Happy St. Patrick's Day: Dinosaur Train DVD GIVEAWAY

CONGRATULATIONS #14 AS CHOSEN BY RANDOM.ORG! PLEASE RESPOND TO MY EMAIL WITHIN 72 HOURS. THANKS EVERYONE AND PLEASE ENTER MY GIVEAWAYS THIS WEEK!
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Everyone rightly associates St. Patrick's Day with the color GREEN. After all, if you've ever been to Ireland in the spring/summer, you would never forget the lushness of the countrysides or the breathtaking vegetation of Killarney National Park. When Stewart and I visited the park, it was a strange moment while my eyes adjusted to the scenic vista--I felt like I was moving even though I was standing completely still. The boys and I had a great time this past weekend at a St. Patrick's Day party and they know that St. Patrick's Day is about green, green, and more green! So I thought what more appropriate day could there be to talk about March being National Nutrition Month than a day that celebrates GREEN in light of this year's theme "Eat right with Color."

March is National Nutrition Month®, a nutrition education and information campaign created annually in March by the American Dietetic Association. The campaign focuses attention on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits. This year's National Nutrition Month theme, “Eat right with Color,” encourages everyone to remember to include a colorful variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins and dairy on their plates every day. To help parents, the American Dietetic Association provides many online resources. They even have a downloadable PDF list of 25 healthy snacks for kids, including these five great ideas:

1. Peel a banana and dip it in yogurt. Roll in crushed cereal and freeze.
2. Spread celery sticks with peanut butter or low-fat cream cheese. Top with raisins. Enjoy your “ants on a log.”
3. Stuff a whole-grain pita pocket with ricotta cheese and Granny Smith apple slices. Add a dash of cinnamon.
4. Mix together ready-to-eat cereal, dried fruit and nuts in a sandwich bag for an on-the-go snack.
5. Smear a scoop of frozen yogurt on two graham crackers and add sliced banana to make a yummy sandwich.

 PBS's Dinosaur Train has also designed an activity to help children learn about the campaign. Buddy can help you and your child prepare a vegetarian (herbivore) picnic. The Have A Brachiosaurus Picnic activity helps young children to learn what foods fit into an herbivore's diet (fruits and vegetables); reminds children about the importance of hand washing before eating; and also creates an opportunity to discuss why all animals need to eliminate waste from their bodies (a.k.a. “poop”). The downloadable PDF file provides the ingredients to prepare Brachiosaurus Picnic, with fun food items on the menu, including: 

• Brachiosaurus Super Salad: The kids will have fun tearing up green leafy veggies into bite-size pieces and mixing ranch dressing with green coloring to make a tasty topping.
• Sauropod Sandwich: With a plastic knife, cut pieces of whole wheat bread in the shape of a favorite dinosaur and spread with cheese spread or peanut butter.
• Herbivore Herb and Spinach Spread: Mix frozen spinach, dried onion soup mix, sour cream, celery sticks and crackers
• Green Juice – fill a child’s plastic cup with apple juice and add green food color to make a green beverage fit for an herbivore. (The boys and I are taking this idea to the next level and making "shamrock" shakes with ice cream, mint extract, green food coloring and soy milk!)

To celebrate Dinosaur Train's support of the American Dietetic Association's campaign, one Random Mommy reader will get the chance to go on a virtual trip around the world on the Dinosaur Train through the new DINOSAUR TRAIN: PTERANODON FAMILY WORLD TOUR ADVENTURE DVD, released on March 15. Buddy and his adoptive family of Pteranodons embark on a roaring, exploring world tour adventure to discover a variety of dinosaurs inhabiting the globe as they journey to Asia, Europe and Africa.  From the world-renowned Jim Henson Company, PBS KIDS and Paramount Home Entertainment, the DVD includes eight exciting edu-tainment adventures, interactive games, coloring pages, a dinosaur reference guide and parent information. Boasting incredible CGI animation and an average monthly viewership of 11.9 million, the “Dinosaur Train” is a Parents’ Choice recommended PBS KIDS TV series and is one of the top ten shows for kids 2 to 5.

HOW TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY:  Contest period runs from Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 12:01 AM (Pacific) until Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 11:59 PM (Pacific). Enter by leaving a comment on how you celebrate St. Patrick's Day, and leave your e-mail address OR sign in to comments using your Blogger ID, making sure your Blogger profile is public and includes your e-mail address.

