Hello there,

It’s been along time since I posted a parenting post. There have been a myriad of changes in my life from then. Each experience has been so enriching. Thanks for still being in touch with my blog and for your comments and feedback. There is nothing more than your active participation which makes me want to return here and write more. Happy to get any suggestions too.

Initially, I thought to title the post Cartoons for five to Eight year old kids but I realized that even I love watching some of the excellent animations and even I end up learning something new from them. Especially my daughter loves it when I watch with her or when she discusses her cartoon characters or story with me.

Many parents let their kids watch these animations or cartoons on their own. According to me, if you can find time, please at least once in a while watch these with your kids. The various benefits are:

1. You always know first hand what your child is watching and what kind of cartoons he or she loves.
2. If you start enjoying these with your kids, they will discuss, communicate on these characters, their stories, what they learn from it and sometimes the moral behind these stories.
3. These cartoons are also a way to bond with your kids. They will start enjoying this watching time together and then when they are slightly older, you can also veer them to see some good documentaries. My daughter and me, we watch many different documentaries or knowledge based series available on our television.
4. If some weird videos pop up in their search engines, you will know about it in time to use rectification or warn your kids about such things on the internet.

I always have a time limit for my daughter for her screen time. So, hope you too can enjoy these cartoons in your own time limit restrictions. Let’s get on with the list. All of the following can be found on Youtube.

