Ms. Rachel

Rachel Anne Accurso (née Griffin; born November 30, 1982), better known as Ms. Rachel, is an American educator, YouTuber, activist, and singer-songwriter. She created the eponymous YouTube series Ms. Rachel (originally known as Songs for Littles), a children's music series focused on language development for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.

Early and personal life Accurso (née Griffin) was born in Biddeford, Maine, and raised in Sanford, Maine. She was raised, along with her sister, by a single mother. As a teenager and young adult, she worked a variety of jobs, including working for a summer program for disabled children, teaching music to refugee children through the Boys & Girls Club in Maine, and working as a music teacher at a public preschool in New York City before starting her YouTube channel. She earned a master's degree in music education from New York University in 2016 and a second master's degree in early childhood education from the American College of Education.

Career Accurso started her YouTube channel in 2019 under the name Ms. Rachel. She and her husband created the channel in response to the lack of media resources for their son who had a speech delay and did not say his first word until he was two years old. She created Songs for Littles, a children's music YouTube series made up of a combination of classic children's songs, such as nursery rhymes, and original music for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. It was originally started as an in-person class led by Accurso and was inspired by the techniques of her son's early childhood intervention speech therapist with a focus on language development milestones and inclusive subject matter.

Songs for Littles features Accurso as the star, with her signature outfit of a pink shirt with overalls and a headband, actress Natalie Kaye Clater, and Accurso's husband Aron, the last of whom writes and arranges music for the series and operates two puppet characters named Georgie and Herbie. Accurso also became popular on TikTok as Ms. Rachel, where she had over two and a half million followers by March 2023. That same month, Accurso returned to TikTok while she and Songs for Littles were signed to Creative Artists Agency.

A Ms. Rachel toy line was announced in August 2024, which included a Ms. Rachel doll. The popularity of the doll led to knockoffs being sold prompting Accurso to post a guide on how to identify the real doll. Netflix premiered four compilation episodes of Ms. Rachel on January 27, 2025. For the first 6 months of 2025, Ms. Rachel was Netflix's 7th most viewed series and its single most viewed season of a children's show. A second season premiered in September 2025.

Activism Accurso announced a fundraising campaign in a video published in May 2024 to her TikTok and Instagram accounts. She offered to make videos on Cameo, a website that allows users to pay for a personalized video with a message of their choice, with all revenue from the videos going to Save the Children's emergency fund, mentioning the Gaza Strip, Sudan, Ukraine, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Accurso stated that she was bullied online in relation to her fundraising for the children of Gaza, stating that she cares "deeply for all children". She soon disabled comments on her YouTube and Instagram accounts. In May 2025, she posted a video of herself singing with a 3-year-old double amputee from Gaza who was brought to the US by the Palestine Children's Relief Fund. She told Democracy Now! that "it is difficult to receive criticism, but ... that pain will never compare to the pain of not speaking out during a genocide". In May 2025, The New York Times cited The New York Post as reporting that the advocacy group StopAntisemitism wrote a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi asking her to investigate whether Accurso was receiving funding to support Hamas. Accurso wrote to The New York Times that "This accusation is not only absurd, it's patently false," and "caring about children in Gaza is a direct continuation of the work I've been doing most of my life. We don't care about only some of our students because of where those students were born, we care about every one of them." She announced that she was "unsubscribing from The New York Times because of its biased and dehumanizing coverage of Palestinians and Palestine, and its failure to uphold journalistic integrity."

Accurso has spoken out against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detaining children. She launched a petition to close the Dilley Immigration Processing Center—a facility used to hold women and children—which gained over 324,000 signatures. Outstanding Writing for a Preschool or Children’s Series "Potty Training with Ms. Rachel"

Miscellaneous awards Year Award Category Work Result Ref. 2023 Streamy Awards Kids and Family Herself 2024 New York University Dorothy Height Distinguished Alumni Award 2025 Kids' Choice Awards Fan Favorite Kids' Creator Glamour Awards Woman of the Year (shared with Pat McGrath, Lexie Hull, Napheesa Collier, Jonquel Jones, Nyara Sabally and Satou Sabally)