Seeking Wholesome Children's Tv Shows and Movies for a Two Year Old

Hi L.,

My daughter loves "The Wonder Pets" and "Miss Spider and her Sunny Patch Friends". Both programs are educational and cute. I watch with my little one and love to see her laugh and clap while she enjoys her shows.

Don't forget Disney! There are a lot of Baby Einstein videos that are fun. Have a great and safe trip!

I would recommend Blue's Clues, Sid the Science Kid, Little Einsteins, Special Agent Oso, and Backyardigans.

In general, I will let my kids watch Noggin or Playhouse Disney.

Hi L.,

Anything on Noggin or Sprout is good for a 2 year old. You can also pick up some of the Baby Einstein videos or Mickey Mouse Club House videos.

Have a good trip!

At two, My son really liked the feature "Homeward Bound" and the show "Blues Clues" and could sometimes be captivated by the Baby Einsteins "Baby Motzart" "Baby Bach" and "First Signs". See if you can test drive him on some of these suggestions you've received, and good luck. So many of the things that other peoples' kids are loving did not work for my son at all. For instance, I wanted him to love Handy Manny because I thought it looked like a great show, but NO DICE and Diego (now his favorite at 2y 9mo) went right over his head at 2. OH which reminds me, I did not like but he LOVED that little bald-headed whiner, Caillou. ;)

Again, good luck!

We and our son love Yo Gabba Gabba (on Noggin) and Sid The Science Kid (on PBS). Both wholesome, fun and incorporate learning (and both have music which tends to keep his attention). We really like Yo Gabba Gabba because they have short varying spots which really keep his attention.

Hi L..

Anything on Noggin is great. Very educational and attention grabbing. Visit Noggin.com; however, I'm not sure you can download programs.

My 2 year old LOVES the Wonder Pets. If you can't get them on iTunes, I know they sell DVDs at Target for about $12 (6 15 minute episodes). She also burned some time on our recent 4 hour flight peeling stickers on/off coloring book covers. Target often has cheap stickers in those $1 bins at the front of the store.

Good luck with your trip!

Veggie Tales is always a great one.

My son loves anything with music or dancing. He is the same age and we also fly to Tennessee on a regular basis! As much as I dislike Barney he enjoys it and he has started singing along(in a voice only his mother could love). There are also sing a long DVD's made by Disney for that age range. I got one for my son at the mall and it actually says his name in the song. Super cute. If your son has a movie he really likes bring it. I have had A Bugs Life in my car for about a year now. He watches it EVERY DAY!! I know all of the words now.
My ped & ENT suggest I use some sort of medication to keep his sinuses dry. Both of them said that Benedryl is perfectly safe for that age. It helps too because it makes them a little more relaxed. Good luck and have fun in Tennessee.

My daughter loved Veggie Tales as she was growing up and will still pop one in on a nostalgic day!! :D (She's 13)

Huggles!!
~S.~

Hi L.,
The Little Bear series on Noggin is sweet and charming. My daughter has loved it for years. Wonder Pets is also pretty cute, too. We don't watch a whole lot of TV either, but I do approve of those two shows. As far as DVDs, when my daughter was 2 she also enjoyed the Curious Buddies DVDs -- and of course, Sesame Street has quite a few "movies" out there, as well, for longer stretches of time-burning. Oh, here's a tip for flying: we are not big sweet eaters, either, but the teeny Dum Dum lollipops are fantastic for take off/landing and are a lifesaver for when we fly (for their ears). Good luck and have fun!

PBS kids has wonderful shows. Nick Jr & Noggin are aslo great for little-ones. Also as another mom suggested is Thomas the Tank Engine. Both of my boys loved those shows.

Are you able to obtain a copy of Sprout? My daughter has been watching that for the last year and it is often a repeat of very clean polite cartoons. I believe it is a public broadcasting station.

Good for you for limiting TV which is very rare these days! We allow our child to watch educational shows and his absolute favorite is Word World on PBS. He is going to be 3 in June and becuase the way the words turn into the object they reprsent he is already sighting words like balloon, duck, barn, dog. M for Monster and Machine...It is GREAT and he loves the characters and music. Have a great trip. Elmo videos are good too... something about that squeaky voice that keeps kids entranced!

When my son was that age, he loved Clifford the Big Red Dog and anything with Bob the Builder. Bob is a natural for any boy who loves vehicles.

You have a lot of great responses!

Our faves:
Ni Hao Kai Lan (Nickelodeon on dvd)
Backyardigans

Have a great trip!

