A new animated series that asks, what happens when numbers come to life?, has launched on CBeebies in the UK with the Monday arrival of Numberblocks — a 30 x 5 sister series to popular cross platform Alphablocks phonics property. Young viewers will be able to join in the fun in Numberland at 10:20 a.m. and 2:40 p.m. on weekdays.
Numberblocks is the brainchild of creator Joe Elliot and Blue Zoo Animation Studio, and executive produced for the BBC by Catherine McAllister and Michael Towner. The new show works on a similar premise to the BAFTA-nominated Alphablocks, assigning a unique character to every number to give children a deep understanding of how numbers work.
“Children (and adults) often struggle with maths because it starts to become much less visual and more about manipulating written numbers,” said Elliot, who also executive produces the show. “Numberblocks is different from any other numbers show because it keeps everything visual and really shows how numbers work. It breaks through in a way that no other numbers show has to give kids a great understanding of maths whilst having side-splitting fun. We’re looking forward to changing how children think about numbers.”
Made up of children’s educational toy counting blocks, the Numberblock characters love to count things, discover patterns, sing songs, play games and go on adventures. Numberblock One has one block, Numberlock Two has two blocks, and so on … if One jumps on top of Two, number magic happens and they turn into Three — and there’s a lot of fun to be had when you can turn into your friends.
The National Centre for Excellence in Teaching of Mathematics is assisting in the series to help present core math ideas in a playful way for children ages 3-6. Numberblocks is produced and owned by Alphablocks Ltd., a joint venture between Joe Elliot and Blue Zoo Animation Studios (Digby Dragon, Q Pootle 5, Miffy).
“Following the popularity of Alphablocks, we are very excited to bring Numberblocks to CBeebies,” said Blue Zoo founder Oli Hyatt. “The show is about having as much fun as possible with numbers while revealing the patterns at play and building a deep understanding of how numbers work on a conceptual and practical level. We are confident that it will prove to be as popular as its counterpart with both children and parents alike.”
