a smaller number.

And that's true, that's one way of thinking about subtraction.

So there are other ways though, to think about addition and subtraction, and we're gonna explore some of those today.

Before we get started, I'd like for you to answer this question for yourself.

What do you think addition is?

What do you think it means?

Turn and tell somebody sitting nearby or say it out loud to yourself.

What is addition?

Here we have some balloons and donuts.

I wonder what kind of math question we could ask about this picture.

Take a moment to think about it.

- I wonder if we could add the balloons and donuts together.

- [Rachel] We could ask how many balloons and donuts there are in total.

How many do you think there are all together?

Sometimes mathematicians put a number sentence with a picture like this.

What numbers could we use to find how many balloons and donuts there are in total?

Do you think five plus three could match this picture?

Why do you think it might match?

Turn and tell somebody nearby.

Five plus three does match five balloons and three donuts, and all together we have eight, eight balloons and donuts all together.

Here's that same picture that we started with.

Is there a different math question that we could ask about this same picture?

Turn and tell somebody nearby.

What other question pops up for you when you look at this picture?

- I wonder how many more balloons there are than donuts.

- That's right.

I could ask, are there more balloons or donuts?

What do you think?

Are there more balloons or more donuts?

Did you notice that there are more balloons?

And another question we could ask is how many more?

How many more balloons are there than donuts?

Do you notice how for the first balloon there's also one donut?

Second balloon, also a donut.

The third balloon, also a donut.

The balloons have three, and the doughnuts have three, but the balloon here, this is the fourth balloon, there's no donut.

And again for the fifth balloon, there's no donut.

That's how we can know there are more balloons than there are donuts.

And we can see that there are two more balloons than there are donuts right here.

And another way we can think about that is that inside of five, right?

The five balloons.

We know that three, right here, they have a match.

There's a donut for each one of these balloons, and then there are two extras, two balloons that don't have a matching donut.

We can write a number sentence to match this picture also.

We could think of this as five minus three equals something.

And we can also think of it as three plus something equals five.

What does five minus three equal?

Or three plus what number equals five?

Go ahead and think about that now.

Five minus three equals two, and three plus two equals five.

- But we didn't take anything away, Mom.

Does subjection mean anything other than take away?

- Yes, it sure does.

- Really?

- Yes, amazing, right?

- Yeah.

- So subtraction doesn't just mean take away.

And this is really a message for your grownups too.

Grownups, if you're listening, subtraction doesn't only mean take away.

In this problem, we use subtraction to think about how many more balloons there are than donuts.

We call that a comparison.

For this next part, I'd like you to please get a pencil, or a pen, or crayon and a piece of paper that you can write on.

Go ahead and take a moment to grab that.

We'll wait.

And in the meantime, I'm gonna put up a new picture, and you can start to think once you have your pencil and your paper, what kinds of questions could you ask about this picture?

Here's a question we could ask.

It says there are some dogs and some cats in this picture.

How many pets are there in total?

Go ahead and think about that and write it down on your paper.

To find the total number of pets, we can add three plus four for a total of seven.

Three plus four equals seven.

Is there another question we could ask with this picture?

Before we talked about comparison, to see how many more or less, how many more, how many fewer, and we said that's a comparison.

Another word for that is difference.

Could we find a difference between the dogs and the cats here?

- [Eva] Are there more dogs or cats?

How many fewer dogs are there than cats?

- You can solve this problem on your paper also.

I've rearranged the dogs and the cats so you could compare them more easily to find the difference.

How many fewer dogs are there than cats?

And speaking of dogs and cats, our dog Jack wanted to come and say hello.

Say hello, Jack.

[giggles] He's too busy with his tennis ball.

Can you see that there is one fewer dog than the cats?

But there's one less dog compared to the cats.

Do you think this number sentence matches that picture?

Why or why not?

Four minus three equals one tells us that there are four cats minus three dogs, leaves us one extra cat.

Or to answer that question, there is one fewer dogs compared to cats.

There's one less dog compared to the cats.

Here's our last problem of the day.

Here we have some bugs and we have some bats.

Can you tell a math story that matches this picture?

Could be addition or subtraction, could be both.

Go ahead and write it down, or tell that story to a grownup nearby.

[upbeat music] - Thank you for learning with us today.

We hope you continue exploring addition and subtraction.

Remember, subtraction doesn't always mean take away, it also means difference and comparison.

- Bye, friends.

Thank you for learning with us today.

You hope to see you again, and say safe, healthy, and happy.

- There's so many ways that you can explore addition and subtraction around your home.

Look for items that you can put together and count out a sum using addition.

You can find numbers that you can compare, like do you have more forks than knives?

Or do you have more green Legos than red Legos?

And how many more?

I hope that you learned a lot today and we'll see you next time.

[upbeat music] - Traveling around the world is really fun.

We're traveling around the world.

- Dora, playing Dora, playing Dora, playing.