My son loves Little Einstein's. He has learned so much about music and places around the world. He started watching around 2 and still loves watching, he is almost 5. I also don't mind watching with him.

Anything on Noggin. Some fav. PBS shows are Super Why and Word World.

As for movies, I'd review them first (if it is something you haven't seen) PG and PG 13 doesn't always mean it's appropriate for a youngster.
To review a movie ahead of time go to www.pluggedinonline.com

Best wishes!
M.

Wel.. since he like sesame street.. load up on that.. adn anything on noggin is great... dora, diego, backyardigans.. etc.. also check out stuff from PBS itself.. like clifford, barney etc... they're all great :) Have a wonderful trip :)

A lot of the shows on Noggin ("preschool on TV") are really cute and my 2-year old loves them! Wonder Pets, Backyardigans, Neehow Kailan, etc. Before our last long trip, I put in a few Disney movies to see what she liked and she really liked 101 Dalmations (over Little Mermaid...go figure) and that worked like a charm on the plane! If he likes dogs, that's a good one. Good luck!!!

My son is 2 and he can watch Thomas the tank engine mornings and nights DAILY! As it turns out, we discovered soo many kids out there (about 2-6) love the Thomas series. The dvds contain multiple stories of only a few minutes long which is perfect for their attention span. The stories were orig written by a reverend to his son, I'd say they are very wholesome but not corny. We as parents don't usually care for kids' cartoons, but this one is quite watchable. Best deal we found was at Target. Good luck.

My 20-month-old really loves "Curious George" PBS at 8:00 AM weekdays.

My little boy LOVES Thomas the Tank Engine. Also Barney is a good choice. Check out Little Einstein, they have good ones that are age appropriate. Also, see if you can hold off on any naps until the flight. This way he'll be pooped and will want to just sleep. Make sure he's got a pacifier or something to drink so that when the plane starts to take off, he won't have trouble equalizing his ears. I found some great earplugs that help with that (I don't know how but it helped us!) at www.onestepahead.com. That's my FAVORITE baby store. Some of the items are pricey, but we bought the MiaModa stroller for $180, but my kid loves it more than the Britax we got for our shower!!!

If he loves Sesame Street, you might look at other Muppet stuff. Check out PBS.com to see if they offer anything you could download/stream/buy.

Curious George! The TV show -- the movie may be too much for him. It's simple and easy to follow, plus it's funny, cute and not too annoying to adults.

Hi!
My 2-year-old son loves Handy Manny (Disney channel), Bob the Builder (PBS), and Curious George (PBS). His favorite movies are Cars and Finding Nemo (make sure to fast forward the first scene where the mom dies). Good luck!

My son LOVES Yo Gabba Gabba, and the songs and content are actually fun enough that my husband and I enjoy watching it too. Considering you're going to be trapped on a plane with your son watching the same episodes potentially over and over, I would definitely recommend it.

Try Hi-5. The teens who do the show wear bright colors and dance and sing while teaching shapes, animals, colors, etc.

My son is 2.5 and he loves the Muppets. They sing, dance, rock out (he loves music) - and at Target they have Muppet movies for $5. We recently got the Muppets in Space and we have the Muppets goes to Manhattan - he loves them both and they are rated G, which after reading a lot of the back of the DVD's and shows; many are PG! Plus they worked perfect for our plane trip from San Diego to Boston. Good luck!

My daughter loves Barney and Dora. They are both "educational" and very "cute". My daughter sometimes sings songs from Barney, or says spanish words from Dora - and she really doesn't even watch them that much!! Oh and she's also seen 2-3 episodes of Blue Clue's and really seemed to enjoy those (also educational) - although it kind of got on MY nerves! LOL
Good luck!

Curious George, Super Why!, Jakers!, Diego/Dora, and Word World are all educational and my son loves them. Also, there are lots of Elmo movies, if your son likes Sesame St.

Best of luck,
J.

Veggie Tales have great videos!!! Loads of fun and good values.

My son also LOVES the Noggin shows, Wow Wow Wubbzy, Ni Hao Kai Lan, Max and Ruby, Backyardigans, Wonder Pets. Wow Wow Wubbzy is his favorite.

Another activity you can do is fruit loops and a shoe lace (new and washed). Have him make a necklace with it he can eat.

Have a great trip.

