PBS Kids is all set to celebrate spring with their engaging content lineup for kids and family. The slate includes new series Milo, new shorts series Donkey Hodie Bedtime Stories and new episodes of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, movies on Wild Kratts and Nature Cat alongside series of live-action shorts Tiny Time Travel.
“This spring, PBS Kids provides an opportunity for families to embark on exciting adventures with kids’ favourite characters, and a chance to meet some new ones, too,” said PBS Kids senior vice president and general manager Sara DeWitt. “Our content this season aims to nurture an appreciation of the natural world among our young audiences while also sharing important life lessons and reinforcing some of the key social skills kids need for success in school and beyond.”
The slate also brings the premiere of the fourth season of award-winning animated series Molly Of Denali on the 25 March. Produced by GBH Boston, Molly Of Denali follows the adventures of 10-year-old Molly Mabray, an Alaska Native girl who lives in the fictional village of Qyah, Alaska.
The new episodes follow Molly as she continues exploring with friends and family, from tracking down a fallen meteorite with Tooey, to connecting with her heritage by building a kiidhah zhee (a traditional steam bath) to help cure her mom’s cold, to helping a rival basketball team find an authentic mascot to represent their team. In addition to the series’ underlying Informational Text curriculum, season four also incorporates media literacy learning. One example is highlighted in a story where Molly posts online about a bat she found in her attic. She finds out just how fast information can spread on the internet and how it may not always be accurate.
A new movie Wild Kratts: Our Blue and Green World will premier on 1 April. In this film the Kratt brothers disagree on what’s better: blue oceans or green forests. Aviva takes on the role of referee to demonstrate how oceans and forests work together to make our living planet, just like Martin and Chris need to keep working together. It’s up to the gang to get Martin and Chris back in sync in time to save planet Earth from Zach and Paisley Paver’s villainous plans.
A new game, World Rescue, accompanies the movie special in April and will be available on the PBS Kids Games app and official website with new episodes of hybrid series Wild Kratts premiering 2 April.
Nature Cat’s Nature Movie Special Extraordinaire, is all set to debut on 22 April. Nature Cat and his friends are trying to figure out what their movie special is about when Sir Galahad (voiced by Chris Parnell), who’s now anointed himself King Galahad, begins taking things from nature to make his castle look more beautiful. It’s up to the gang to show him a better way to appreciate the natural beauty of their world before he does more damage to their favourite place. The special features three original songs written by Tony, Grammy, and Emmy Award-winning Bill Sherman and performed by the cast: Taran Killam, Kate McKinnon, Bobby Moynihan, and Kate Micucci.
New short-form series Nature Chat With Nature Cat will debut digitally also on 22 April. In the shorts, Nature Cat speaks directly to fans about how they can help make the world a better place. Harkening back to clips from across all five seasons of the series, with the help of his production assistant Gary the squirrel, Nature Cat explores ten different sustainability topics ranging from composting and water conservation to upcycling, avoiding food waste, and more.
Moving ahead, Milo, a series co-produced by Fourth Wall and DeAPlaneta Entertainment follows an adventurous cat who loves to use role-play to explore the amazing world of jobs and vocations with his best friends, Lofty and Lark. Milo loves meeting all of the different people who come into his parents’ dry-cleaning shop to get their outfits cleaned. Milo is curious about what it would be like to be a fireman, or a detective, or an astronaut, and many other kinds of jobs when he grows up. So, off he goes with his friends on an exciting role-play adventure. Milo will premiere across PBS Kids streaming platforms on 13 May.
New episodes of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood premiere on 6 May, exploring concepts like putting things away and finding surprises wherever we are, followed by the new short-form series Donkey Hodie Bedtime Stories, which will premiere on 27 May across streaming platforms. These shorts from the popular puppet series Donkey Hodie include eight, five to six-minute videos designed to fit perfectly into kids’ bedtime routines. In each video, Donkey Hodie, Purple Panda, Duck Duck, or Bob Dog reads a bedtime story to the viewer and models their own strategy for calm-downing down before bed.
Also, leading off the spring line-up on 15 March is a new series of funny and fast-paced live-action shorts Tiny Time Travel. It follows 11-year-old inventor, Tyler, and his outgoing best friend, Tony, as they use their time machine to go back in time a tiny bit (sometimes just a few minutes or hours) to solve problems in their neighbourhood, like stopping a friend from spoiling a movie, or giving a customer a re-do after an ordering mistake at a restaurant. Even though Tony and Tyler can only time travel a tiny bit, they always manage to help their friends and neighbours just in time.
Tiny Time Travel aims to help kids aged five to eight learn social language skills, like understanding nonverbal communication, taking others’ perspectives into account, and resolving miscommunication. The series is created by Tim McKeon (Odd Squad, Gravity Falls) and produced by Marobru Productions and Easy as Pie Productions LLC and consists of 12 five to seven minute episodes.
Families can stream PBS KIDS for free anytime, anywhere (no subscription needed) and can visit their website for activities and everyday fun, including resources for parents and caregivers to help extend the learning beyond the classroom this spring.
