PBS Kids‘ newest show, “Peg + Cat,” like all of the children’s programming on PBS, is both entertaining and educational. The show’s plucky protagonist Peg and her pet Cat cheerily teach kids how to apply math to their everyday lives, whether it’s counting chickens in groups of 10 or figuring out how to order and sort slices of pie.

My two youngest kids, ages 8 and 5, had a ball previewing “Peg + Cat” and were especially fond of Peg’s animal cohorts. “Look at all the chickens!” my 5-year-old son said. “I like how the Pig sings like he’s an opera singer,” mused my 9-year-old daughter.

Peg+Cat

As part of PBS Kids’ Healthy Kids initiative with Whole Foods, we bought fruit and made a special Pirate’s Treasure Fruit Salad. Here are the craft instructions and recipe:

What you need: Yogurt or plastic cups; scissors; white paper; ruler; markers or crayons; tape

  1. Clean out yogurt cups or small plastic containers.
  2. Measure the height of the container on the long edge of the white paper.
  3. Cut out the strip and decorate your treasure chest with markers or crayons.
  4. Draw the wooden boards that make up the chest, and don’t forget a large lock on the front! So Big Mouth doesn’t swipe your banana slices!
  5. Once you’ve colored your chest, wrap the paper strip around the top of your plastic container and tape it in place.

Peg + Cat craft

Once the kids are done with their treasure cups, they started washing and with my help, cutting the fruit.

  1. Wash all the fruit going in the salad.
  2. Cut each banana into 16 pieces. (That’s 10 pieces, plus another 6!)
  3. Cut each strawberry into 4 pieces. (That’s 3 pieces, plus another 1!)
  4. Cut the peaches into bite size pieces. (Pirates love peaches!)
  5. If your grapes are large, cut them in half. (That means cut them right down the middle!)
  6. Put each fruit into its own bow

Making sure the strawberries and peaches are the right size.

Then they counted out the number of fruit to put in each cup. Here’s what the recipe calls for, but feel free to change that according to your kids’ tastes:

Now it’s time to fill the treasure chest with each of the following and then dig in!:

  • 5 bananas
  • 6 strawberries
  • 7 grapes
  • 8 peaches
  • 9 blueberries

Peg + Cat cup

The fruit salad was a great Sunday afternoon craft + snack. My daughter also took the time to fill out how we had been healthy the previous week and recalled that we had all had veggies and water, that we had gone swimming and running (she’s in Girls on the Run), and that we played and rode bikes in the park. She wants to fill out the form every week now.
As for “Peg + Cat,” it debuts on PBS on Oct. 7 with a special one-hour broadcast of two episodes.

Disclosure: As a PBS Kids ambassador I received Peg + Cat promotional materials as well as a $35 gift certificate to Whole Foods to facilitate the healthy eating craft and the show preview. All opinions are my own.

Sandie, The DC Moms.com Editor in Chief, blogs about Young Adult literature at Teen Lit Rocks and reviews movies and books at Common Sense Media.

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