Elinor Wonders Why encourages children to follow their curiosity, ask questions when they don't understand and find answers using science inquiry skills. The main character Elinor, the most observant and curious bunny rabbit in Animal Town, will introduce children ages 3-5 to science, nature and community through adventures with her friends.
Showing airdates for Elinor Wonders Why from Tuesday, Apr. 23 to Tuesday, Apr. 30
Echo Location/Ears to You
PBS
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Echo Location - On a camping trip, the kids discover that Ari is really good at playing Marco Polo. Even without saying "Marco," a blindfolded Ari can easily figure out where Olive and Elinor are. How does he do it? They get a clue when they learn about echoing voices from a cliff face and understand that bats make a special noise only a few animals can hear that helps them know what's around them. Ears to You - One day while playing at the lake, Elinor and her friends notice something very interesting -- they can't see ears on some animals. That's so interesting! How do they hear? This question sets the kids off to explore, and they soon learn how frogs, fish and moles hear. Even though it looks like those animals don't have any ears at all, the kids discover they do have ears, but that they're just hard to notice, because they are good for hearing underground or underwater. Just like there are lots of different kinds of animals, there are also lots of different kinds of ears!
Water You Doing?/Thinking About Blinking
PBS Kids
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Water You Doing? - While walking through the forest, Elinor and friends come across a stream and decide to make a stone walkway across it. What they didn't realize is that the stones they've moved stop the flow of water, which affects the fish living in a pool downstream. The pool gets a lot shallower, because less water gets to it. After observing how important the water flow is to the fish, they decide to remove their walkway and build a log bridge that goes over the stream instead. Thinking About Blinking - Ari is crowned the blinking champion after winning a bunch of intense staring contests at school. As Elinor and Olive try not to blink themselves, Elinor wonders, "why do we need to blink?" The kids then set out to learn everything there is to know about blinking. After a little help from Ms. Mole and observing a fish with no eyelids, the kids learn that most animals blink automatically to help keep their eyes wet and safe.
Feed The Birds
PBS
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Elinor is friends with a chickadee bird she names Chicky, but when snow covers the yard, she starts to worry about how Chicky will find food in the winter. She and her friends then observe that birds all have a unique way of finding food during the winter months, called foraging. This new knowledge inspires Elinor, Olive and Ari to build bird feeders to make food easier to find for their feathery friends!
Butterfly Party/More Than One Right Way
PBS Kids
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Butterfly Party - It's Olive's mom's birthday, and Olive wants to organize something really special for her: a garden party with REAL butterflies. But, how can they get butterflies to come to the party? The kids set off to observe butterflies and figure out that they like certain kinds of flowers, and not others. Ms. Mole offers to let them transplant some butterfly-friendly plants from her garden to Olive's, and it works! Before long, Olive's backyard is fluttering with butterflies, just in time for Olive's mom to enjoy her birthday party. More Than One Right Way - It's Halloween, and Elinor, Ari and Olive arrive in the classroom to discover Ms. Mole putting up pumpkin decorations. The enthusiastic kids want to help, so Ms. Mole suggests they make spiderweb decorations with yarn and glue. But, when each kid makes a different-looking spiderweb, they're not sure which one is the most like a real web. After observing different spiders in nature, the kids realize that different kinds of spiders make different kinds of webs, which means they were all right! They then head back into school to decorate the classroom and have a happy Halloween.
Burrowing Owl Girl/Olive's Tree
PBS Kids
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Burrowing Owl Girl - Elinor is very excited, because she's visiting her grandparents in the desert. While out exploring with her grandmother, the always curious Elinor comes across a peculiar looking owl that is smaller than any other owl she's ever seen. Even more peculiar, this owl is out during the day! How can that be? After some careful observations, she realizes she DOESN'T know everything there is to know about owls, and learns that the owl she spotted is a burrowing owl, which lives in the desert and runs around during the day. Elinor is reminded that nature is full of surprises! Olive's Tree - Olive shows her friends her favorite tree in the forest. The next day, however, they're sad to see that the tree has fallen over. The three little scientists set out to find out why, and soon learn that Olive's tree has simply entered the final stage of its life cycle. Trees go from a seed, to sprout, to sapling, to full mature tree and finally, to a wildlife tree, which is a tree that has fallen over. Even though the tree has fallen, Olive is comforted to know that it will still be around for a long time, providing a home to many creatures in the forest.
