Kids are like sponges, they soak-up new things each and every day, sometimes we have no idea where they pick-up their new words and phrases - as long as its not anything naughty we are generally happy.

So when you little ones are not out at the local park, exploring woodland or splashing around in the pool Netflix can be a fantastic source for educational content and learning. Educational show like VeggiTales, the Magic School Bus, Justin Time, and Sesame Street are all for entertaining and educating pre-schoolers.

Whilst my boy's are only two and one we have been using Netflix to educate Ted on the world around him, here is what he has learned:

Beat Bugs - Water Play

In the very first episode of the brilliant new original series of Beat Bugs on Netflix, a stubborn Jay becomes trapped in a jam jar, a jar that is slowly being filled with water as a near-bye octopus play water-sprinkler is covering the plants with water-droplets, causing it to filter in to the jar where Jay is trapped. With the water level rising Jay has to rely on the help of his friends to get him out of the sticky situation - The episode was inspired by the Beatles song "Help!"

When the water level was rising Ted noticed that Jay was floating (doggy-paddling) and asked me; "why is he floating daddy". This got me thinking that i could use water-play to help foster cognitive development, teach mathematics and science concepts, enhance physical skills, promote social learning and cooperative effort, and enrich language experiences.

Water play is easy and simple to set-up:

• Bowl
• Towels (For the mess)
• Random objects 
• Paper
• Water

One thing i was keen to do was encourage creative development, as a child's imagination is a fantastic tools. I thought a nice paper boat would help him not trigger that beautiful imagination of his, but to help him understand weight, by showing him what happen if you add heavy items on to floating objects.


DinoTrux - Craft-Play

One of my son's favourite programs at the moment, the program follows to unlikely friends Ty and Revvit. One a Dinotrux and the a Reptool, they work together to build amazing things with other friends, whilst defending their land and creation against D-strux.

The show continual reinforces the importance of friendship, collaboration and innovation. In many of the episodes Revvit always fixes things so i thought i would help ted create his favorite character Ton Ton.

• Googly Eye
• Wooden sticks
• Glue
• pom-poms 
• Scissors 
• Straws

When we started creating Ton Ton we genuinely had no idea how we were going to make him, but we start off by gluing the googly eyes on to a flower shaped soft card to create the head. We then stuck the head on to the wooden stick, Ted loves glue and as you can see he went a bit over the top.


After the eyes and head had dried we began sticking the pom pom on to the stick, these are used for wheels!


We then cut up the blue straws and added them above the pom poms for decoration.


Thanks for reading folks, if you have seen any programs on Netflix that you think are educational please do share!