Both of my kids, age 4 and 2,LOVE Noggin shows! Ni Hao Kai Lan, Dora, Max and Ruby, Lazytown, Wow Wow Wubzy. Pretty much all of the shows on Noggin are wholesome, entertaining and educational. We are a moderately conservative Christian family, so stuff on Nickelodian and other channels don't work for us. We just drove 22 hours from San Diego to S. Dakota a couple weeks ago. We borrowed my friends portable DVD player and took 6 new DVD's with us. My kids only wanted to watch the 2 Max and Ruby DVD's that we brought along. They watched it everday for 2 weeks straight and still thought they were funny! I picked up the Noggin show DVD's at Marshalls and Ross for like $5 a piece. But if you can download them, even better!

well u could always get the Brainy Baby dvd's they're educational and teach children words ..also Bee Smart Baby..u can rent them on Netflix
also Little Einsteins..Dora the Explorer..children learn a lot from them especially Little Einsteins..my son talks about rain forests and stuff like that..he also enjoys Prehistoric Planet..all about dinosaurs

For us, it was all about Clifford The Big Red Dog (movies and episodes on PBS Kids). JoJo's Circus on PBS Kids was a big favorite, too, with simple story lines, good lessons and fun colors.

We've been watching Little Einsteins since it came on (long after my daughter passed the age of 2) and we're still watching at age 7, but if I recall correctly, we still enjoyed Baby Einstein videos at age 2.

my son cant get enough of Blues Clues. i see it actually make him think!! very wholesome, straightforward, geared toward 2-3 year olds. SImple clear visuals, nothing too exciting. I have a DVD that has eight episodes on it and they just run one to the other with short credits in between so you dont have to keep telling it to play. He also loves Barney videos, they are longer and a little more involved than the short tv episodes. he watched them on a five hour flight we had to and from mexico.
Also, we just got a Baby Genius video about the San Diego Zoo. it is just visuals of touring around the zoo with classical music and then al of a sudden shows the alphabet a letter at a time. there is no narration so its good for watching with him to talk about the animals, what they are doing, what they look like and such. but it is kind of short.
Good Luck!

Franklin is absolutely wondeful!

What about all the Thomas and Friends shows? My 2-yr-old son is in the Thomas phase and gets mesmerized by any Thomas shows.

My almost 2 yr. old LOVES:

Mighty Machines (if he likes construction and different vehicles)
Elmo's World

This is the ONLY tv that my son will watch.

Have a safe trip!

Thomas the Tank Engine; Word World; Big, Big World. I haven't found anything objectionable in these three and find them wholesome. Have fun on your trip!

caillou, 64 zoo lane, harold and the purple crayon, also the noggin station is good...and has safe "commercials"

Sesame Street is the best

Hi L.,

I only let my kiddos see Noggin. Any show there is appropriate, it's the "preschool channel". You can go to their website too and I'm sure they will have info on the different shows they watch, they even specify what each one focuses on before it starts.

Have a great trip.

See if you can find "Zooboomafoo"-all about animals. My kids loved it when they were little. Little Einsteins, The wonder Pets, Teletubbies, Blues clues and Barney aere all age appropriate.

All the Veggie Tales DVDs are very good. My grandsons really enjoy them. They also have a television show. They are very wholesome and each one has a good lesson.

All kids love veggie tales. Nice stories, great songs. I'll also recommend Little Bears as well as Dragon Tales.

My son is 2 and a half, and he LOVES Thomas the Train (I also love it because it has simple story lines, not too much flashing or overstimulating noises, and no violence!) He also likes Finding Nemo, and various Sesame Street DVDs. (We have to fly from LA to Europe twice a year, so we definitely depend on the portable DVD player!)

The entire "Baby Mozart" DVD series is FANTASTIC!!! I rec. them all. Also, there is a TV show on PBS called, "Zooboomafoo" that is great too - especially if your son is an animal lover.

K.

My two-year-old son really loves Blues Clues. He's also watched a few episodes of Wonder Pets, Backyardigans, Max and Ruby, and Between the Lions, but Blues Clues is his favorite. I think it's got a nice mix of simple academic concepts (counting, big and little, etc.) and appropriate social modeling (dealing with frustration, teamwork, etc.). Good luck on your trip!

My kids love the Little People claymation. They aren't on TV. You'd have to find them on DVD. I love them too because they are beautifully done, and every story teaches a lesson. Sunny Patch on Noggin is the same way, and another adorable cartoon.

My 2 year old loves to watch Hi-5. Hi-5 is a group of 5 young adults who sing, dance, and teach language, shapes, science, movement, etc. They are so educational, but entertaining too -- and VERY wholesome. There are tons of Hi-5 videos out there. You can check them out at Amazon.com.

