As Canadian broadcasters continue banking on pre-school TV series to build audiences, Treehouse has ordered a third cycle of the This is… franchise from co-producers Sinking Ship Entertainment and marblemedia.

And the CBC has ordered a new local version of the popular British pre-school series Bookaboo (pictured), to be co-produced by Quebec producer Cite Amerique and U.K. partner Happy Films.

Two new hosts will be attached to the third season of This is…, which got off the ground with the popular This is Daniel Cook and This is Emily Yeung series.

Production begins this summer on 52 seven-minute episodes of This is…, with a tentative fall 2013 launch on Treehouse.

Each episode of This Is… features a pre-school host exploring and sharing new-found knowledge with other kids.

Elsewhere, FremantleMedia Enterprises has hammered out two Canadian deals for a new version of Bookaboo, an award-winning pre-school series that aired on CITV in Britain.

Happy Films, the original series producer, will partner with Montreal-based Cite Amerique to co-produce 28 eleven-minute episodes of a new Bookaboo series for CITV and ITV in the UK and CBC in Canada.

The second deal is a format agreement that will see Radio-Canada and TFO order 26 eleven-minute episodes of Bookaboo in the French language.

Bookaboo combines puppetry, live action and CGI animation, and the new Canadian version of the show will feature Canadian celebrities, authors and illustrators urging young TV viewers to share books at home.