Educational TV Shows for Kids

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TV has become a staple in our house. Every parent knows it’s a pandora’s box. Can’t really put that genie back in the bottle. It’s obviously a challenging parenting tool and it’s a crutch we are currently battling to revamp. In the effort to get a parent break and give kids something to do in the nebulous before and after dinner hours, this post tries to highlight some shows that you don’t feel SO badly about letting your kid(s) zone out to. A few even make you think, or count, or add, or actually pay attention. Which is nice.

Brain Candy (2-4+)

A great show focusing on science, math, letters, and vehicles that helps you feel a little less bad about your kids watching TV. Episodes range from dump trucks skip counting to how diggers are built, dinosaurs and history, monster trucks doing all kinds of things with colors, letters and numbers, and also a couple great space episodes. You can watch a bunch without getting tired of it, though the narrator guy’s voice can get a little grading after a while. I love it as do both my kids.

Magic Schoolbus (original)

The original MSB series is fantastic and like many things, still holds up being from 1980s/90s era. Centers around a grade school class with an eccentric teacher that goes on magical field trips exploring all manner of topics from science, to nature, human physiology, animals, weather, and more. Great original theme sung by Little Richard.

One season currently on Netflix, more on Youtube.

Magic Schoolbug Rides Again

Initially I wasn’t a fan. It was hard for me to get on board without Lily Tomlin voicing the famous Ms Frizzle. But my oldest suggested it one day, and I was pleasantly surprised. The new Frizz does a pretty good job, and the show more or less maintains consistency with the original. There are a few episodes focusing on pre-teen phenomena, selfies, devices, infatuation, but overall a good series.

Two seasons currently on Netflix, more on Youtube.

Daniel Tiger’s Neighbourhood

This show centers on a pre-k/pre-school age tiger navigating the joys and challenges of life, interacting with friends and learning how to manage feelings. It’s got lots in it for addressing common kid issues, sharing, anger, using the bathroom, playing with groups, etc. A word of warning: the show is song-heavy - in a broadway-musical kinda way. Every episode’s “lesson” is couched in a song. Some are decent. Many aren’t. But they all, good or bad, get repeated 100 times throughout the episode. And they all, good and bad, stay in your head. Whether you want them there or not. “Use your wor-or-or-ords, use your words!”, and “If you have to go potty, stop, and go right away!” are a couple classics.

We tried using the songs as intended to reinforce behaviours like, use your words, and if you have to go potty, stop and go right away. To date it hasn’t worked.

At last check available on Amazon Prime.

Octonauts

An excellent underwater cartoon revolving around a cast of bodacious ocean and eco-protecting animals. The series focuses on ocean-going storylines with each edpisode highlighting a different undersea animal. Many of them are lesser known creatures and I found myself learning about new animals alongside my kids. The show makes marine biology cool and interesting and a hefty number of episodes means you’ve got variety to maintain interest. The Octonauts: Above and Beyond spinoff and the Octonauts and the Great Barrier Reef movie featuring the same characters are also solid.

Currently on Netflix.

Bluey

Bluey is a beloved Australian classic featuring a family of dogs and their daily adventures. There’s a lot of great parenting stuff in it as both parents are very engaged and present and episodes run the gamut of modern parenting scenarios. It’s a great one for Dads especially, as Bandit, Bluey’s Dad, is heavily involved in the kids lives, playing, imagining, doing school/daycare dropoffs, helping, improvising, supporting, and general quality Dadding. One complaint is like many kids shows, episodes are short. After a few, the show becomes background noise and our kids get bored.

Currently 3 seasons on Disney+, also on Amazon Prime.

Mighty Machines

Mighty Machines is a multi-season show exploring the vast pantheon of big machines and vehicles. Episodes range from construction vehicles to airplanes, rescue vehicles, boats, trains, and more. Actors give voice to each digger as they explain what they do and how they do it. It’s another good one for having 25-30 minute episodes which both helps pass time, and keeps delicate kid attention spans from being assaulted with 10 second scenes.

Many episodes available on the Mighty Machines Youtube channel.

