Why do we spend so much of our lives sleeping? Is anything happening in our brains while we sleep? Do animals sleep the same way we do? On this episode of The Children’s Hour, we explore the science of sleep with expert guests and our Kids Crew.
We spend about a third of our lives sleeping, but it’s far from wasted time! Our brains and bodies work hard while we rest. Neuroscientist Vishal Sumra joins us to explain how sleep helps our brains clean up, repair, and store memories. We also talk about dreaming and why some people remember their dreams while others forget them completely. Did you know we dream for about two hours every night?
Sleep doesn’t just help our brains—it’s important for our bodies, too! We learn how sleep helps muscles grow and keeps us feeling strong and healthy. But what happens when we don’t get enough sleep? We find out how lack of sleep can make us feel cranky, forgetful, and even sick.
ACTIVITY: Sleep Log and Dream Journal
In this activity, you will think about how your sleep is impacted by the kind of experiences you had during the day. Maybe your dreams have pieces of your daily life, or emotions that you are still processing.
By answering the questions and filling out this log and journal, you can explore how your emotions, daily stress and joys, energy and overall mood is influenced by your sleep. This activity prints on 3 pages.
Have you ever wondered how animals sleep? Do sharks really sleep with their eyes open? Author Stephen J. Simmons shares stories from his book Where Do Ocean Creatures Sleep at Night? and tells us about the different ways animals sleep underwater.
Plus, our Kids Crew shares their own sleep stories and questions, and we have a book review from Max! And, of course, we’ve got great music to learn even more.
This episode was written and produced by Katie Stone with help from Sarah Gabrielli and Thaniel Lentz. Chad Scheer is our recording engineer at Outpost Performance Space. The learning tools were created by Ronnie Reynolds.
The Children’s Hour is a production of The Children’s Hour Inc., a New Mexico-based nonprofit. Our show is distributed by Native Voice One: The Native American Radio Network.
© 2025 The Children’s Hour Inc., All Rights Reserved.
Please note: not all songs we play can be found in Spotify.
Playlist: Sleep
| title | artist | album |
|---|---|---|
| I'm Only Sleeping | The Beatles | Revolver |
| I'm Not Sleeping In (Cuz It's Saturday) | The Verve Pipe | Are We There Yet? |
| Weird Weird Dream | Caspar Babypants | Easy Breezy! |
| DreamDreamDream | Jessica Harper | Hey, Picasso |
| Sleep (Instrumental) | Kimya Dawson | Juno (Music from the Motion Picture) [Deluxe Edition] |
| Dreaming Again | Secret Agent 23 Skidoo | Wake Up the Dream |
| Science of Sleep | The Pop Ups | Giants of Science |
| It's Time To Sleep | The Beatbuds | The BeatBuds, Vol. 2 (Remastered) |
| OUTRO: Father Goose Sleepwalk | The Re-Bops | WHAT IS IT? Musical Math & Science |
| The Lion Sleeps Tonight | Lion L. Richie | Barnyard Beat |
| Go To Sleep | John Legend | My Favorite Dream |
| Where Would The Animals Sleep? | William Shatner | Where Will The Animals Sleep? Songs For Kids And Other Living Things |
| Most of What We Do Is Sleep | The Relative Minors | Most of What We Do Is Sleep - Single |
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