We're going to Asia.

- We're going to Asia?

Whoa.

Wow.

We go to Africa.

There it is.

Oh.

- Oh!

Whoa!

- Whoa!

- Whoa!

- Here's your house right there.

And we landed.

- [Child] Hey Mom, here's a letter for you.

- A letter for me?

Oh my good, it's from our friend, Miss Sabrina.

I wonder what she said.

"Dear Miss Heather, how are you doing today?

I've been thinking a lot about how I can't wait to be able to travel somewhere for my vacation, although I haven't picked a place that I would wanna travel to yet 'cause there are so many really fun places that I could travel to.

I was actually just looking at some of my old photos."

I think she sent us a photo.

She did.

"I thought I might send you one of my favorite photos of a vacation I went on.

Well, tell all of our friends how much I miss them.

See you soon, Miss Heather.

Love, your friend, Sabrina."

I'm so excited to have got a letter from Miss Sabrina.

I'll have to write her a letter back.

You know, Miss Sabrina is so right.

There are so many really exciting places that you can travel to around the world.

You know, friends, maybe even you have some family members or even maybe you were born in a different country.

You know, as I look at this globe, I'm noticing that there's an awful lot of blue.

Friends, do you have any idea what the blue might represent?

Did you say water?

That's right.

Did you know that the Earth is made up of almost 70% water?

That's oceans, and rivers, and lakes, all sorts of places on Earth where you can find water.

And then all of these color areas, they represent different land masses.

Just like when we look at a map, it's important to understand where north, south, east, and west are.

Today we're gonna be learning about three words specifically.

We're gonna be learning about the word continents, countries, the Equator.

All of these words are very important when we're looking at a map of the world, and we're trying to figure out where different countries and continents are on the map.

So when we look at the Earth, there are seven really big landmasses and we call these landmasses continents.

There are seven continents on Earth.

There is North America, which is connected to South America.

There's the continent of Africa.

Above Africa is the continent of Europe.

And Europe is connected to the continent of Asia.

And then if we go to the very bottom of the Earth, we have the continent of Antarctica.

And here is Australia.

In America, we consider Australia to be a continent.

However, there are other people in the world who consider that Australia and a group of all of these islands that are next to Australia, are part of the continent of Oceania.

When we look at each continent, we also notice that inside each continent, it's broken up into different colors.

Each of these colors represent smaller pieces of land and we call these countries.

Almost every continent has lots of different countries, but some have more than others.

Like in North America, we have three large countries, Canada, the United States, where we live, and Mexico.

And here, which is also part of North America, is what we call Central America.

And Central America connects North America to South America.

But other countries like Africa and Europe, well they have a whole bunch of countries.

Oh, hello there.

You know, I was just looking at the globe, and I was noticing that there's a line that's drawn directly in the middle of the entire globe.

Well see, that line is called the Equator, and well, the Equator is an imaginary line.

Now, when I say imaginary, I mean, it's not a real line.

Meaning that if you got in a rocket ship and traveled to outer space, and you were looking at the Earth, you wouldn't actually see a line drawn on the planet.

It's just a line that we draw on maps and globes.

And you see, it's directly in between the North Pole and the South Pole.

- Wait!

- Oh gosh, Sydney, I didn't see you there.

How are you doing?

Did you have a question?

- Miss Heather, why do we draw a line on maps and globes when it's not real?

- Oh well Sydney, once again, that is such a great question.

Well you see, this as a line that helps scientists and people who are traveling around the world find the distances between places so they don't get lost.

Also it's at the Equator where the sun shines the highest at any point during the day, directly overhead for 12 hours of the day, every day.

- When you say directly overhead, do you mean how the sun rises higher in the sky until it's directly over our heads, and then in the evening it gets lower again?

- You know what Sydney, that is exactly what I mean.

So when we wake up in the morning, the sun is rising higher in the sky, and then when it's evening time, the sun starts to get lower.

But during the day, the sun is mostly over our heads.

Now at the Equator, the sun rises really quickly, and it's directly over everyone's head for 12 hours a day.

And that's a really long time.

Now when the sun is directly overhead during the day, well, that's usually the warmest part of the day.

So if the sun is directly overhead at the Equator for 12 hours, well, it's gonna be a lot warmer there.

And so that's why if you're living near the Equator, it's much hotter, but if you live further away from the Equator, well, it gets a lot colder.

And that's why if you are in the North Pole or the South Pole, well, there's a lot of ice, and it's really cold.

Friends, one of the things that I love the most about living here in New York City, is that we have the opportunity every day to meet new people who are from different continents and countries from around the world.

Talking to people allows us to learn more about the places that we've never been, or maybe the places that we dream about traveling to someday, even if we can't travel to those places now.

So now that we've had a few minutes to talk a little bit about all of the different continents, and how nearly every continent is divided into countries, I've actually asked some of our friends who I think you've met before, to talk about the different countries and continents that either they or their families were originally from.