Burrowing Owl Girl/Olive's Tree
PBS
Show Episode Info
Burrowing Owl Girl - Elinor is very excited, because she's visiting her grandparents in the desert. While out exploring with her grandmother, the always curious Elinor comes across a peculiar looking owl that is smaller than any other owl she's ever seen. Even more peculiar, this owl is out during the day! How can that be? After some careful observations, she realizes she DOESN'T know everything there is to know about owls, and learns that the owl she spotted is a burrowing owl, which lives in the desert and runs around during the day. Elinor is reminded that nature is full of surprises! Olive's Tree - Olive shows her friends her favorite tree in the forest. The next day, however, they're sad to see that the tree has fallen over. The three little scientists set out to find out why, and soon learn that Olive's tree has simply entered the final stage of its life cycle. Trees go from a seed, to sprout, to sapling, to full mature tree and finally, to a wildlife tree, which is a tree that has fallen over. Even though the tree has fallen, Olive is comforted to know that it will still be around for a long time, providing a home to many creatures in the forest.
Burrowing Owl Girl/Olive's Tree
PBS Kids
Show Episode Info
Burrowing Owl Girl - Elinor is very excited, because she's visiting her grandparents in the desert. While out exploring with her grandmother, the always curious Elinor comes across a peculiar looking owl that is smaller than any other owl she's ever seen. Even more peculiar, this owl is out during the day! How can that be? After some careful observations, she realizes she DOESN'T know everything there is to know about owls, and learns that the owl she spotted is a burrowing owl, which lives in the desert and runs around during the day. Elinor is reminded that nature is full of surprises! Olive's Tree - Olive shows her friends her favorite tree in the forest. The next day, however, they're sad to see that the tree has fallen over. The three little scientists set out to find out why, and soon learn that Olive's tree has simply entered the final stage of its life cycle. Trees go from a seed, to sprout, to sapling, to full mature tree and finally, to a wildlife tree, which is a tree that has fallen over. Even though the tree has fallen, Olive is comforted to know that it will still be around for a long time, providing a home to many creatures in the forest.
Water You Doing?/Thinking About Blinking
PBS Kids
Show Episode Info
Water You Doing? - While walking through the forest, Elinor and friends come across a stream and decide to make a stone walkway across it. What they didn't realize is that the stones they've moved stop the flow of water, which affects the fish living in a pool downstream. The pool gets a lot shallower, because less water gets to it. After observing how important the water flow is to the fish, they decide to remove their walkway and build a log bridge that goes over the stream instead. Thinking About Blinking - Ari is crowned the blinking champion after winning a bunch of intense staring contests at school. As Elinor and Olive try not to blink themselves, Elinor wonders, "why do we need to blink?" The kids then set out to learn everything there is to know about blinking. After a little help from Ms. Mole and observing a fish with no eyelids, the kids learn that most animals blink automatically to help keep their eyes wet and safe.
Olive's Library/Nature Walk
PBS
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Olive's Library - It's Olive's birthday party and everyone has given her a book as a present, which makes Olive very happy. However, when she goes to her room to put them away, Olive finds there's no more room. Her shelf is CRAMMED full of books. What should she do with all these books? While outside playing, the kids observe how ants share food by storing it in a special communal room. Inspired by this, the kids help Olive make a little lending library so she can share her books with everyone in Animal Town! Nature Walk - It's Nature Day at school and Elinor, Olive and Ari have to make a Nature Walk at recess. But, it's a windy day and they run into problems when their arrow signs keep blowing over, confusing their classmates and causing them to get turned around on the nature path. Fortunately, the three kids learn how to improve their signs by copying an idea from the trees: underground roots! The kids bury the bottom part of their arrow signs, just like a tree, which works perfectly.
Underground Soup/Dandy Dandelions
PBS
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Ari and Olive visit Elinor, hoping she'll come out and play, but Elinor has hurt her foot and has to stay in bed for the afternoon. So, her friends decide to make her favorite snack, Backyard Soup! With Mr. Rabbit's approval, they go off to gather the vegetables from the garden, but many of the veggies they need seem to be missing. After investigating, they discover that the vegetables they're looking for are root vegetables, which means they're underground. They pluck and pull vegetables and make Elinor her favorite soup, changing the name to "Underground Soup!" When Elinor and Ranger Rabbit go help Deputy Mouse clean up his garden, Elinor be-comes fascinated with dandelions. Why does Deputy Mouse want to pull them out? Eli-nor learns that pulling out the weeds from a garden gives the vegetables room to grow, and composting the leftover weeds is good for the soil. But, when Ms. Llama announces that she's out of spinach for her salad party, Elinor learns that dandelions are actually good to eat, and she helps Ms. Llama make a new delicacy - a dandelion salad!
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