Educational shows for preschoolers and older toddlers on YouTube

Your 3-year-old has discovered that the tablet plays cartoons, and you would like the twenty minutes they get to count for something. So you search for educational shows for toddlers and find lists that mix baby sensory videos with shows for 8-year-olds, plus a dozen channels you have never heard of.

The best educational shows for older toddlers and preschoolers are slow, repetitive and made by people who understand how 3- to 5-year-olds learn: Sesame Street, Numberblocks, Peep and the Big Wide World, StorylineOnline, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and a handful more. All of them have official YouTube channels, and all of them are listed below by what they teach, with the age each one suits. The list starts at about 3, for a reason explained first.

If you want your child's tablet to play only these channels, with no Shorts, no autoplay and no recommendations between the episodes, Pepelly shows a child only the channels you chose, and the free plan comes with a starter pack for 3 to 5. More on that at the end.

Educational shows for toddlers start at about 3

"Toddler" usually means a child between 1 and 3. For most of that span, the advice from paediatricians is not a better show but no show.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, in its 2016 statement Media and Young Minds, advises against screen media for children younger than 18 to 24 months, apart from video chatting with family. Children that young learn from people and objects they can touch, not from a screen on their own. From about 18 months, the academy says parents who want to introduce media should pick high-quality programmes and watch them together, because a child learns from a show when an adult repeats and explains what it says.

The World Health Organization goes a step further in its 2019 guidelines for children under 5. For 1-year-olds it recommends no sedentary screen time at all. For 2- to 4-year-olds it sets an upper limit of one hour a day, and adds that less is better.

So this guide is written for older toddlers from about 3 and for preschoolers up to 5 or 6. If your child is younger, the most educational thing you can do with twenty minutes is read a picture book twice. The shows below will still be there next year.

What makes a show educational at this age

For a 3- to 5-year-old, a few things separate the shows that teach from the ones that only look like it.

One idea per episode. A 4-year-old can hold one new thing at a time: the letter B, the number five, what happens when ice melts. Shows that race through ten topics teach none of them.

Slow pace and real pauses. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises avoiding fast-paced programmes for young children, and a 2011 study by Lillard and Peterson found that 4-year-olds did worse on attention and self-control tasks straight after nine minutes of a fast cartoon. Educational content delivered at speed is still fast content. Our guide to low-stimulation shows for toddlers and preschoolers explains how to see pace in a show, and many of the channels below appear there with a calm rating.

Talking to the child, not at them. The shows that work best at this age ask a question and wait. Fred Rogers did it in the 1960s and Daniel Tiger does it now. The pause is where the learning happens, especially if you are sitting next to your child and answer too.

Repetition without embarrassment. Preschoolers want the same episode five times. A good educational show is built for that: the same song, the same structure, a slightly new idea each time.

A clear end. An episode that ends gives a child a natural stopping point and gives you a moment to talk about it. On YouTube, that end is exactly what compilations and autoplay take away, and the last section is about keeping it.

With those five things in mind, here are the channels, grouped by what they teach. Every channel is the official one, run by the broadcaster, studio or creator, and every pick comes from our own catalogue, put together by hand.

Letters, words and stories

StorylineOnline (youtube.com/@StorylineOnline) has actors from the SAG-AFTRA Foundation reading picture books aloud, with the book's own illustrations on screen and very little animation. A child hears a whole story read with expression, sees the pictures long enough to look around in them, and often asks for the book afterwards. Suits 3 to 7.

Brightly Storytime (youtube.com/@BrightlyStorytime) is Penguin Random House's read-aloud channel. The words appear on screen as they are read, so a 4- or 5-year-old who is starting to notice letters can follow along at reading pace. Pick the single books rather than the collections. Suits 3 to 6.

Sesame Street (youtube.com/@SesameStreet) is Sesame Workshop's main channel and still the most researched preschool show in the world. The short segments about a letter of the day, a word or a feeling are the ones to pick: each is a few minutes long and does one thing. The channel is busier than it looks, with frequent cuts and a song in most segments, and it also posts hour-long blocks, so check the length. Suits 3 to 5.

