Houghton Mifflin Harcourt-owned SVOD app Curious World launches three animated original short-form learning series: ‘A Rhino Named Paul,’ ‘Jingle Bilingual’ and ‘Moonlight Storytime.’
NEW YORK -- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), has announced the launch of 58 original video productions for Curious World, the interactive content service that offers an expanding collection of games, videos and eBooks mapped to key early learning areas. The new videos are part of six original short-form series: three live action and three animated. Packed with compelling characters, humor and music, the series ignite kids’ imagination while inspiring curiosity and playful learning.
These new video series from up-and-coming content creators will roll out in Curious World over the next six weeks:
- Moonlight Storytime: An animated series that celebrates the magic and adventure that lives within books. These classic fables, told with a fresh and quirky 21st century twist, inspire kids to read.
- Jingle Bilingual: Jingle Bilingual is a series of catchy, animated musical videos that helps kids learn Spanish vocabulary and Spanish-speaking children learn English.
- A Rhino Named Paul: In this series of music videos, we meet Paul, a lovable but haphazardly child-like rhino, as he tries to learn the ropes of childhood with the help of his “adopted” family.
- Recycled Superheroes: This program inspires imaginary play by demonstrating how to make super hero costumes from recyclable materials. With a magical moment of animation, we watch these super heroes come to life.
- Get Crafty: This visually bold how-to series features real kids demonstrating personal takes on arts and crafts activities.
- Let’s Go to Work: Little ones are fascinated by the people in their neighborhood - firefighters, pizza makers, garbage collectors, bakers, etc. This series of mini-documentaries features the people that kids see every day.
The new video series join Curious World’s extensive library, which also includes over 50 original games and almost 600 acquired or internally produced titles and has been growing steadily since its October 2015 launch. Curious World’s material is created by HMH’s internal development team of education experts and award-winning creative partners such as Bix Pix and CloudKid, and also includes licensed programming from leading kids’ content providers like National Geographic, Storybots, Caspar Babypants, PBS Kids and Young Rembrandts.
“Curious World encourages children to learn through play in a safe and fun environment that parents can trust,” said CJ Kettler, Chief of Consumer Brands and Strategy, HMH. “We are committed to creating original content that is built on early learning principles, as defined by our in-house educational experts. We recognize that parents appreciate thoughtfully curated and originally produced games, videos and ebooks that encourage playful learning.”
All content within Curious World aligns to eight key learning areas (science, math, language and literacy, health and wellness, creative expression, social emotional, executive function and family community). The content offering is designed to give kids a balanced learning experience across these essential learning areas, and provide parents with the confidence that programming will be educational and relevant to their young learners.
Parents are also encouraged to be active participants in the learning experience; through the “parent dashboard,” parents can track their child’s progress, learn more about their interests and even get recommendations on how to extend the learning journey to offline activity.
“Like all of our curated content, our original videos are rooted in the science of learning, built by experts, and designed to engage young learners with developmentally-appropriate, engaging stories and characters,” said Caroline Fraser, Vice President of Program Development and Acquisition, HMH. “We’re committed to ensuring Curious World is an ever-expanding destination for imagination and fun, and we will be adding content of all varieties on an ongoing basis.”
Currently available as an iOS app for iPad and iPhone Curious World is a subscription-based experience for kids aged two to seven. The app can be downloaded for free with sample content and features. The companion site, where parents can learn more about their child’s personal learning journey, can be found here.
Source: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
