Curious George Blog

Curious George is an animated cartoon that first aired on PBS in 2006. This program is about a monkey named George who always gets into trouble and is rescued by “The Man in the Yellow Hat.” This program targets children ages 2 to 8 and teaches academic and social-emotional skills through problem-solving and applying various concepts to real-life situations.

In Season 8 Episode 3, “The Man in the Yellow Hat” drops George off at the park so George can watch Professor Wiseman launch her remote-controlled plane. Professor Wiseman’s plane is used to track migration patterns of birds, which creates the perfect segue to teach academic skills such as acronyms and scientific definitions. She also introduces self-regulation through following directions and explains the use of an instruction manual.

Soon after, the remote control doesn’t work causing George to use trial and error and connect the dots to realize the controls were backwards. Because of his problem-solving skills, he is able to land the plane.

Social-emotional skills are taught through the reactions of George and the characters he interacts with. George’s hoots often resemble enthusiastic “uh-huhs” and “yays,” therefore showing positive interactions and behaviors. Because George doesn’t speak, his facial expressions are emphasized and supported by positive reinforcement. For instance, anytime George gets into trouble, he appears worried and nervously whimpers. Once he solves a problem, the characters around him smile and say something along the lines of, “You did it, George!”

In a quantitative study, they found, “The Television Group children demonstrated statistically greater knowledge of the specific science and math concepts.” On a questionnaire, the control group scored 7.43 points while the television group scored 8.04 points.

In this qualitative study, they found students that watched three video episodes of Curious George resulted in, “Overall knowledge of mathematics in the domains of Number and Operations and Algebraic Thinking increased significantly.”

Curious George doesn’t teach numbers or the A,B,C’s, but rather applies these concepts to situations where the child can see the concepts applied and utilized in a situation.