CAILLOU is on PBS. Here in CA it's on at 11:30 a.m. My daughter loves it. And I think it's VERY wholesome. It has a lot of lessons on good social skills and manners incorporated into the story.

My daughter loves the Signing Time series and she has learned over 200 signs from it already. You can go to www.signingtime.com to look at the DVD's. She loves "Leahs Farm", "Time to Eat", and "Happy Birthday to You". They also have the Baby Signing time videos which are great starters. It is a great series but you can buy them individually or create your own set. These are very wholesome and have children singing and signing with their families, it is very real and educational and mostly fun.
Good luck with the trip.

We don't have TV, but we watch videos and DVDs. If you can get those, my boys love Veggie Tales, 3-2-1 Penguins, Mighty Machines (it is real heavy equipment at work - my boys are riveted by this), and Wall-E. These are all good, wholesome shows (I am quite picky about what they watch!)

Good luck!

my son is 2 1/2 years loves Super Why - very educational!
He now knows all his ABC's and can count to 20 and has started spelling 3 letter words!!
He also like Yo Gaba Gaba -- I personally don't like it but keeps him entertained

Hi L., for a 2 year old I'm not sure shows on an ipod is going to keep his atention to long at a time,but if you want to give it a try, I would stick with musicals, like the Wiggles, the doodle bops, my daycare kids love these. if your son is pretty much well behaved in public he should do fine, we flew from LA to Japan, 17 1/2 hour flight, then another flight, finishing with a 2 hour van ride and our youngest was 22 months, and she did really well, she fussed when her ears started poping, but other than that she did fine, the hard thing was our seats were in the middle and everytime she had to go potty we had to almost climb over people, but other than that it went very well. J. L.

Little Einsteins and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on Disney and Blue's Clues on Noggin are my son's favorites. They are fun, entertaining and all educational and age appropriate for a two year old. I don't know if you can download them, but I agree that Veggie Tales are terrific, too.

Hurray for, the British...

- Thomas the Tank Engine
- Pingu
- Bob the builder
- Kipper
- Angelina Ballerina

My 2yr old loves The Wiggles, Wonderpets, and Handy Manny. they involve music and counting so it will keep up with their attention span. Also you can try Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Blues Clues they also teach numbers, shapes, and have songs.

FRanklin
little bear
Berenstein bears

Noggin is mostly a great channel. Personally I do not the shows w/ whiny kids-like Callou or bossy Max and Ruby. Try watching a few different shows w/ you son to see he likes.

lets see my 2 year old daughter LOVES these shows- the wonder pets (they have dvds), yo gabba gabba, the backyardigans (they have dvds), wow wow wubbzy (dvds available), nick jr series movies (they have like 6 shows on a dvd). sesame street movies are great too! my daughter only watches noggin and nick jr. she like sesame street also but i never think to turn it on. also try baby einstine movies. hope this helps!

Hi L.,

My kids like The Wiggles - very entertaining, with a great story line and lots of singing and dancing.

PBS and nickelodean for toddlers...

BOTH my kids LOVE "Little Bear" by Else Holmelund Minarik and Maurice Sendak... it's a tv series, and DVD movies and books. I even like it myself... its such a great cute series, for any age.
And completely "wholesome."

I highly recommend this series.... you can even find it on www.amazon.com etc.

I also like "Boohbah" which is also great for this age... even my older daughter and their Aunty like it. I like it too, real creative.

Good luck,
Susan

My daughter will be two August 2nd and although she only watches a little tv each day, she certainly has her favorites!

Here are a few of them:

Dora the Explorer (they are engaging and she's learning)

Wonder Pets (they incorporate learning about animals with classical music. Very engaging and entertaining. They are also about 15 minutes per epidsode.)

Ratatouille (she calls it Remy and loves it)

Lilo & Stitch (She loves Stitch! We have the original and Glitch)

Wall-E (My father got this for her and it was the first movie she latched onto. There isn't a great deal of dialog to keep up with for the first part of the movie, but Lilia loved watching Wall-E just going about his day.)

I hope this helps! Have a safe trip!

S. M
Baby Planner
www.storksbestfriend.com

My daughter is 2 also and she loves old Muppet movies. Right now its Muppets in Space and Muppets Take Manhattan. It's nice because the movie is a full length movie, not a kiddy movie that only lasts 30 minutes. And there is good music on it too. She also likes Blues Clues and Diego and Dora.

Good luck!