The best YouTube channels and shows for kids in 2026
Ask which YouTube channels are best for children and you mostly get a list of the biggest ones. Size is not the same thing as suitability, so this list is narrower: channels and shows that are already on KidsTube, which means somebody watched them and judged them fit for a child before they went up.
Three questions settle that. Was it made for children, or is it merely watched by them? Does an episode end — content built to run forever is designed around a platform's interests rather than a child's. And how much of it is advertising?
Two things to know before you scroll. Most of the shows we carry are Dutch-language, because KidsTube grew out of kidstube.org; where a show is better known under an English name, both are given. The channels in the first group are mostly in English, with the exception of the Kids Diana Show, whose episodes here run across several languages. Each pick has a post of its own if you want more than a paragraph.
Channels worth following
Channels in the proper sense — somebody publishing as they go, rather than a television series cut into episodes.
The Bucket List Family
A family who sold everything and went travelling; the videos are what came of it — snorkelling in the Seychelles, a safari in Tanzania, giraffes at the breakfast window, a great deal of surfing. It is the closest thing here to a nature documentary, and the best of it will hold an adult too. Not every episode is about a place, though, and the titles shout in the way the platform rewards. Best from about six.
More about The Bucket List Family · Watch on KidsTube
Ryan's World
Enormously popular, and the busiest channel we carry. What we have put up leans towards making things rather than opening them: a homemade lava lamp, a Skittles rainbow, what becomes of an egg if you never brush your teeth, a lot of kid-sized baking. Worth being straight about the wider channel, though — it is built on toys and merchandise, and unboxing is advertising in all but name.
More about Ryan's World · Watch on KidsTube
Kids Diana Show
Diana and her brothers acting out stories — a secret room, a busy board, a stretch on the organs of the human body. Pretend play mostly, with the same commercial current running under it as anything else in this genre. Worth knowing that a good number of our episodes are not in English. It suits three to six, and it holds attention completely.
More about Kids Diana Show · Watch on KidsTube
HooplaKidz
Classic nursery rhymes sung straight through — Hickory Dickory Dock, Jack and Jill, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes. No plot, nothing to keep up with, which is precisely what the youngest children want. Good from one to four, and good in the car.
More about HooplaKidz · Watch on KidsTube
ChuChu TV
The same job as HooplaKidz in brighter animation, with the words on screen — Itsy Bitsy Spider, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Wheels on the Bus. Our selection is small, a dozen or so, but it gets sung along to more than almost anything else on the site.
More about ChuChu TV · Watch on KidsTube
Shows worth putting on
Proper series, with episodes that finish. All six are Dutch-language, which for a toddler matters far less than you would expect — and for two of them, hardly at all.
Nijntje (Miffy)
Dick Bruna's rabbit, animated: short, quiet, and almost free of incident. Nothing lunges out of it, nobody shouts, and it finishes. This is our largest collection of any single show, and the one to reach for when the point is to wind down rather than wind up. One to four.
More about Nijntje · Watch on KidsTube
Buurman en Buurman (Pat & Mat)
Two Czech handymen in stop-motion who set out to hang wallpaper or build a bookcase and make it steadily worse. Near-wordless — a hum, a shrug — so the Dutch dub hardly matters and any child anywhere can follow it. Funny at four and still funny at forty.
More about Buurman en Buurman · Watch on KidsTube
Bob de Bouwer (Bob the Builder)
Machines with faces, a job to finish, and everything put right by the end of the episode. It is a formula, and a good one for three- to five-year-olds who want to know how things get built.
More about Bob de Bouwer · Watch on KidsTube
PJ Masks
Three children who turn into superheroes at bedtime. Faster and louder than most of this list, with mild peril and a villain an episode, so it suits four to six rather than toddlers. The Dutch Disney Channel dub.
More about PJ Masks · Watch on KidsTube
Peppa Big (Peppa Pig)
Five minutes an episode, small domestic disasters, and a family who mostly handle them well. Dubbed into Dutch and none the worse for it — the drawing does most of the work. Two to five, and one of the few things here that a child will watch one of and then happily stop.
More about Peppa Big · Watch on KidsTube
Sesamstraat (Sesame Street)
The Dutch Sesame Street, with Tommie, Ieniemienie, and Bert and Ernie. Still the benchmark: it was made with researchers in the room, and it shows in how carefully it moves between a song, a sketch and a quiet explanation. Two to six.
More about Sesamstraat · Watch on KidsTube
Looking beyond our catalogue
We don't carry everything, and there is no sense pretending otherwise. If your child is past nursery rhymes and into questions — why the sky is that colour, how a volcano works — then the science and drawing channels made for school-age children are the obvious gap here, and Cocomelon and Blippi are not on the site either. For a wider survey, Channel Hunt has a round-up of the best kids' YouTube channels for 2026 that covers a good deal we don't.
Wherever you end up, the three questions hold. Who made it, does it end, and how much of it is selling something?