SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine — What do a fairy, puppets, and a production crew full of Mainers all have in common?
They're all the ingredients Chickadee Daycare and Learning Centers needed to cook up a new educational show for toddlers.
Hollis McLachlan owns the South Portland daycares and also came up with the idea for the show Fairy's House.
"This little germ of a seed into this beautiful, slow-paced, intentional program for toddlers," McLachlan said.
The show follows Fairy, who McLachlan plays herself, and her puppet pals Munk, Bunny, and Chickadee as they learn lessons and explore toddler-friendly concepts.
Along with Fairy's House, Chickadee TV was born.
"It took approximately a year and a half of research, thoughtful, intentional research, both with child psychologists and with early childhood educators, to make this final product," McLachlan said.
Daycare co-owner and producer on Fairy's House, Amy Crowley, said everything about the show is intentional.
"From how the puppets look to how they sound, the tone in which the cast members use when they're speaking, and it's all based in research and theory from child development," Crowley said.
Crowley added that the goal is to engage the children watching without it being over-stimulating for them.
"Things like Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, the puppets from Sesame Street, if you look at that, there aren't many frames per minute, as they call them," Crowley explained. "Some of those other shows have 90 frames per minute, which means that you're seeing the frame change more than once a second."
From the cast to the production crew, Mainers filled the roster.
Some of the crew even worked on Sesame Street. One member was even a 2024 Fred Rogers Writers' Neighborhood fellow.
As for the puppets on Fairy's House, the trio Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers are the hands and voices behind them.
The first season of Fairy's House is seven episodes long. Chickadee TV anticipates the show will be ready to air by the end of next summer and will be available on YouTube.
The folks with Chickadee TV are also exploring the idea of getting Fairy's House on Maine PBS.