Moonbug Entertainment announced a partnership with UCLA’s Center for Scholars & Storytellers to integrate child development research with preschool programming.
As more young children spend time with video storytelling on digital platforms, parents and creators are asking a fundamental question: Can kids actually learn from what they watch? Research shows they can. But only when those stories are developmentally appropriate and intentionally designed around how young children learn, process information, and engage with stories.
Moonbug believes that online video can be more than entertainment. It can be an opportunity for learning, exploration, and everyday discovery when it is intentionally designed around how young children learn and grow.
For decades, learning and development research has played a central role in shaping high-quality children’s media. Today, as more children watch creator-led programming on platforms like YouTube, the opportunity is to bring that same level of research and rigor into a digital-first environment.
The collaboration brings child development expertise directly into the creative process behind Moonbug’s flagship series, including CoComelon, Blippi, Little Angel, and their spin-off series like CoComelon’s The Melon Patch. The work helps guide how stories are developed from early concepts through production.
At the center of the partnership are four core learning principles developed by CSS in partnership with academic scholars and Moonbug’s creative team. These principles are designed to guide Moonbug’s creative teams and other kids’ content creators and give parents a clearer understanding of what developmentally appropriate content looks like. The principles will be released publicly this spring.
To develop the principles, CSS conducted a comprehensive review in 2023 of peer-reviewed research on early childhood learning, alongside an in-depth analysis of Moonbug’s programming and creative process, including interviews with creative teams, episode analysis, and collaboration with an advisory council of academic experts.
Moonbug then expanded its partnership with CSS late last year to integrate these principles into the creative process. CSS and learning experts now collaborate with Moonbug’s creative teams, who develop, write, and produce the shows, to:
- Define development and learning goals for each season, including development of life skills, soft skills (social-emotional learning), and cognitive skills.
- Shape story ideas and episode themes, and
- Review scripts and early cuts to ensure learning is clear and age-appropriate.
“As more preschoolers spend time on digital platforms, parents and creators are asking more urgent questions about what quality screen time actually means,” said Dr. Yalda T. Uhls, Founder and CEO of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers at UCLA. “Research shows children can learn from online video, but only when it’s designed with child development in mind. Our work with Moonbug is about bringing research and storytelling closer together, and we see this as an ongoing commitment. Translating research principles into a production environment takes a sustained effort, and a real measure of success will be how consistently these principles shape creative principles over time.”
“To make great stories for young kids, you have to start with how they learn,” said Rich Hickey, Chief Creative Officer at Moonbug Entertainment. “Our teams already think deeply about how toddlers experience music, stories, and everyday moments. This partnership with CSS renews that commitment and helps us be even more intentional in how we build stories from the earliest ideas through production.”
Moonbug’s creative teams have long worked with trusted learning consultants to better understand how young children develop and how storytelling can support early learning. These experts include Dr. Natascha Crandall, Dr. Allison Briscoe-Smith, and Dr. Laura Brown, who will continue to collaborate closely with Moonbug’s creative leadership.
Through this partnership with CSS, that work is now being formalized into a more consistent, research-backed approach – helping ensure that as kids’ viewing continues to shift to digital platforms, the content they watch is designed to support how they actually learn.