Little Fox - Kids Stories and Songs (youtube.com/@LittleFoxKids) reads classic stories slowly and clearly, with simple animation. It is made for young children learning English, which makes it a gentle choice for any 3- to 5-year-old, and a good one for bilingual families. Suits 3 to 6.

Khan Academy Kids (youtube.com/@KhanAcademyKids) posts short read-alouds and early-learning videos from the non-profit behind the app of the same name. The videos are calm, short and built around early reading and counting. Suits 3 to 5.

Numbers and early maths

Numberblocks (youtube.com/@Numberblocks) is the BBC and Blue Zoo series in which each number is a character made of that many blocks. When Three and Two hold hands they become Five, and a child sees why, not just that they do. The single five-minute episodes are the ones to watch; the channel also posts long compilations. The pace is medium, with bright colours and songs, so it suits the afternoon better than bedtime. Suits 3 to 6.

Alphablocks, from the same makers, does the same for letters and phonics: each letter is a character with its own sound, and words appear when they stand together. For a 4- or 5-year-old starting to blend sounds, it is the closest thing to a phonics lesson that a child asks to watch. Suits 4 to 6.

Science and the natural world

Peep and the Big Wide World (youtube.com/@PeepWGBH) is WGBH's preschool science show. Three small birds explore puddles, shadows, ramps and sounds, with simple drawings and dry narration, and then real children try the same thing in a short live-action segment. It teaches the habit of trying things out, which is what science is at this age. It is calm, and it is the show we would name first for a curious 3- or 4-year-old. Suits 3 to 5.

Tractor Ted (youtube.com/@TractorTed) is real farm footage filmed steadily and narrated simply: lambing, harvest, how milk gets from a cow to a bottle. Children who love vehicles learn where food comes from along the way. The channel posts long blocks too, so look for the single films. Suits 3 to 5.

Discover, Grow, Bloom with Garden Marcus (youtube.com/@gardenmarcuskids) is a gardener planting seeds, watering and waiting, at the pace of a toddler. The low-stimulation style is deliberate, and it is one of the few channels where a child can watch something grow over several episodes. Suits 3 to 5.

Puffin Rock (youtube.com/@PuffinRock) tells gentle nature stories about a puffin family on an Irish island. Each episode has a small piece of real natural history in it, from tides to hibernation, told softly with long stretches of just wind and sea. It is also a good last show before bed. Suits 3 to 6.

Octonauts (youtube.com/@Octonauts) follows an undersea rescue crew, and every episode is about a real creature, with a short factual song at the end. Rescues bring quicker cuts and alarm sounds, so it is a daytime show rather than a wind-down one. Suits 4 to 7.

Feelings and getting along with others

For a preschooler, learning to wait, to share and to name a feeling matters as much as letters, and a few shows teach it better than any lecture.

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (youtube.com/@MisterRogersNeighborhood) has Fred Rogers' original episodes. He talks straight to the child about feeling angry, about the first day of school, about how crayons are made, with long quiet scenes and real pauses. It is the calmest channel on this page, and for many families the one a 3-year-old comes back to. Suits 3 to 5.

Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is the animated series Fred Rogers Productions built on his work, and each episode takes one situation, such as trying a new food or being angry, and gives a short strategy song a child can hum later. It is slow, soft and spoken at a 4-year-old's pace. Full episodes are on PBS KIDS and its official channels, and the strategy songs are the clips worth finding. Suits 3 to 5.

Kiri and Lou (youtube.com/@KiriandLou) is a New Zealand clay-animation series about two friends in a forest, one anxious and one bold, working out big feelings with simple sets and slow dialogue. Each episode is a few minutes long and ends with a song. Suits 3 to 5.

Bluey (youtube.com/@BlueyOfficialChannel) is the Australian series about a family of dogs who play imaginative games, and most episodes are quietly about patience, losing gracefully or saying sorry. It is not slow, and the official channel posts long compilations next to the short clips, so pick single episodes or the book read-alouds. Whether it counts as low stimulation is answered in our pace ratings for 12 popular kids' shows. Suits 3 to 8.