Bonus Entries (leave a separate comment for each entry, it counts if you've done any of these so leave a comment for each one)
1) Follow me on Twitter
2) Tweet this contest and leave the tweet url
3) Follow my blog with Google Friend Connect by clicking on the sidebar
4) Like The Jim Henson Company on Facebook
5) Follow Henson Parents on Twitter

If you don't leave a qualifying comment and your e-mail address or public Blogger profile, your entry will be disqualified. I reserve the right to extend the contest period. At the end of the contest period, I will utilize Random.org to randomly choose the winner. The winner will be contacted by e-mail and will have 72 hours to respond to my e-mail. If the winner does not respond within 72 hours, the prize will go to the next place winner as decided by Random.org. This contest is open for US Residents only. Good luck!

I did not receive compensation for this post. I was given an opportunity to share the information and run a giveaway for my readers and took it!

PBS Kids Go! and the Jim Henson Company-It's Not Easy Being Green

Or yellow or blue or any of the other colors that make up the monsters and characters brought to life by the Jim Henson Company. The boys and I had the incredible fortune to visit the Henson Studios in Hollywood last Tuesday (the day after the re-recording of We Are the World took place there!) to learn about the new PBS Kids Go! program, Wilson & Ditch. PBS Kids Go! is an educational television brand used by PBS for programs intended for older children, rather than the original PBS Kids. PBS Kids Go! is primarily broadcast on PBS stations during the afternoons, but Wilson & Ditch is a new show that is available only online.

Wilson and Ditch are two funny, energetic and talkative gopher brothers who are in a van - an eco-powered one -- and driving around America. Wilson, the older brother, loves learning and teaching facts and reading about each new locale they travel to. He always drives the van while Ditch, the younger more fun-seeking brother who loves to relax and eat, is the permanent passenger. These gopher brothers drive from city to city as tourists who learn the history, “actual facts” (as Wilson calls them), and fun facts of every new location. The brothers also love experiencing the usual touristy stuff as well as the really unusual, obscure, and sometimes just weird sites each city has to offer. Wilson and Ditch want to discover purple mountains' majesty, amber waves of grain, and the perfect Philly cheese steak!

Every time I point to the United States on a world map and tell H that he lives there, he starts arguing with me. He also doesn't quite grasp what it means to live in different states; he just knows that visiting Aunt Joyce means getting on an airplane. I think watching US geography as a kids TV show might make it easier for him to understand. Wilson & Ditch isn't geared for someone as young as three, but it'll definitely be helpful for him to hear the words and get familiar with the vocabulary. Right now H says California as well as the state's governor. I think geography is a great topic to address in children's television and I wish the show were going to be on TV as well as online. The webisodes are about three minutes long, and, for me, that isn't quite long enough to get out all the “actual facts” you'd want to share about a location.

During the event, fellow mom bloggers and I learned about the show and also got a behind-the-scenes look at how shows like Wilson & Ditch and Sid the Science Kid are produced. We learned it takes about five years of hands-on training before a puppeteer becomes adept enough to move to the patented technology that makes Henson digital puppetry possible. We were given a demo of the technology by no other than Brian Henson (one of Jim Henson's five kids), the puppeteer and voice behind the face of Wilson. Brian also happens to be Chairman of the Jim Henson Company. (So yes, I had a meet and greet with the chairman of a studio last week, pretty amazing!!!!) The body is done by motion capture by another performer. We got to see a body and face come together at a shoot of Sid the Science Kid and the degree of detail that goes into every second of one of those shows is unbelievable. I don't think kids understand or appreciate the complexity of the shows they are watching.

So far the Philadelphia and Nashville webisodes of the show are up. If you want to follow Wilson and Ditch as they criss-cross their way across the United States, this is the schedule:

When? Where? What’s New Where they will visit?

• 2/22/2010 Rapid City, South Dakota Webisode Rushmore, Badlands
• 3/1/2010 Mitchell, South Dakota Comic strip Corn Palace
• 3/8/2010 Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming Podcast Old Faithful
• 3/22/2010 Miami, Florida Webisode Gators/Air Boats/Beaches
• 3/29/2010 Williamsburg, Virginia Comic strip Colonial Williamsburg
• 4/5/2010 Niagra Falls, New York Podcast the falls
• 4/19/2010 New York, New York Webisode Times Square, Central Park
• 4/26/2010 Durango, Colorado Podcast Train
• 5/3/2010 Anchorage, Alaska Podcast Iditerod: Dogs & sleds
• 5/17/2010 St. Louis, Missouri Webisode Arch, Paddle-Wheel Steamboat
• 5/24/2010 Atlanta, Georgia Comic strip great restaurant

This is just the first season, and they plan to add to the destinations every year with more destinations on and off the beaten path. I can't wait for the Central Park webisode in April.