Educational TV

jam17032010

I have a little girl (just gone 2) who loves Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig and Ben & Holly. But I came across a cartoon called Team Umizoomi the other day and, as a dad who likes his maths, I was mightily impressed.

Lots of numeracy (counting, measuring, units, shapes, patterns etc) and colours.

It really got me thinking that the cartoons she was watching were such a waste of time.

I did a search on some other edu kids tv and found another programme called Daniel Tiger which teaches some emotional development lessons and obviously Sesame Street does numbers and letters. Is it still on though? Haven't come across it.

Does anyone else have any suggestions? Maybe we could summarise at th end like this:

Team Umizoomi: Numeracy & Colour
Daniel Tiger: Emotional Development
Sesame Street: Letters and Numbers

Moonbeam

My kids love Number Jacks,Little Einsteins and Alpha Blocks too.

mdwexford

Sounds interesting, I'm also a dad who likes maths.

My little fella is two tomorrow and is currently a Bob the Builder and Fireman Sam addict.

What channel is it on?

jam17032010

mdwexford wrote: »

Sounds interesting, I'm also a dad who likes maths.

My little fella is two tomorrow and is currently a Bob the Builder and Fireman Sam addict.

What channel is it on?

Nick Jr. Do a search for it on the sky box and it should come up.

cyning

Team Umizoomi is on Netflix too

More a musical education but each episode of the new Beat Bugs on Netflix revolves around a Beatles song!

I like Sid the Science kid too: again on Netflix. In general we watch more Netflix because there's less ads and less I want I want I want

jlm29

Don't forget blaze and the monster machines.
My 4 yr old is constantly walking around the house singing "adhesion, the reason, two different things stick together". It drives me a bit nuts! I've also heard them talk about trajectory (I'm not going to lie, I haven't a clue what that is), angles, and a few other quite impressive bits!

Those Daniel tiger songs are awful catchy too!

olaola

Sesame Street is on Sat & Sun mornings on UTV. I have it set to record, the two year old was on the Luas the other day, and pointed out - 'Mama, look at the rhombus' this was after a shapes episode of SS!

Jessme

Peg & Cat is great - a lot of maths (addition & subtraction), shapes etc. You can find it on Tiny Pop. Actually one of the programmes I don't mind sitting through for the umpteenth time!

Moonbeam

I was watching Beat Bugs at the weekend,the 1st episode is Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

yellow hen

Moonbeam wrote: »

I was watching Beat Bugs at the weekend,the 1st episode is Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

Clearly it's never too early to teach your kids about lsd!!

cyning

Never! Ah I love the Beatles I was so born in the wrong decade

There's the Monster Math Squad too for numbers aswell. I've only watched 1 episode I think as my 2 year old is beyond petrified of the orange monster for some reason.

Judge Trudy

I got so fed up of some of the useless cartoons on TV when my daughter was younger that I downloaded loads of educational apps onto the iPad and if she's going to get any screen time, I would prefer to give her the iPad now than switch on the telly. She still watches a bit of telly but she gets more out of the iPad and I switch off WiFi so she can't any videos on.

Mink

Really must watch that Beat Bugs soon - anything that has Eddie Vedder singing a Beatles song in it has my vote.

We stick to Netflix, youtube and cbeebies as well - no ads or very few ones and they're not toy related.

On youtube there's a couple cartoons by Coilbook that are great for letters, counting, shapes, colours.
They talk very clearly and animation is great. Max the Glow Train is one of the main characters and a lot of them are based around trains which suits my child.

He's mad into his cylinders and hexagons now

fro9etb8j5qsl2

My little ones love Mr Tumble and his sign language and Squiglet who teaches basic drawing and writing alphabet letters. Both on cbeebies. Mother Goose on Netflix is great too.

livinsane

I wholly recommend letting them watch animated nursery rhymes on Youtube. My almost 3 year old isn't really into cartoons (went through a Peppa Pig and Ben and Holly phase but he won't watch them now, much to my dismay as I love a bit of Nanny Plum) but he's obsessed with nursery rhymes, particularly phonics songs. It's incredible what he has learned through them - has known the alphabet since before his second birthday and actually has a proper understanding of the letters. Knows all the phonics sounds and regularly will tell you the first letter of a random word. His actual sentence formation in normal conversation wasn't great until lately but he's been able to recite whole rhymes for a long time. He customises the rhymes to apply them to people he knows, objects etc. He can count to 20, knows all the colours. It's been great for his vocab too because the traditional rhymes use some archaic terms and slightly more complicated words than we'd normally teach them. Plus they are great fun to use in everyday life. I've spent many hours pushing him around the garden in his Little Tykes car singing The Wheels on the Bus.

Best channels are:
Dave and Ava - for cuteness, lovely animation
Kidstv123 - I would listen to this guys voice all day - especially great for the phonics
Teehee town - muppet like puppets, funky music
Hooplakidz - lovely voices, sweet songs
Appuseries - great mix of well known rhymes and weird ones
Chu Chu Tv - wicked remixes and weird muscly children characters that start to look cute the longer you watch them

contrary_mary

jlm29 wrote: »

Don't forget blaze and the monster machines.
My 4 yr old is constantly walking around the house singing "adhesion, the reason, two different things stick together". It drives me a bit nuts! I've also heard them talk about trajectory (I'm not going to lie, I haven't a clue what that is), angles, and a few other quite impressive bits!

Trajectory is the path that something follows.
Trajectory - when it's flying through the air!

Ridiculously catchy songs in Blaze. I find myself singing about friction and inertia on a daily basis!

iguana

Blaze is amazing! I was not a fan until the day my 3 year old was playing with his bow and arrow and explained to me that he was working out the trajectory the arrow would take. And that when he pulled than the bow the arrow would have potential energy, then when he let it go the energy would become kinetic. He also explained that when the arrow stuck to it's target it's because of adhesion (the arrows are the kind with suckers.) I was floored that he could understand such concepts. I would never, ever have imagined a three year old could actually understand things like that.

I'm not so enamoured by his commentary when I'm driving though. I only started driving 6/7 weeks ago and still stall quite a bit when I stop in traffic and when I do S is quite the back seat driver. 'What are you doing Mummy? Why are we stopped? We need acceleration! You need to press the accelerator so we can achieve the right velocity. Come on Mummyyyyyyyyyy.'