PBS and The Fred Rogers Company present Peg + Cat on PBS Kids, a new animated series geared to 3- to 5-year-olds that uses songs and stories to explore numbers, arithmetic, measures, geometry, spatial relations and more.
PBS teamed up with The Fred Rogers Company to look for an early-learning solution to the problem of students not meeting math proficiency standards. Their answer is Peg + Cat (pronounced “Peg Plus Cat”) premiering Monday, Oct. 9, at 9am ET (check local listings) on PBS Kids. Peg + Cat is an animated series geared to 3- to 5-year-olds using songs and stories to explore numbers, arithmetic, measures, geometry, spatial relations and more. Peg (voice of newcomer Hayley Faith Negrin), her pal Cat (voice of Dwayne Hill) and a bunch of barnyard friends (including an opera-singing pig) travel the universe encountering math-related problems and finding their solutions. “Like any preschooler, [Peg] gets frustrated, has moments of totally freaking out, and then figures out a way to deal with problems and work with others to solve them,” says PBS general manager of children’s programming Lesli Rotenberg. Among their adventures, Peg and Cat explore vertical and horizontal with Romeo and Juliet, learn about weights with Cleopatra, and help Beethoven compose his Fifth Symphony.
Peg + Cat has a companion mobile app designed for kids ages 3-6. The Peg + Cat Big Gig App is available from the App Store on iPad or at www.AppStore.com/PBSKIDS. The app is also available for Android tablets on the Amazon Appstore. The Big Gig App lets kids pick an instrument and play songs with Peg and Cat, and the Sound Check lets kids explore and make music on their own.