Workshops | Milwaukee Public Television

MPTV Kids: Workshops

MPTV Workshops & Storytimes

The MPTV Outreach Service offers several on-site workshops for children, parents, child care providers and teachers. The workshops are free and vary in length. The requesting site may be asked to provide a VCR and monitor.

Storytimes are also free and available to schools, libraries, child care centers and other community-based organizations.

MPTV Workshops

1. Using Television to Teach
Audience: Parents and child care providers
Length: 30 to 45 minutes

Parents are a child’s first teachers. This workshop introduces parents to age-appropriate television programs and how they can be used as a teaching tool to enhance learning in the home. The “Learning Triangle” is demonstrated and ideas for related books and activities to extend the learning are offered.

2. Family Literacy
Audience: Parents, child care providers, children
Language: English and Spanish
Length: 30 to 45 minutes

This workshop focuses on the importance of sharing stories and reading with children. It suggests ways of locating and selecting developmentally appropriate books for children and demonstrates some effective reading and storytelling techniques.

3. What do you do with the mad that you feel?
Audience: Children Kindergarten through Grade Three
Language: English
Length: 30 to 45 minutes

Everybody gets angry. This workshop uses stories and other activities to understand anger and offer helpful hints about everyday ways children can practice self-control and express angry feelings in ways that don’t hurt.

4. The Writing Process
Audience: Children Grades One through Three and teachers
Language: English
Length: 30 to 45 minutes

This workshop encourages children to participate in the station’s annual Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators’ Awards Contest. Getting ideas for the story, developing the ideas, constructing the story and the importance of illustration are covered. Winning stories from previous years serve as examples for discussion. The rules of the contest are briefly discussed and take-home materials are provided. ( A variation of this workshop is available for adults interested in facilitating their children’s efforts in entering the Reading Rainbow Contest.)

5. Different and the Same
Audience: Kindergarten and Grade One
Language: English
Length: 30 minutes

This workshop is story-based and allows for discussion about the things that make us different from each other and the things that make us the same. The purpose is to recognize common ground and acknowledge that the essentials that make us human are the same for all people. Children are encouraged to acknowledge the differences and embrace the similarities. It is the similarities that connect us.

MPTV Storytimes

Audience: children aged four to seven
Language: English
Length: 30 minutes

Free on-site storytimes for children are available. Sessions may be created around a theme such as an upcoming holiday, event or special interest.

Scheduling Information

For more information and to schedule a workshop or storytime at your site, please call Darlyne Haertlein, Outreach Services Supervisor, at 414-297-7518, or email your request to haertled@matc.edu. If you prefer, send your request to:

MPTV Outreach Services
Milwaukee Public Television
1036 North Eighth Street
Milwaukee, WI 53233

MPTV PRODUCTIONS