By Steph Ferns
Every moment in life can be a teaching moment for children, and the ABC, has one show that stands out above the rest when it comes to teaching our children: Bluey, a lovely, colourful kids show about a blue heeler dog family making their way through life.
The show tackles some rather confronting concepts for children, from the simplicity of sharing to the difficulty of losing a loved one.
Bluey is a much-loved TV show all around the world, even being the top-watched show in America, and that’s not just out of kids shows. That’s including all adult-oriented shows as well, with people over there having watched 35 billion minutes, or 584 million hours, this year alone.
It’s now being viewed in over 60 countries and even has its own tourist attraction – Bluey’s World – which opened in Brisbane in November 2024.
In my search for someone to interview about the show, I came across the Reddit user STEMinistTeacher. She introduced herself as Kelly*, who is not only a parent to a lovely little girl named Annabell* but also a primary school STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) teacher.
Being around young children all day, she had many different stories to tell – from both the perspective of a parent and teacher – on how Bluey helps kids understand the world.
“Nearly every Bluey episode is a social story of some sort,” Kelly said. “It’s so widely popular that most students have seen the episodes already.”
That makes it easier for teachers to teach large amounts of students something by likening it to an episode.
As a mother, Kelly has used many episodes to help teach her daughter about the world and how to interact with it. Annabell used to have trouble getting to sleep, and the episode Fruitbat helped with this.
In the episode Bluey wants to be a fruit bat, so she ends up dreaming she is one. During the dream she interacts with dream versions of her parents. It’s this part that helps Annabell get to sleep now, with the promise of possibly meeting her parents in her dreams.
The show also tackles difficult concepts for children, going so far as to talk about death in one episode, Copycat, where Bluey and her dad find an injured bird and take it to the vet. Sadly, the bird passes away and Bluey says she doesn’t “want the bird to be dead”, and her dad says that “there’s nothing we can do”.
Bluey re-enacts the whole thing at home, using it to come to terms with what happened that day. Kelly used this episode to help explain death to Annabell when the little girl’s grandfather passed away.
The younger children in Kelly’s charge at primary school are the perfect age to teach via Bluey. Bluey doesn’t just teach life lessons to kids; it also helps teach science in many different ways.
Take the episode Shadowlands, for example, which revolves around Bluey and her friends playing a game in the park that has the same concept as “the floor is lava” we all played as children in our homes.
The difference here is that they can only stand on shadows, forcing them to use their heads as they make their way back to the picnic blanket for cupcakes. This teaches kids about how there must be something between a light source (in this case the sun) and a surface (the ground) for there to be a shadow.
The show has also helped with monitoring the children during play time. The episode Butterflies , where Bluey is playing with her little sister Bingo and her friend Judo, deals with the idea of exclusion. Judo is an only child and tries to exclude Bingo from the game, but when she and Bluey play together alone, she also ignores Bluey.
Bluey and Bingo end up ignoring Judo together. The three make up in the end, but the message is to show kids how upset the excluded person feels, to help them feel empathetic even if they don’t want to play with them.
Bluey is an educational show, it helps link adult concepts with the mind of a child, teaching them valuable life skills and expanding their knowledge. Kelly’s life with her daughter and working as a STEM primary school teacher is definitive proof of this.
All in all, judging from our conversation I would say Kelly is a big fan of the show and how it helps her in her day-to-day life.
*Name changed.
Feature image: Bluey helps both teachers and parents share life lessons with children. Photo: YouTube