Ask the Storybots

A great show exploring a wide range of topics from How do you get colds to How do you make music and Where do planets come from. Fun characters and some actor cameos make it a good watch. One of the real highlights is the music. There are lots of great songs throughout the show, and a very special shout out goes to the dinosaur rap songs, as well as th - alphabet songs, with an impressive tune written for each letter. As a former professional musician, Storybots has some of the best kids music out there.

Currently 3 seasons on Netflix, more on Youtube.

Number Blocks

A good numbers and math-focused cartoon with some half-decent if not sometimes music-theatre-y, slightly overkill music. Geared toward slightly younger kids learning to count, it’s good for preschoolers as well. Currently one season on Netflix.

Coilbook

This is a youtube channel with great animated shows about construction, vehicles, farming, and more. They run in the 20-30 minute range, which I like, especially for Youtube, and not constantly exposing my kids to A.D.D-inspiring TV.

Tractor Ted

A favourite of both of my boys when they were younger, and my almost-3-year-old still likes it. Based around Tractor Ted, a cartoon tractor character living on a British farm, this show has surprisingly great original songs and you get to see a variety of farm animals, cool vehicles, and farm activities: wheat harvest, silage making, carrot harvest, blackcurrant harvest, cow feeding, and more. It’s a bit hard to find full episodes outside of Amazon Prime, and I believe there are only two seasons in production.

Nature Shows

We managed to avoid TV for the full first year, maybe year and a half, of my oldest’s life. But when it was time, we started with nature documentaries. He loved Orangutans and Bears. We watched a salmon-run/bear lifecycle episode on BBC/Discovery+ every day for maybe a year. When we got tired of that, we’d watch a Jungles episode with a great cast of animal characters, and other shows on primates featuring Orangutans.

One of the phenomenal things about them (based largely on BBC shows), is the slow moving cinematography and calm music. In contrast to the usual toddler-preschool type shows with tons of flashing, fast scene cuts, and crazy music, the nature docs have long, slow moving scenes, and mostly classical music for soundtrack. It’s something I continue to love about them.

Anything narrated by David Attenborough and/or on BBC

All of the Planet Earths, Nature’s Great Events, Life, etc.

Our Planet

A great two-season show with multiple episodes on different biomes/ecosystems and the animals that live therein.

Secret Life of Orangutans

Excellent show focusing on all aspects of Orangutan life, with a great cast of characters. narrated by David Attenborough, currently on Netflix.

Anything on Discovery+

Animal planet, some of the zoo-cam shows (can be boring and slow), most all of the animal docs are great.

Other shows

Peppa Pig

While not specifically educational, there are snippets of interesting stuff in this British classic that is still a favourite for my 5 and 3 year olds. I prefer the original series to the Peppa Pig Tales, but they are also decent. I prefer watching on Netflix as you avoid the compilation style videos on Youtube that have no intro/ending which makes watching addictive and near impossible to stop for little viewers.

Paw Patrol

Shout out to Dino Rescue and Big Truck Pups episodes. And despite the common complaints about the music and ubiquitousness of characters in everything from clothing to backpacks and lunchboxes, Paw Patrol episodes are on the longer side, 15-25+ minutes. While scenes change quickly in line with standard kid shows, the longer episodes encourage kids to follow a longer storyline, and work on maintaining an attention span without episodes starting and stopping every 4-5 minutes.

Rubble and Crew

This Paw Patrol spinoff is a fun watch and focuses more on construction with Rubble the builder pup and his extended family. They make bridges, bike shops, fix roads, make playgrounds and work as a team. My oldest doesn’t like Speedmeister, the character that “makes bad choices”, and honestly it’s a weird focus for cartoon writers to have a “bad guy” character that has to exist for the story to move forward.

Now on netflix, otherwise available on Prime and compilations on Youtube.

Bad Dinosaurs (2-4/5)

A great “silent” cartoon with no dialogue aside from grunts and snorts from a hilarious cast of dino characters. Centers on a family of T-rexes having myriad adventures. Parasorolophuses, Triceratopses, a farting ankylosaurus, a joker Pteranodon, Dimetrodons, Pachycepholosauruses and more. Episodes are not too short, not too long. It’s crass and slapstick, a decent filler. It’s not something you want to watch for hours, but not a bad show.

That’s it for now. I’ll keep adding as shows come into our orbit.