Twirlywoos
Season 1, Episode 8: "Behind" (11 minutes)
UK: Ragdoll / Mackinnon and Saunders
CBeebies, Monday 30 October, 13:30
Ok, time for another confession. I love Twirlywoos. It's so damn cute, and really well planned-out for educational purposes.
I'm not going to write too much here; instead I will make another post containing the text of a conference paper I wrote about the program. But in brief, the series is designed with the aid of an educational psychologist, to work with the way in which toddlers learn and develop.
Each episode is based around a specific schema: a concept relating to a single type of shape or physical movement. It is broken into two segments: the first takes place in a live-action environment, where the Twirlywoo family observe humans and interfere in their world; the second takes place in an animated setting, where the Twirlies receive a visitor of some sort who explores the concept further.
In this particular episode, the schema is "behind". In the first section, the Twirlies observe a man sitting on the park bench with a baby in a pram; he is entertaining the baby by shaking a rattle. The Twirlies decide to borrow the rattle, and then pop up behind the man, taking turns at shaking the rattle. It is a very repetitive vignette, and each time the action takes place, the narrator repeats the word "behind," reinforcing the meaning of the word to the small viewer.
In the second section, the Twirlies return to their boat, where they are visited by the Twirly Screen, on which they watch a simple 2D animation of hands and feet appearing from behind a brick wall (eventually, there are 8 limbs at the same time, and it is revealed to be an octopus). This reinforces the core concept. And the episodes always end in the same way: with the Twirlies going to bed.
It's all deceptively simple, but underpinned by a huge amount of theory work, and the characters are perfectly designed to be cute and appealing, with excellent pantomime performances.
Uses
When developing my series, I do anticipate that I will take influence from Twirly Woos, but hopefully without going to the extent of ripping it off. I really do believe that it contains a successful combination of education and entertainment value that can be expanded upon and adapted to be relevant to an older audience.
Available to watch online until 28 November 2017
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