The third season of National Geographic Kids’ exploration series Weird But True! premieres Friday, August 14th, as a Disney+ original series. Charlie is back with a new co-host, his best friend Carlie. Charlie’s sister Kirby is still on the show as well, along with her friends Patrick and Bob. Through thirteen episodes, releasing one week at a time, kids will go on exciting adventures with Charlie and Carlie to learn about fun subjects.
Weird but True! is famous for its handmade esthetic, using arts and crafts projects to bring subjects to life. For example, in an upcoming episode called “Our Solar System,” Charlie stands in the middle of a dark room with giant homemade planets as he teaches kids about each one. He also goes over the various non-planetary parts of our solar system and the Oort Cloud that surrounds it, made with glittery fabric.
Each episode also includes an exciting field trip. The season premiere, “Dinosaurs,” brings them to the Dinosaur National Monument in Utah where they meet with a paleontologist named Rebecca Hunt-Foster. They join her for a dinosaur fossil excavation and learn a part of the process that’s rarely covered in kids programs, protecting the fossils with gauze and a papier-mâché-like substance before lifting them out of the ground.
The show has a lot of fun with itself and gets pretty silly at times while still remaining educational and exciting. For example, the “Dinosaurs” episode teaches kids about different species through a Hollywood-style Dinosaur Walk of Fame where they look at dinosaur footprints in cement. It also debunks some Hollywood myths about dinos, such as raptors being about the size of a turkey and having feathers.
With so many families doing at-home learning this year, a new season of Weird but True! from National Geographic Kids couldn’t come at a better time. The first two seasons are already streaming on Disney+ and thirteen new episodes will be joining them, covering the following topics: dinosaurs, national parks, farming, germs, photography, trains, venomous animals, our solar system, cooking, explorers, scuba diving, camping, and rockets.
Weird but True is exactly the kind of screen time you want your kids to have and parents can use it to help build up an at-home science curriculum. The official Weird but True! website contains lots of great resources and short-form content that can help and there’s also a book series. Parents might even learn a thing or two and if not, Charlie and Carlie have some fun pop culture references to things like Indiana Jones and The Twilight Zone.
I give Weird but True! 5 out of 5 cardboard cutout stars painted yellow.
The first two seasons of Weird but True! are now streaming. Season three begins August 14th only on Disney+.