New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Young Minds Inspired: ‘Peanuts’ gang helps with home-schooling
Parents who’ve been scrambling to keep their kids learning while quarantined are finding new help from some old friends. One of them is a spotted white beagle with a rich fantasy life.
You know him as Snoopy, but sometimes he dons sunglasses and passes himself off as Joe Cool, a college dude. He and his pals are helping parents keep children engaged in education through online lessons via the home page at peanuts.com. The free lessons, involving STEM skills, language arts and social studies, are geared to ages 4 through 14.
Available around the globe, these lessons were developed in Connecticut by curriculum specialists at Young Minds
Inspired, based in North Haven. Dominic Kinsley, a former Yale University professor who lives in New Haven, is editor-in-chief there.
“We’ve been working with ‘Peanuts’ for more than a decade, starting with creating educational programs around the ‘Peanuts’ TV specials,” he said. “Everything has a lesson in it, whether it’s funny or serious or thought-provoking. It’s all a ‘teachable moment.’ ”
Lately, Young Minds Inspired has been excited about revisiting “Peanuts’” involvement with NASA, he said. “They always have a trick up their sleeve, those ‘Peanuts’ folks — we’ll bring up something that happened 30 years ago and they’ll say, ‘Oh, we have a comic strip on that!’ All of the ‘Peanuts’ space-related lesson plans have been approved by NASA: They are easy to work with, but scrupulous about checking stuff out.”
Some lesson plans feature Astronaut Snoopy exploring the thrill/science of space travel. They’re complemented by the new series “Snoopy in Space.” (It’s free on Apple TV+, and, like the lesson plans, was created in collaboration with NASA.) But even if you don’t have Apple TV+, the lessons stand on their own.
Alison Hill, of currentpr.com who describes herself as Snoopy’s publicist, said Young Minds Inspired created these lessons for teachers, then revamped them for parents. (Peanuts.com employs a translation company to convert them into different languages. There’s nine options now, and two more coming.)
“We’re in constant collaboration with ‘Peanuts’ regardless of what’s happening in the world,” Kinsley said. “So, when parents were struggling with homeschooling, ‘Peanuts’ came to us and said, ‘We have these great materials, here’s an opportunity to answer the call and do something for parents.’ It was a meeting of the minds, and it progressed from there.”
“Schulz, who died in 2000, never saw his characters used in these lesson plans,” said Melissa Menta, of Peanuts Worldwide, “but we’re confident he would have been pleased to know Snoopy and Charlie Brown and the gang are helping to comfort, entertain and educate students during such a complex and challenging time.”