The Children's Hour

We celebrate every kid’s favorite holiday: Halloween with a musical special full of stories, songs and poems to creep you out and get you ready for the holiday. We’ll be spooked by ghost stories told by Bill Harley, Catherine Dines, AJ, and Shomo in the Monkey Punch. The kids’ crew will share what their Halloween plans are, including a trunker treat. We’ll hear how one of the kids on the crew turns trick-or-treating into an opportunity to collect clothing for her area’s public school clothing bank. Join us for a spooky Halloween musical special podcast for kids.

This week on The Children’s Hour, we learn about elections with our friends at Ballotpedia. We'll be talking about how elections work at all levels, from your town all the way up through the whole country! This civics podcast for kids comes with a free learning guide. Get inspired by the right to vote and learn with us about elections.

This week we explore a creature that used to live throughout the grasslands of the United States, the elusive black footed ferret. Once declared extinct, the highly endangered specialist predator may make a comeback in the North American prairie thanks in part to our guest, Paul Marinari, retired Senior Curator at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute at the National Zoo.

This time on The Children’s Hour, learn about space junk with space anthropologist Dr. Alice Gorman. We’ll explore the consequences of polluting our upper stratosphere, and what the plan is to pick up our trash in orbit. Comes with a learning guide, this is a space junk podcast for kids.

This time on The Children’s Hour, we’re exploring the human heart and how it works with pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist Dr. Sally Vender. The miraculous muscle never stops beating, needing no conscious effort, but it does take effort to keep it healthy and strong. Learn how the heart works, why the heart never fatigues, and what makes the heart race when we’re exercising or nervous, and slow down when we’re sleeping. Comes with a learning guide and activities to learn even more in this podcast for kids about the heart.

ICKY: A Radio Musical podcast is a pandemic inspired, original theatrical performance and musical podcast for kids with a learning guide.

Way back in the days before the end of The Big Sick, students everywhere were forced to stare at computer screens featuring live video feeds of their classmates. This was happening in bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchens across the country and the world ...

Take a trip with The Children's Hour to Greenland to learn about the world’s largest island and the people who live there. We’ll explore Greenland’s culture, landscape, and hear music in the Greenlandic language. Find out the history of the Greenlandic people from the first migrations until today in this Greenland podcast and radio show for kids.

This time on The Children's Hour podcast for kids we learn about the extraordinary life of Jim Henson, the legendary puppeteer who created Sesame Street, the Muppets, and many movies, TV shows, and songs. Jim Henson's biographer Brian Jay Jones joins the Kids Crew in an exploration of the creative genius of a guy who just wanted to be remembered as a true artist. Learn even more in our learning guide.

Bear with us this time on The Children's Hour as we learn about bears. Meet the legendary Dr. Lynn Rogers from the North American Bear Center. Find out how these gentle giants fit into our ecology, where and how they live, and how Dr. Rogers overcame his fear of bears. It's a bears podcast for kids, with a companion learning guide and activities.

Join The Children's Hour as we say goodbye to summer with the summertime best releases in 2026. Get ready to hang up your towel and grab your lunchbox, but first we have a dance party in this musical special.

Learn with our kids science podcast about exoplanets on The Children’s Hour. The Kids Crew talk with an exoplanetologist, Dr. Diana Dragomir. We discover what an exoplanet is, and how astronomers find them in a vast sea of stars. Find out if they have found aliens, and how you can help in the search.

Learn about fossils in a Kids Crew field trip to a secret fossil quarry in the mountains outside of Albuquerque, as well as in a chat with New Mexico Natural History Museum educator Mike Sanchez. Will we become fossilized too? Fossils teach us about the Ice Age and climate change at the La Brea Tar pits in the heart of Los Angeles. This episode comes with a Learn-Along guide and is mixed with great music.

Join The Children's Hour Kids Crew in a field trip to the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, the largest in the world! Learn what makes something "Folk Art" in conversations with artists from dozens of countries. The podcast learning guide and activities for use in classrooms can be found at ChildrensHour.org/folk-art

Together we can do anything, and this time on The Children's Hour we explore teamwork, improv, and how playing games brings builds community. The Kids Crew gets a workshop in improvisation as a team building exercise. Then, we learn about games kids have played for thousands of years which helped create and sustain strong communities. Learn with us!

We speak with our bodies, and some people speak only with their bodies. Communication Nation Episode 3: Other Voices, Other Sounds explores nonverbal communication, sign language, deaf culture, and assistive technology. Comes with a learning guide. Learn with us!

Communication Nation Episode 2: Mother Tongues focuses on the incredible diversity of language around us, from appreciation of the way names sound, to the restoration of endangered languages. Learn with us on The Children's Hour!

Communication Nation Episode One: Speaking the Truth - Media Literacy & Misinformation is the first of a four part radio series exploring communication to better understand one another. We can only have effective communication when we can trust our sources. We learn about media literacy and misinformation from Eisha Buch at Common Sense Media.

This week on The Children’s Hour, learn about the history of the Southwest United States. Adapted from our educational podcast series: A Brief History of the American Southwest for Kids, join us for a dive into 23,000 years of American history.

We're joined this time on The Children's Hour by Paul and Cheryl Reisler from Kid Pan Alley, who have written more than 2,500 songs with more than 70,000 children over the last 30 years.

We’re celebrating dads with a musical special Father's Day podcast for kids. As we think about our fathers, we remember the important role they play in our families, and our lives with their nurturing, love, and care. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads from all of us on The Children’s Hour.