Looking for things to do? Sesame Street is amping up its autism initiative throughout April, including at its parks, in honor of Autism Acceptance Month.

The Parks

• Both Busch Gardens in Tampa, Fla., and SeaWorld Orlando are distributing free educational storybooks and offering meet-and-greets with Julia and friends. Julia, for the uninitiated, is the first Sesame Street Muppet with autism; she made her TV debut in 2017.
• FYI, Sesame Place Philadelphia, a Certified Autism Center, recently completed Blue Bridge training for staff members on how to use strategies that promote positive communication and sensitive responses when autistic children need assistance in communicating and/or have sensory sensitivities.
• If you’re heading to a Beaches resort at Turks and Caicos or Jamaica (first, enjoy), their Certified Autism Centers are offering art activities, and meet and greets with Julia.

New Downloadable Content

• Princess Paint A Lot: A video in which Julia, Abby and Rosita create a story about a princess who loves to paint (thus the title, I guess).
• Julia’s Needed: Another video, this time with Elmo and Rudy needing Julia’s help and artistic expertise.
• A storybook about teamwork and belonging called Julia and the Super-Sunny Celebration (English, Spanish, Cantonese and Mandarin).
• Three printable pages encouraging creativity. Sounds fun: Kids are prompted to create a self-portrait and insert themselves into different scenes from storybooks.