Sneak Peeks of Awesome Jobs, Lingokids Growin’ Up

Links from this Episode:

• Lingokids Podcasts Website  
• Lingokids Growin’ Up on Apple Podcasts  
• Lingokids Growin’ Up on Spotify 
• How to Become a Scientist Episode
• Guide to Kid Podcasts 

A Place to Learn About Awesome Jobs

The Lingokids team describes Growin’ Up like this. 

It’s an award-winning podcast for kids that can spark children’s imagination to answer one question we all had at least once, “ What should I be when I grow up?”

Join us on this interactive audio journey where we combine fun with learning to ignite kids’ minds, meet inspiring grownups, and learn all about their awesome jobs.

The length of each episode is about 15 minutes. The series is ongoing with new episodes available on Fridays. They just wrapped up their first season, so right now is the perfect time to catch up before they start the next season. 

Kid Podcast Guide

One of my favorite parenting tools is kid podcasts. I use them when I’m running errands with the kiddos to keep them from complaining the whole time. When I need a mom break, I’ll just grab an easy activity like coloring pages or a sensory bin and turn on a kid podcast. The kids will be entertained for at least half an hour.

I know that kid podcasts would help you in your life too, which is why I made a Guide to Kid Podcasts. There are eight categories ranging from science to mindfulness to audio drama with at least three podcasts in each category. There are 27 podcasts in total on the guide. I’ve listened to each of the podcasts on this guide, so I can attest to them being kid friendly.

I put my email at the bottom of the guide so that if you try a couple with your kids and none of them are a good fit, you can email me and I will personally help you find a kid podcast that works for your littles and you. You can grab this guide at the link above. 

The Person Behind the Podcast

My name is Olga. I  started my journey in kids podcasting about a year and a half ago, that is when I joined Lingokids.

Lingokids is technology and a company that helps kids grow into amazing human beings. I joined them as a podcast producer. They wanted to create a podcast for kids that would be educational, fun, entertaining, something fresh, and something new.

That’s how I started with kids podcasting. Before that, I was doing all sorts of different podcasts. I did podcasts for defense, podcasts for news, podcasts about art, sport, anything! I absolutely fell in love with audio production and audio storytelling. 

On A Mission To Create Something Unique

The team at Lingokids wanted to create something that would speak to our mission and vision. It had to represent Lingokids. That was the first thing, we had to tick that box. The second box is, wanting to create something amazing. You want to create a good product that will be listened to by millions and millions of people around the world. Something that will be shared billions of times. So it had to be an original idea. 

The third thing and maybe the most important thing is that I sat back and looked at what I really wanted to do as a podcast producer. What could I bring as Olga to Lingokids and to the kids podcasting world? I went back to my childhood for inspiration.

Spotlighting Awesome Jobs in a Fun Way

Listening to vinyl was one of my favorite things in my childhood. It was co-listening, because my mom would put on, fairy tales, story time songs, biographies, what’s not. There would be a vinyl playing and I would be playing games with my mom, or building castles. Sometimes we would be playing cards. The sound from the vinyl was always around me. I really enjoyed that experience as a kid. 

That was one thing, and the second one, as a kid, and into my adulthood, I was always wondering what I wanted to do. What I wanted to do as Olga, and what I wanted for my profession. What really inspired me. I thought that’s something that kids actually tend to ask for many, many years.

So why don’t we dig into that? Why don’t we bring this experience that I cherished so much to others. I think so many kids do cherish this activity of listening to something together with their parent. It was about creating a podcast that could be listened to by both. Making something that could be interesting for both. That’s a different kind of challenge when you talk about kids podcasts. I had to ask myself, how do you create something that could be enjoyed by a kid and their parent? That’s how we came up with this idea. 

I thought, let’s do a podcast where we will talk about professions. We’ll talk about it not just from a fun and interactive point of view. We will also bring facts and information which is  something that adults don’t even know. Everyone will be excited to learn about awesome jobs. 

It was something that inspired me and then it inspired my team so much that we thought, okay, let’s give it a go.

Be Inspired by Real People 

What’s the main takeaway? I think it’s inspiration. If I’m brutally honest, I really want to inspire kids. I want them to be exposed a huge plethora of different people. I also want to expose them to different professions and people who share their passions genuinely. 

Kids get inspired as they hear wow, this vet sounds super cool. If I’m gonna dive into veterinary, I might travel to Africa. I might cure elephants or treat elephants and rhinos. This is the inspiration I expect kids to get from our guests.

Professionals are real people too! They are real dancers, police officers, game designers who come to our show and share those passions. These professionals share about skills they needed to become who they are today. They also talk about skills they think kids might try to develop if they’re interested in this awesome job.

I’m trying to avoid the word career. I’m not sure kids would relate to the word career. When they are 5, 6, or 7  it is about discovering your passion. So I guess inspiration is the first thing.

Reality Meets Credibility 

We try hard to make the show fun. One of the key elements is our host, her name is Emily Calandrelli. She’s fantastic. She is an MIT engineer and she’s also an Emmy nominated, TV presenter. She had her own show on Netflix, Four Kids. It is about science and science experiments. She translates this positive energy and fun vibe. Emily is really passionate about STEM as well. So this is an important impression that would come from the podcast. 

I’m hoping that the other part is credibility. We invite these real people to share their real stories and take credible sources of information. Maybe that’s the other part. I think these two things make a really nice combination. 

Connect with Lingokids

We make sure to be available on every single platform. If you start typing Lingokids, you probably will see several different shows because we do produce other shows. They are each for different ages and they have different vibes. But if you start typing Lingokids, you’ll find Growin’ Up  amongst those. 

I would say Growin’ Up is a perfect podcast for an audience between the ages of five to nine. 

The website is as simple as Lingokids.com. The social media would be @Lingokids. We are on Instagram. We also upload all our podcasts to YouTube. Often parents do opt in for some visuals to be present. 

When it comes to podcast apps and platforms it will mainly be parents who put the audio on. If you talk about YouTube, you’ll find out that kids mainly manage their own channels. As soon as they get the gadget, they can navigate through and search for things.

Scientists Have Awesome Jobs 

Picking a favorite episode is not about prioritizing someone, but thinking about things that I learned through that episode. My favorite is the episode, How to Become a Scientist.

I got to interview a real ornithologist.  It was the first time I interviewed or met an ornithologist, Corina Newsome. She was so passionate about things she’s doing to help birds. She helps protect the birds in this world and shares the tips of what kids can do in their real life to help birds during, for example, migration, period. 

I was just fascinated. I was struggling to answer questions because every time she’d finish her answer, I was gobsmacked. She made me think about what I’ve just heard. So I loved it. She was contagious with her passion for birds, which is not really my thing. After I listened to it I thought birds were amazing. I’m gonna go out and look for birds now. That was my favorite. 

Passionate About Podcasts

I’d like to add how passionate I feel about producing podcasts for kids.

This is something I haven’t touched on and I’ve discovered this passion for creating content for kids. It is something totally new to me. If someone had told me, you’re gonna work in the kids’ space and create content for kids a couple of years ago, I would not have believed them.  I thought, I’m working in defense, writing about missiles, these are two completely different worlds. It’s so rewarding. 

This year we started receiving real feedback from kids and parents. It sometimes made me cry, when they share true emotions and feelings that our episodes generated in them. It’s beautiful. They share drawings. They share poems when we ask them to share a poem with us, or try to write a poem. They sing along and they put videos on social media and tag us. When we teach kids about how to do something, sustainable fashion, for example, how to reuse your clothes, and they do it, it is so rewarding.