pop & funWikipedia2017 · Brisbane, Australia

Bluey was built on the idea that play teaches children more than lessons do

the gist

Joe Brumm conceived Bluey while working on Charlie and Lola, drawing on his experience raising two daughters. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the BBC co-commissioned the series in 2017, and it is set in a semi-tropical Queensland. Brumm consulted research on socio-dramatic play, including work by Sara Smilansky and Vivian Paley, and deliberately left out literacy and numeracy. The episodes show parents as guides who let children explore and practise adult roles through imaginative play. Each character is based on a dog breed, with Bluey a Blue Heeler inspired by Brumm's own childhood dog.

so what

Bluey became one of the most popular children's shows in the world by treating unstructured play as a learning process in its own right, and it was designed to be watched together by parents and children. It shows how a children's show can be built on child development research rather than explicit teaching.

fun fact

Bluey's characters are based on real dog breeds, and the title character is named after Brumm's own childhood Blue Heeler.

more on this

Adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Illustrative photo · Dudley Council, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons