Ask HN: Is there any “PBS Kids” alternatives these days? I think that was the only channel that had the perfect mix of education and being attractive for children, that got discontinued. Any other alternative’s? |
Ask HN: Is there any “PBS Kids” alternatives these days? I think that was the only channel that had the perfect mix of education and being attractive for children, that got discontinued. Any other alternative’s? |
I just installed it and don’t have that subscription. Thanks got the recommendation.
Reading to her is much better. That one on one attention is a drug.
And "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" kicks ass. Have the "Princess Bride", "Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nihm" and "Rascal" lined up.
Roblox and Minecraft are great too, if you just want a time sink with a little creativity. Can teach them to build their own game with Roblox. My 6 year old is a little too young yet, didn't go well when I tried. She likes to play though.
Best of luck....
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vTMF6xEiAaY
I've seen a lot of critical articles. I find them to describe a completely different experience than we have had.
The fact that it is hard to get attention for your games is just a good life lesson, when the kids grow up and decide to be youtubers they will learn it then too. That's not a bad thing.
Meanwhile they get very creative games for free (more creative / fun than the traditional video games out there), a free development environment to play and learn on.
It's about kids spending their bought ingame-currency for ingame things... which is the whole point of buying it. If you don't like it just don't buy the ingame currency for your kids.
And then it's about kids being used as unpaid game developpers because they had fun creating games.
What makes you think that?
It is alive and well for me. In the US.
My family lives and dies on the TV channel, video app, the games app, and the roku app. I've never found anything nearly as high quality / dedicated to education / learning... just seem to actually care about the end customer (kids). I'm a happy member of my local PBS station.
you would be in control of what they can and cannot watch, there wont be any ads, your kids wont be exposed to "stuff" which overall is a nice thing.
i remember doing this back in 2015 when i had a bunch of kids at home and internet was scarce. Now, there are no kids in the household so i stopped maintaining the library
I don't have kids but my friends do and the content that they watch is insultingly low quality.
I like the idea that you can set up a media server with only what you choose and turn the kids loose on it. They can go nuts because it's only content you've chosen.
i remember finding old charlie chaplin movies torrent, "all movies", or classics.
then, most of the modern animated movies/shows that has been curated from imdb/commonsensemedia
i know i know the whole piracy thing, people are put off by "tools" because "it could be used to stream pirated media" but that is honestly the end users responsibility.
PBS KIDS is definitely not discontinued. Like other people mentioned, they have pbskids.org, the PBS KIDS Video App, and the PBS KIDS Games app (TONS of games from Wild Kratts and other fun shows) - all free in the app store and no ads. Their video and game content is also downloadable so you can take stuff on road trips. The video app is also available across a lot of streaming devices like ROKU, Apple TV, Amazon TV Fire, Samsung TV, etc.
One is genuinely rather confused as to exactly what it is with which you take umbrage.
Similarly now with Bluey (Aussie show) and us occasionally saying Brekky for breakfast.
Have been really impressed with the CBeebies family of apps.
Also worth a look: Khan Academy Kids, but it doesn’t seem to hold the attention quite as long.
On the downside it's geo restricted, may require mad proxy skillz, and could possibly turn your children into leftist socialist communists that want a country with democracy, equality and long term consistent economic returns.
There's PBS kids shows in spirit like Daniel Tiger, Tumble Leaf, Octonauts, Llama llama, Bluey, Puffin Rock, and many more.
I watch an episode first to make sure it is something educational and not too "entertaining". I'm personally in the camp that if something is too entertaining, you aren't learning much. i.e. Cocomelon, Sesame Street, etc.
PBS Kids has at least two free apps: one video streaming, and one educational games. Both are great.
Sensical [1] is a free streaming service/app that only includes content that meet Common Sense Media criteria. Common Sense Media [2] rates/reviews media for quality and age-appropriateness.
Kanopy [3] 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.
YouTube Kids [4] 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
Enough with the streaming video. For educational but fun apps, I recommend:
PBS Kids Games, as mentioned before.
Khan Academy Kids [5].
Teach Monster: Reading for Fun [6].
NumberBlocks/Alphablocks [7] 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.
[2] https://www.commonsensemedia.org/
[3] https://www.kanopy.com/en/kids
[4] https://www.youtubekids.com/
[5] https://learn.khanacademy.org/khan-academy-kids/
Plus my daughter found the most annoying whiny crybaby shows in her feed in Yt kids.
Yt kids has now been removed from all devices.
Regular YouTube with certain subscriptions/playlists are better
* https://www.aftvnews.com/downloader/
* https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.esaba.down...
( AKA "com.esaba.downloader" in Google App Store )
and use that to d/load and sideload a YouTube app that doesn't inject adverts and sponser blurts midstream:
( See:
https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext
Read: Installation )
Isn't that illegal in many areas? In the EU you basically can't target ads towards kids.
That being say: YouTube Kids is generally terrible and there's little reason to prefer it over the regular YouTube.
https://www.abc.net.au/classic/read-and-watch/music-reads/fi...
And really, the Australian pronunciation of "cache" (like 'keish') is downright superior.
[1]: https://www.abc.net.au/melbourne/programs/breakfast/aussie-a...
How are toys advertised to children in the EU?
What you can do is create something like Paw Patrol. The show is a product in its own right, but really it's a massive ad for their line of toys. You can also get catalogs from toy stores, I don't know if they are allowed to mail them out, or if they don't do it because of cost.
spit-takes tea
drops biscuit
Ghastly!
Good time to learn a lesson.