Songs, movement and a mixed bag

Cosmic Kids Yoga (youtube.com/@CosmicKidsYoga) is story-led yoga: Jaime tells a story and the child acts it out in poses, then the episode ends with a short moment of calm. It is the channel to open on a rainy afternoon when everyone needs to move. Suits 3 to 8.

Gruffalo World (youtube.com/@GruffaloWorld) has the animated films of Julia Donaldson's picture books, from The Gruffalo to Room on the Broom, at a storybook pace with quiet scores. For a child who knows the books, watching the film and then reading the book again is a real literacy exercise. A few scenes are tense, so watch the first one together. Suits 3 to 6.

CBeebies (youtube.com/@cbeebies) is the BBC's preschool channel, with full episodes, songs and the CBeebies Bedtime Story read by a familiar face. It is a broad, trustworthy mix in one place, and the bedtime stories are a calm end to the day. Suits 3 to 5.

Five shows to start with

Fewer channels make choosing easy and keep the videos predictable. If you are setting up a tablet for a 3- or 4-year-old this evening, these five cover reading, maths, science, feelings and songs, and all of them are calm or medium in pace:

1. StorylineOnline for stories and words.
2. Numberblocks for numbers, in single episodes.
3. Peep and the Big Wide World for science and trying things out.
4. Mister Rogers' Neighborhood or Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood for feelings.
5. Sesame Street for a bit of everything, in short clips.

Add Puffin Rock or Garden Marcus if your child needs winding down, and Cosmic Kids Yoga if they need the opposite. Children differ, so watch the first episode of each together and drop what does not land. For older brothers and sisters, our list of the best educational YouTube channels for kids, by age and subject continues from 6 upward, and the best YouTube channels for kids covers all three age bands in one place.

How to keep them educational on YouTube

A good channel can still make a bad afternoon. Three things on YouTube work against the episode that ends.

Compilations. Most of the channels above post one- and two-hour blocks next to the single episodes. Titles with "full episodes", "compilation" or "2 HOURS" are the obvious ones; some long videos have no hint at all. On a preschool channel, anything over about twenty minutes is usually a compilation. Check the length on the tile before you press play, and say the number of episodes out loud before the first one starts.

Autoplay. When an episode ends, YouTube can start the next video, and the next video is chosen by an algorithm, not by you. On your own account you can switch autoplay off in Settings. For a supervised account or a YouTube Kids profile, a parent can turn on Disable autoplay in Family Center.

Recommendations and Shorts. The home feed, the sidebar and the end screen keep suggesting more, and the Shorts feed has no end at all. Every setting YouTube offers against this is in our guide to YouTube parental controls. How far you can disable Shorts on YouTube for a child, device by device, has its own guide.

For children up to about 8, the closest YouTube's own tools come to a fixed list is YouTube Kids with Approve content yourself switched on. You choose the channels and videos, and search is off. It does not hide compilations from approved channels, and its selection is smaller than main YouTube, so a channel you want may not be there.

Watching together matters most. The American Academy of Pediatrics is clear that children under 5 learn from a show when an adult talks with them about it, and that one question afterwards ("what did Peep find in the puddle?") does more than a second episode. Count in episodes rather than minutes, as our screen time rules for kids, by age suggest, and keep the hour before bed for books.

Watching only these channels

Pepelly is a video player for children from 3 to 12 that shows only the YouTube channels you approved. You can start from a starter pack for 3 to 5, which includes calm channels like the ones above, and add or remove channels by search or by pasting a link. Your child sees the newest video from every channel first and what they have already watched last, and nothing else: no Shorts, no autoplay, no recommendations, no comments. Compilations and very long videos are hidden by default, with a length limit that fits the age band, so the "2 HOURS" block never appears on a 3-year-old's screen. When an episode ends, Pepelly's own screen offers "watch again" or "back to my videos".

The free plan covers one child and ten channels, which is enough for the five shows above plus a few favourites, with a daily limit you set. Videos play in the official YouTube player, and Pepelly does not remove YouTube ads. Pepelly is not affiliated with YouTube or Google. See how Pepelly works or pricing.