Let's go talk to them now.

- Hi, my name is Laurel.

And I, just like all of you, are living in the continent of North America.

North America's made for four countries, the United States, Mexico, Canada, Greenland, the Caribbean Island, and all the countries of Central America.

Depending on where you live in this continent, the temperature can be very different.

Canada for example, is further away from the Equator, so it can get really cold.

We have really snowy areas called tundras, but North America has mountains like the Rocky Mountains, the desert, forests, and rainforests.

Many of the people in my family are originally from Saint Vincent, which is part of the Caribbean Islands.

The geography of the Caribbean can be very diverse.

There are over 700 islands and the geography can be very different depending on where you go.

There are rainforests, mountains, volcanoes, forests, lots of rivers, coral reefs, and beaches.

- Hi, my name's Anna.

I was born in a country in South America.

My dad and mom were also born in South America, but in a different country called Bolivia.

South America is a very big continent and there's so many things to see.

The Amazon River is the second largest river in the whole world.

You can also see the Andes Mountains, and it has the largest tropical rainforest on Earth.

Chile is a really big place, but it's really thin.

And you know what?

It's also touching the Pacific Ocean.

Chile is the home of a very big desert.

And where my parents are from, Bolivia, they also have part of the Andes Mountains.

- Hi, my name is Ray, and I was born in a country called Ethiopia.

Ethiopia's a country that is located on the continent of Africa.

Did you know that Africa is the second largest continent on Earth?

In Africa you can find the largest desert on the planet called the Sahara Desert.

And it has the longest river in the world called the Nile.

And scientists believe that the very first humans came from Africa, and then traveled to all of the other continents a long, long time ago.

It means every single one of us has a family that came from Africa if we were to go back far enough.

Ethiopia, which is the country I was born, is located in the northeastern part of Africa.

The geography of Ethiopia is really different depending on where you go.

There are deserts, tropical rainforests, and has over 20 different mountains.

- Hi, my name is Vega.

The mom moved to New York City from a country called Bulgaria, which is located in Europe.

Europe is one of the smallest continents north of Africa, but it has a lot of people who lived there.

Europe has close to 50 different countries.

Each country has its own leader, its own laws, and cultures.

Europe has lots of forests, rivers, and mountains, and many of the countries in Europe that are near the ocean have a lot of beaches.

Bulgaria has mountains that are really high, and it's also has really flat land called plateaus.

On the east side of the country, we even have a lot of beaches because we are next to the Black Sea.

- Hi, my name is Lee, I was born in China, which is the second largest country in the continent of Asia.

Asia is the largest continent out of all seven.

And this continent has the highest mountain on Earth called Mount Everest.

It also has the most people.

More than half of all people living on the entire Earth live on the continent of Asia.

There are thousands of different languages spoken in Asia, and so many different cultures, traditions, and beliefs.

In China where I was born, people speak so many different languages.

There are over 297 different languages that people speak, depending on where you're living and terms that you use.

- Hi, my name is Austin.

People consider Australia as the smallest continent, but it matters that Australia is many small places like New Zealand.

In the Whanganui Park in New Zealand, we have lots of landscapes like volcanoes, beaches, and mountains, and other things like that.

And also, we are on the Pacific Ocean.

We have lots of islands around us.

And also, New Zealand, and unlike Australia, which is one of the closest places towards us, they have no deadly animals around, only very nice, beautiful, kind and gentle animals.

- Wait.

I thought you said there were only seven continents.

We only heard six, North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia, or what some people call Oceania.

So what's the seventh continent?

- Well Sydney, that is a very good question.

You see, there are seven continents, and that is Antarctica.

But you see, no one lives in Antarctica because, well, it's just way too cold.

There are some scientists who go there to do research, but other than that, no one lives there permanently.

Antarctica is one of the coldest and windiest continents on Earth.

So well, even though we live in New York City, and there's people from almost every continent and country, well, you're probably never gonna meet anyone who is originally from Antarctica.

Ready to travel the world, Olivia?

- Yeah.

- Alright.

- Australia.

- I've never been to Australia before.

- Me either.

- Well, I can't wait.

I wonder what it's like to travel there.

We're gonna have to do a little bit of research and look at some photos.

Well, friends, I can't thank you enough for learning that the world is made up of seven different continents, and that each of those continents have so many different countries, with different geographies, and languages, and cultures.

So where in the world would you like to go?

What would you like to see?

Pick a country, and look at some photos, and do some research because you never know, maybe someday we'll get to go and visit.

Well, now it's time for us to say see you later.

- See you later.

- And it's time for you to explore the world.

Talk to your friends and classmates who are from other countries.

Look at pictures and learn as much as you can because traveling the world is fun.

- Until next time, we want to say, thank you for joining us for today's social studies lesson.

[upbeat music] - [Announcer] Funding for this program was provided by the JPB Foundation.

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