Cre­ative home­school­ing – the best edu­ca­tion­al shows to stream online

The times they are a‑changing, but that doesn’t mean we should all throw our rou­tines out of the win­dow. We need our dai­ly rit­u­als to keep us hap­py and sane, and this is espe­cial­ly true for fam­i­lies with young children.

We need to find ways to keep those inquis­i­tive brains of theirs fuelled with plen­ty of curi­ous facts about the world. The inter­net offers a wealth of fab­u­lous resources for home­school­ing, as do some of our favourite stream­ing chan­nels. We’ve curat­ed a list of the best edu­ca­tion­al series to build into your dai­ly itin­er­ary. And we promise, they are just as fun for adults as they are for kids.

Cre­at­ed by ani­ma­tor, Adamu Waziri, Bino and Fido is a Niger­ian pre-school series which first start­ed online before mov­ing to Sky TV. It’s an uplift­ing edu­ca­tion­al show fol­low­ing sib­lings Bino and Fino on their many adven­tures through Africa. Cov­er­ing every­thing from gen­der stereo­types to the ancient man­u­scripts of Tim­buk­tu, it teach­es chil­dren about African his­to­ry and cul­ture, and strength of char­ac­ter through light-heart­ed storytelling.

This series prides itself in offer­ing a pos­i­tive and empow­er­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Africa your youngest lot will thor­ough­ly enjoy and learn from at the same time. While you’re not able to trav­el to the con­ti­nent, you can pre­pare your fam­i­ly for a future vis­it by immers­ing them in its culture.

The orig­i­nal Mag­i­cal School Bus cruised through the 1994 – 1997 PBS sphere, with Lily Tom­lin voic­ing Valerie Friz­zle, the eccen­tric dri­ver of the tit­u­lar bus. Decked out like a 1960s Phoebe Buf­fay type and guid­ing a group of chil­dren in Haight-Ash­bury style fash­ion through wild adven­tures, Friz­zle is the kind of upbeat teacher you want in your liv­ing room. She takes her kids and yours on fan­tas­ti­cal but fac­tu­al field trips through time, space and even the human body.

In one episode, Friz­zle and her bus might decide to use a student’s body as a dri­ve-thru to explore how diges­tion works, in anoth­er they’ll rock­et up to space to inves­ti­gate the plan­ets. In the spin-off series, The Mag­i­cal School Bus Rides Again (2017), Valerie’s younger sis­ter Fiona (Kate McK­in­non) takes over the steer­ing wheel.

If ever there was a plat­form to deliv­er beau­ti­ful lessons on dif­fer­ent musi­cal styles and facts, it’s the same that keeps our homes warm with con­tem­po­rary swing vibes: Post­mod­ern Juke­box. With its very own seg­ment for kids, the Post­mod­ern Juice­box, it encour­ages kids of all ages to explore dif­fer­ent kinds of music, its back­ground and mean­ing – like where did the blues come from and why do we asso­ciate it with feel­ing blue?

With the help of Clara Nett the pup­pet, host Tim Kubart and guest stars like Casey Abrams with his Zoo Shoe Blues, kids are invit­ed to dis­cov­er the won­der­ful world of music and per­haps, feel inspired to write their own lit­tle ditty.

Many of us grew up with Sesame Street, a pop-cul­ture clas­sic that hailed from the USA in 1969, and quick­ly reached glob­al acclaim. Our all-time favourite cast of Mup­pets, includ­ing Ker­mit the Frog, Big Bird and Cook­ie Mon­ster, belonged to the first children’s TV char­ac­ters to fol­low a cur­ricu­lum to ensure they weren’t just bring­ing laughs, but also many learn­ing opportunities.

Over the years, Sesame Street has adapt­ed its for­mat to appeal to old­er chil­dren as well, and always fea­tures a guest star (John Hamm, Phar­rell Williams) and a series of puns that won’t be lost on the adults in the room. Each episode is made up of dif­fer­ent seg­ments designed to dri­ve the main plot with a focus on build­ing impor­tant social and life skills.

Grow­ing up, most of us were into dinosaurs at some stage or anoth­er, so we can hard­ly blame our off­spring for their Veloci­rap­tor obses­sions. And we can cer­tain­ly under­stand why they would be excit­ed about Dino Dan and Dino Dana on Ama­zon. Cre­at­ed by JJ John­son, Dino Dan orig­i­nal­ly aired on Nick Jr in 2010.

Using CGI ani­ma­tion, it fol­lows the young boy Dan (Jason Spe­vack) and his friends on his wild adven­ture in a mod­ern-day world of dinosaurs. This was fol­lowed up by Dino Dana in 2017 because, hey, girls can be palaeon­tol­o­gists-in-train­ing too. Both shows are avail­able on Ama­zon Prime and will help you brush up, and your chil­dren build on, dinosaur facts and vocabulary.