20 Extremely Educational TV Shows for Kids

Here is a list of 20 extremely educational tv shows for kids. If you want your children to watch television that will make them smarter, then check out this list!

Do you ever have a sick day?  Or at least, you need to take a mental health day? But you don’t want your kids to just watch television all day and rot out their brains?

Hey y’all, Tiffany here.

We run into that quite frequently in our household.  I have Crohn’s disease, fibromyalgia, arthritis, and a host of other health issues – some days are just difficult days!

Why we need educational tv shows for kids

In our home, we do screen-free activities first but I don’t always have the energy for that.  We all hate the idea of sticking our kids in front of the TV, but sometimes it’s just necessary.  For some of us, it’s more necessary than others.

I have to admit, though. that I’m a bit of snob when it comes to television shows.  I think it has to do with how I was raised.  At my home (I’m the oldest of 10 kids), we were never allowed to watch TV or movies on a school night. 

Period.

On Saturdays, we could watch 30 minutes of TV after we had finished all of our chores and we didn’t fight over which show to watch.  On Sundays we were allowed to watch Disney or scripture-based movies.

(And forget about video or computer games!  I think I played Mario Brothers at a friend’s house when I was 9 once……)

Anyway, due to my screen-free childhood, the idea of my four kids watching non-educational shows for hours when I can’t get out of bed just makes me cringe.

List of educational tv shows for kids

To that end, I’ve come up with a list of my favorite educational TV shows that I’ll let me kids watch.  And no, these do not include Arthur or even Sesame Street.  Like I said, they need to actually be educational.

And for the record, PJ Masks doesn’t count, either.  (Snob, remember?)

And now, without further adieu, here’s my list of top educational shows (in no particular order). And if you like this list, you’ll love this post with educational graphic novels for kids.

1 – Curiosity Stream

Curiosity Stream is actually a collection of BBC and other videos on science, history, social studies, and more.  Some shows are animated, while others are documentaries. Most of them are for older kids.

2 – Cyberchase

Cyberchase is an educational kids television show for older children about a trio of friends who get put into the computer world by Mother Board, who is being attacked by Hacker.  They stop him from causing trouble with more upper-level math: multiplication, division, tables, and graphs.

3 – Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood

You should be familiar with Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and the Land of Make Believe with King Friday, Lady Elaine, and other characters.  Daniel Tiger is about the children in the Land of Make Believe. 

The cartoon characters are around four years old and go to preschool together.  They learn a lot about social skills and ways to deal with emotions from short songs (a line or two) that repeat throughout the show.

Even though my four children are older, we still refer to these frequently as we run into problems in the real world.

4 – DIY Sci

YouTube star and classroom science teacher Steve Spangler hosts his own national television series called (Xploration) DIY Sci on Amazon Prime (with PBS Kids). The weekly series features jaw-dropping science experiments viewers can do at home using easy to find materials that are guaranteed to create moments of wonder.

5 – Dinosaur Train

In Dinosaur Train, a mother pterodactyl has three eggs that hatch.  A fourth egg in her nest turns out to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and she decides to raise him with her children. 

They travel on the Dinosaur Train to other eras and locations to meet all of the different kinds of dinosaurs.  They learn the scientific names of dinosaurs, along with their characteristics and features.

6 – Kratt’s Creatures

Kratt’s Creatures is an educational tv show for kids that features the Kratt brothers, who are real-world animal experts.  They travel around the world to learn about animals.  Children learn a lot about different kinds of animals and their habitats.

7 – Leap Frog Letter Factory

Leap Frog Letter Factory taught my third child all of his letters and their sounds before turned three years old, and he was reading long before he turned four.

A young frog named Tad learns about the letters and the sounds they make as he goes through the factory that makes the alphabet.

8 – Let’s Go, Luna

The children of circus performers in Let’s Go, Luna travel around the world. In each place, they learn about the language, culture, and history of the country they’re visiting.

Luna – the moon – goes with them along their journey and teaches them, along with the people they encounter.

9 – Liberty’s Kids

In Liberty’s Kids, an educational television show for older children about the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin enlists the help of young people to record the happenings leading up to and during the Revolution for his newspaper the Pennsylvania Gazette. Together, they travel the colonies witnessing the sacrifices made for freedom.

10 – Little Pim

Little Pim is a panda who teaches children foreign languages.  There are over a dozen languages to choose from!

11 – Living Scriptures

Don’t let the name fool you – Living Scriptures offers much more than Bible stores!  There are dozens of videos on great figures from history, like Harriet Tubman, George Washington, da Vinci, Columbus, and more.

12 – Magic School Bus

A crazy teacher named Ms. Frizzle takes her school class on epic field trips to learn about science, nature, the human body, weather, and more in a – you got it – magic school bus.

13 – Magic School Bus Rides Again

Magic School Bus Rides Again is the educational sequel to Magic School Bus with Ms. Frizzle’s little sister and updated technology.

14 – Schoolhouse Rock

Schoolhouse Rock is an educational collection of videos that teach children about government, social studies, science, math, and more!  The premise behind the songs is that “Knowledge is Power!”

15 – Super Why

Super Why is an educational tv show for preschool kids that takes place in Fairy Tale Village, where there are a group children who are Super Readers.  These are the kids of classic story tale figures, like The Princess and the Pea.  They run into problems in their lives, and they look in a book to solve the issue.  Along the way, they learn letters, spelling, reading, and more.

16 – Team Umizoomi

Team Umi Zoomi is a team of tiny heros who travel around Umi City, solving problems with patterns, shapes, and numbers.  This educational television show for preschoolers teaches basic addition, subtraction, counting, pattern recognition, and shapes.

17 – Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum

In Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum, children will follow the adventures of Xavier Riddle, his sister Yadina, and their friend Brad as they travel back in time to meet real-life historical figures including Johann Sebastian Bach, Marie Curie, Mary Shelly, Harry Houdini, and many others!

18 – Wild Kratts

Based off of Kratt’s Creatures, Wild Kratts is an animated educational television show show about the Kratt Brothers.  For part of the show, they are cartoon characters who can use “creature power” to go into animals’ lairs, etc.  The other part of the show has live animals with the real Kratt brothers themselves.  Children learn a lot about different kinds of animals and their habitats.

19 – Word World

Word World is an animated educational tv show for children where the animal characters and their surroundings are made of letters that spell their words.

20 – Zoboomafoo

Zoboomafoo is yet another educational television show for kids from the Chris and Martin Kratt, only it’s geared towards preschoolers. They are helped by a puppet lemur named Zoboomafoo, affectionately called Zoboo.

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