Lights, Camera, Beetles
From The Electric Company (2009) · 2009
Summary
Hector and Jessica prepare a birthday party for their bug-crazy cousin. The scheming Francine snatches a rhinoceros beetle to appear in a monster video she is making and hopes to rope the Electric Company into appearing in the video with the help of Danny. Special Guest Stars: Ne-Yo, Jimmy Fallon, Common (entertainer)|Common Villains: Francine, Danny Words: Beetle, gigantic, terrarium, insect, examine, characteristic Like every Electric Company adventure, the story hangs on reading, decoding, and vocabulary under pressure.
Viewer safety
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
Discussion
Every Electric Company episode builds its story around wordballs — words the team reads, decodes, and uses under pressure. Watch for the vocabulary the episode leans on and how the characters puzzle words out.
- Which words did the Electric Company have to read or decode to solve the problem?
- How did a character figure out a word they didn't know at first?
- Where could you use one of this episode's words this week?
Quick work-a-long
Vocabulary: decode, wordball, clue, solve.
Try it: Keep a wordball list while you watch — every word the show spotlights goes on the board, and each student picks one to use in a sentence afterward.