JellyBug: Watch out, there’s a new pre-school channel about!

This is a guest post for KiddyCharts from Lucy at It’s a London Bird Thing. Thanks so much to her for attending the event, and writing it up so beautifully for us.

I took my youngest son Liam to the launch of a new preschool channel ‘JellyBug‘.  Hand in hand we made our way into London, our destination the Rainforest Cafe.

I have never been inside the Rainforest cafe before, the outside always looks so inviting, all those plush toys would wink at me as I walk past.  Now with Liam in hand we enter the store, wild Jungle toy animals everywhere all of them cute and wanting homes, every little boys dream.

Liam lapped the shop about 3 times before we made it downstairs past the middle level where their beautiful cafe is situated and then the lower basement, where the JellyBug team met us.

We were greeted by the creative minds behind JellyBug, Sarah Darling and Mr Weebl aka Jonti Picking, a husband and wife partnership.

Liam decided he would start his day with a spot of colouring, one of the wonderful Jellybugs posters, very pokemonish style of character.  Here we met Sarah and Jontis’ daughter, she introduced herself as JELLYBUG! I later found out she is the voice of JellyBug, a lovely bright and clued-up young lady indeed.

There are even some of them for you to colour in on their website too.

We all gathered around to watch the Jellybug channel.  Sarah explained about her history of working within animation, she’s written for Sesame street, Cadburys also prior she has worked writing for teenagers channels and all sorts of televised entertainment.

JellyBug visually pops out at you, a fun way to connect with children.  Its fun enough to connect with adults, everyone can watch and be entertained.  Sarah and her husband wanted to make something they could enjoy with their children and share their quirkiness with like minded people.  So let the show begins and the animation do the talking!

This channel is all about being different from other children channels, its educational, clever and catchy.  Some of the nursery rhymes are recognisable with an added twist.  The animation is wacky, eye catching, its almost hypnotic, some of it a little psychedelic.  The musical has bouncing beats, repetition, helping children to remember words in an effortless way.  The children were shaking and swinging on their feet.

I like people watching, the entire audience are captivated by the ABC Alphabet Song, with its funny fast rhymes.  There is a nice selection of videos on the Jellybug channel, featuring nursery rhythms, counting songs and a little bit of bonkersness too.

Mr Weebl has his own channel, this would be for an older audience.  Mr Weebl the music maker, his twitter bio reads ‘I write songs that drive you insane.’  I can assure you not a mentally mad but in a tongue and cheek type of way.

Mr Weebl the musical genius and Sarah the writer the glue in this partnership, also not forgetting their Animator, Anthony Price, his work is outstanding.  Anthony showed us how to put a simple animated character together.  It took him 9 minutes from nothing to a bouncing ball, with waving hands and smiley face, I was impressed.

JellyBug gave off some happy vibes, lots of energetic dance beats.  Any ravers here, you are going to love this.  Why not grab your white glove and glow sticks.  You wont need your whistles the music is loud enough for you and your little ones to have a bop together.

My favourite animation is Baby Baboon.  By far this is the wackiest animation of them all, with random words that rhyme, I was hypnotised by the end of this video too.  Don’t be shy, tune in, chill out and check out JellyBug.  Tell your friends and have a house party!

We had a lovely morning packed with entertainment from Mr Boo Boo the magician, Storyteller and face painting.

Liam decided he wanted to be a Minecraft Creeper, the lady painting did a little free styling painting, Creeper slash animal!

Our Jellybug… Liam said he was delicious!

Lucy Zelazowski

Lucy Zelazowski is a stay at home mum, with 2 sons, James 7 and Liam 5; A Londoner, living in Hertfordshire. She had her first son at 31, prior to this she was a clubber, partying hard and also working hard in the Travel Industry from the age of 18. Having children changed her, she is now embracing home life. Lucy loves family life, adventures, attending events and testing out products. She adores beauty, music and gadgets and has found a talent to bake tasty cakes and rather enjoys cooking.

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