Media Options for Little Kids
Here is what I found are decent quality media for a Preschool-Kindergarten range:
Video
PBS Kids has at least two free apps: one video streaming, and one educational games. Both are great.
Sensical is a free streaming service/app that only includes content that meet Common Sense Media criteria. Common Sense Media rates/reviews media for quality and age-appropriateness.
Kanopy is a streaming service/app that is freely available through many libraries. It has a walled-off kids area with movies, shows, and videobooks that are not garbage. I have no concerns letting my kid loose in the kids area to choose among that content.
Netflix has some decent content, but you have to curate it. In particular, Octonauts, Octonauts Above & Beyond, Creature Capers, Storybots, Number blocks, Magic School Bus, Thomas the Tank Engine.
YouTube Kids is a free streaming service/app that can be terrible or decent. To be decent, you must curate the content yourself (rather than the algorithm) so you have to find and add “channels” or even individual videos, and remove them when they are outgrown. Some channels I found are…
YTK General: PBS Kids (collection of 5 channels), Sesame Studios (collection of 6 channels), Khan Academy Kids, Bluey, Deep Look, PBS Space Time, TheDadLab, Super Sema, Mystery Doug, Brainzy Games, The Kiboomers [for toddlers]
YTK Animals: Nat Geo Kids, The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, Animal Wonders Montana, San Diego Zoo, BBC Earth Kids
YTK Drawing: Super Simple Draw, Muffalo Potato, Draw So Cute, Art for Kids Hub, drawstuffrealeasy, Red Ted Art
Get Joshua Eddy’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
YTK Chinese*: 海底小纵队 (Octonauts), 睡衣小英雄-官方频道 (PJ Mask), Fantawild Animation Official Chinese Channel, 小猪佩奇 中文官方 (Peppa Pig), Pocoyo — 中文, 半頁有聲繪本CLOV Picture Book, 变形警车珀利TV 中文 (transforming police car), Super Truck — 汽车城中文, 巧虎TV(台灣巧連智官方頻道), Little Chinese Learners [Simplified Chinese]
*I can’t testify about the education quality of the Chinese content. I’m looking for engaging content in mainland Chinese for little one to learn.
Educational Games
For educational — but fun — apps I recommend:
PBS Kids Games, as mentioned before.
Teach Monster: Reading for Fun.
NumberBlocks/Alphablocks have freemium game apps (NumberBlocks World, AlphaBlocks World) that combine the show and games. They also have lame free apps (MeetTheNumberBlocks, MeetTheAlphaBlocks) that I wouldn’t waste time on.
Where else to look and next steps
I want to look into these apps which I haven’t seen yet: PBS Play and Learn Science, Teach Monster Number Skills, Crayola Create and Play, and cBeebies. Also want to look into Australian Broadcasting Company kids channel on YouTube Kids.
I would also look for award-winning apps over the past few years: BETT awards, GESS education awards, BAFTA children’s, Children’s technology review editor’s choice, Parents Choice gold, Kidscreen awards.
