Podcasts are still growing in popularity among kids and families as a free, engaging, and entertaining form of content. To the delight of young audiences nationwide, PBS Kids is continuing to hop on the trend by expanding its growing library of podcasts in the coming months.
Just in time for back-to-school season, things will kick off in September with a new original podcast series called Jamming on the Job. This music-centered podcast for kids ages 4 and up and their families stars Christina Sanabria and Andrés Salguero, the Latin Grammy Award-winning kids’ music duo known as 123 Andrés. Listeners will join the pair as they tour the U.S. performing songs about the “world of work.” At each tour stop, they meet a grownup with an interesting job who helps them solve a problem. As the duo learns about the career of the day and the skills necessary to be successful at that job, they then write a brand new song about it with the help of their magic music-making machine BoomBox, voiced by Grammy-nominated musician Pierce Freelon. Some of the featured jobs include a nurse practitioner, prescribed fire manager, language instructor, robotics engineers, and more.
In addition to giving kids a window into a wide variety of career paths, each episode of the new series highlights foundational skills relevant to each job such as empathy, social problem-solving, and responsibility, as well as flexible thinking, impulse control, and persistence. Jamming on the Job, produced by PBS North Carolina and brought to listeners in partnership with PRX, will premiere on Sept. 14.
Luckily, that’s not all PBS Kids has to offer. In addition, an eagerly anticipated third season of The Arthur Podcast will premiere on Nov. 9. Produced by GBH Kids together with Gen-Z Media and distributed in partnership with PRX, The Arthur Podcast is the top PBS Kids podcast with nearly 5M streams and 1.3M downloads this year. Families can listen as the world-famous aardvark Arthur Read goes on some of his favorite adventures, featuring D.W., Buster, and all their friends from Elwood City. Each episode is an audio adaptation of a story from the animated series with some new commentary from Arthur himself, as well as Arthur’s Inbox, a question-and-answer portion that includes responses from listeners everywhere.
Lastly, the Playdate with the Wombats! podcast welcomes kids ages 3 and up to take part in fun-filled playdates with Malik, Zadie, and Zeke, the marsupial sibling stars of the hit PBS Kids series Work it Out Wombats! Starting on Jan. 4, this podcast will welcome listeners to take the role of “Wombuddies” on an interactive playdate and encourage them to answer questions, count, sing, dance, and use their imaginations. Produced by GBH Kids and Cultural Whisperers, this podcast reinforces computational thinking skills and encourages listeners to put them to use by identifying and coping patterns and connecting the cause to the effect.
These three podcasts will be available free on-demand on the PBS Kids Video App across all major podcast platforms. Following their premieres, new episodes of Jamming on the Job, The Arthur Podcast, and Playdate with the Wombats! will roll out weekly. Check out the trailer for Jamming on the Job below!