1. Wild Kratts is an animated television series created by Chris and Martin Kratt. The show’s aim is to educate children about biology, zoology, and ecology, and teach kids small ways to make big impacts. The basic plot of each Wild Kratts episode is to save an animal or animals under threat. The animation quality is superb and my daughter learnt a lot about her favorite topic: animals. 
2. Sid the Science Kid (also known as Jim Henson’s Sid the Science Kid) is an American animated series. The main character in the show is Sid, an “inquisitive youngster” who uses comedy to tackle questions kids have about basic scientific principles and why things work the way they do.Each week’s episodes are built around a single scientific topic or concept. Sid is shown as an animated character and the environment shown is either his classroom or his home. This series takes some time to grown on you. It did for us. 
3. Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom is a British animated series in which the show is set in the Little kingdom ruled by King and Queen Thistle mainly from the Little Castle, where they live with their 3 daughters Holly and younger twins Daisy and Poppy. Elves live at the Great Elf Tree, which acts lots of rooms as a school, library, rescue service, apartment block and factory for toys and wands. This series about Elves and fairies and bugs is absolutely delightful. Aruja must have seen these multiple times only for the fun of it. I don’t know if she learned anything but the animation is superb and the characters are classy. Our favorite characters are Nanny Plum and Wise Old Elf.
4. Max & Ruby is a Canadian flash-animated educational television series based on the book series by Rosemary Wells. Max and Ruby is about two bunnies: Max, a rambunctious and determined three-year-old, and his older sister Ruby, a patient, goal-oriented, and sometimes restrictive seven-year-old. According to Wells, the series shows the relationship between Ruby, Max, and the universal nature of sibling relationships. The simplicity of this cartoon was so endearing. 
5. The Magic School Bus is an American book and TV series. Each of the stories centers on the antics of a fictional elementary school teacher, Ms. Frizzle, and her class, who board a “magic school bus”, which takes them on field trips to unusual times and locations, such as the Cretaceous Period, outer space, and the interior of the human body. This series is very educational and in a fun sort of way. However, if the characters do not grow on you then your child may or may not watch beyond a few episodes.
6. Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear and Pooh, is a fictional teddy bear created by English author A.A.Milne. I would like to give you a Wikipedia link here as there is a story here about how the author came to choose these characters in his book. Exceptional characters, exceptional writing and exceptional simplicity in language and concepts. Actually till my daughter was nine years old we did not explore Pooh bear series at all. We wondered why we hadn’t done that but one fine day we happened to come across an audio book and as we heard those stories every night before we went off to sleep, they became our favorite ones. After this we searched for more audio stories, watched animations related to pooh bear and then watched the movie on Christopher Robins. We loved them all. We even pretended to be Pooh and Piglet for a while. 🙂 
7. PAW Patrol is a Canadian animated TV series created by Keith Chapman. The series focuses on a young boy named Ryder who leads a crew of search and rescue dogs that call themselves Paw Patrol They work together on missions to protect the shoreside community of Adventure Bay. Good characters and animation. Aruja loves animals and in general dogs so for sometime she loved this series. Mainly for the younger kids. 
8. PJ Masks is a French-British-Canadian animated superhero children’s television series based on the Les Pyjamasques book series by Romuald Racioppo. PJ Masks (known as “PJs” for short) is the titular superhero team that fights crime at night to keep it from ruining people’s days. Amaya becomes Owlette (an owl), Greg becomes Gekko (a lizard), and Connor becomes Catboy (a cat). It’s an interesting story-line with the classic superhero theme of villains and heroes. 
9. The Dr. Binocs show is an animated learn series for kids. Quirky and fun, Dr. Binocs zooms in and out of complicated concepts and simplifies them for kids. Aruja found this series interesting. This is our Go-To series when we want to know more about specific science topics.
10. Tom and Jerry is an American animated series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. The series features comic fights between an iconic pair of adversaries, a house cat (Tom) and a mouse (Jerry). The plots of each short usually center on Tom and Jerry’s numerous attempts to have the best of each other and the mayhem and destruction that follows. Wait! But, why am I telling you this? Who doesn’t know and love Tom & Jerry? They are going strong for almost for 80 years. Aruja loves these cartoons so much. With all peripheral characters of this series also playing a important part. Actually, if you think about it, the whole series is violent but, hey! it’s TOM&JERRY.
11. Shaun the Sheep is a British television clay animation comedy series. Shaun, an unusually bright and clever sheep, lives with his flock at Mossy Bottom Farm along with the farm sheepdog Bitzer. The show is about the antics of the flock because of their fascination with human doings and devices. I must confess, we still love this show very much. It has found a mention in our earlier post on cartoons too. 
12. Oddbods take a look at everyday life through the eyes of seven distinct personalities, all bundled up in bright furry suits. With an appetite for love, laughter, destruction and drama, prepare yourself for anything and everything. The reason this one is on our list is it is hilarious, absurd, crazy and outrageous. And we love it. The duration of each cartoon is very short in case you are short on time. 
13. Mr. Bean: The Animated Series is a British animated sitcom. Based on a live-action television sitcom, Mr.Bean (voiced by Rowan Atkinson) is the main protagonist of the series who wants every environment around him to be clean and out of trouble. Aruja loves Mr.Bean and also his animated series. We also love Teddy. 🙂 
14. Elena of Avalor: Superb animation. We love the adventures of Princess Elena. Just like they lead her to understand that her new role requires thoughtfulness, resilience, and compassion, the traits of all truly great leaders, we hope our kids too imbibe a few good lessons.
15. Word Girl:  Animated Super hero WordGirl fights crime using her superhero strength and her colossal vocabulary with her monkey sidekick, Captain Huggy Face. Although Aruja does watch it, it’s not the most enjoyable cartoon for her.
16. Doc McStuffin: The main character of the series, Doc is a six-year-old girl who likes to fix toys, dolls, and stuffed animals. Lovely animation quality. I think this would be more suitable for younger kids too.
17. Martha speaks: Based on the children’s book series by Susan Meddaugh, the series stars Martha, a beloved family dog. She is accidentally fed alphabet soup, this gives her the power of speech and the chance to speak her mind to anyone that will listen. We find this quite delightful and simple. More like Max & Ruby mentioned above.

Hope you will find this list useful. Like I mentioned before we have been exploring audio stories and hope to put up a post soon about that.

Meanwhile if you have a younger child in the family, do take a look at our older post.

Take care and do let us know if you watch any of the above cartoons.

Poornima