A World of Streaming: How to Homeschool with Netflix, YouTube & More

I dreaded movies in school.  The only upside, in my view, was the possibility of a short nap!  I could learn from them as I watched, but my recall later in the day wasn’t much. My boys, though? I am amazed at how much they can recall.

Perhaps I don’t remember well the shows we would watch, but it seems to me that documentaries have improved drastically.  Maybe we only watched the boring ones.

Whatever the case, homeschooling with Netflix, PBS Passport, and more is an integral part of our homeschool life.

Make It Easy: Set Up a Homeschool Profile

I sat down for a bit of mom time — iced coffee in hand, opened up Netflix, and scrolled.

And scrolled.

Past the ancient history shows, past the dinosaur shows, past the astronomy & war shows.

And I was done. From then on, each of our streaming platforms has a School profile. I even have a separate account set up on YouTube for our school shows. No more sorting through all of the saved ideas in order to find the shows MOM wants to watch!

(Unfortunately, PBS Passport only has one profile option.)

Besides being able to easily find my own shows (and they their shows), the other benefit is that each school profile learns what we like to watch & fine-tunes their suggested shows.

Setting It Up Each Year

At the beginning of the year, I grab our history topics, my list of history shows, and start clicking ‘add to watchlist’. I keep it easy on myself by starting with all the easy topics — wars, presidents/leaders, etc.

Then I move on to rounding out their learning. Rather than sticking to topics that are already in our studies, I like to add topics from the same time period but ones that aren’t mentioned. There’s only so much a text can include & sometimes the visual is more impactful.

• The Color of Honor talks about life for the Japanese-American soldier during WW2.
• The Barber of Birmingham features James Armstrong, who carried the lead flag on Bloody Sunday and later filed a lawsuit that led to school desegregation.
• Mid-late 1800’s in the US? The Orphan Trains tells the story of one welfare program.

Not all of the shows will get scheduled. Some will be watched on a sick day or when we have to take school on the go unexpectedly. Those extras are also handy if they finish early or a scheduled show isn’t very good.

Best Educational Streaming Services

Your best & my best aren’t the same best. That’s my common refrain when moms ask for the best ________ (reading program, history curriculum, whatever.)

But there are some streaming apps that are better than others, both in terms of quality & quantity. Curiosity Stream is one that I see recommended often, but we found it lacking. Hulu? Skip it for your homeschool.

So which ones should you check out?

1. Netflix is the OG. While their educational offerings seem to be less now than in the past, our homeschool uses it at least once a month.
2. PBS Streaming is an absolute hidden gem in the homeschool world.
3. If your library offers a Kanopy subscription, it’s worth checking out. The search interface isn’t the best, but they offer a lot of documentaries you can’t easily find elsewhere.
4. History Vault is good if you can find a deal on it. While it’s littered with “ancient alien” type shows, they also offer some great selections that remind you how good The History Channel used to be.
5. If you already subscribe to Discovery+ or Disney+, scroll through their catalogs because you will find some great options. I definitely wouldn’t recommend Disney+ just for your homeschool, though. Discovery+ often offers specials, so watch for one of those.

But how do you know if they learned anything?

Well, I already know they learn well from videos.  If they didn’t, we wouldn’t use them as much as we do. 

But maybe you aren’t quite there yet. Maybe not having some kind of ‘proof’ of learning is hard for you. Understandable!

(Trust the process. It’ll come. Kids are wired to learn!)

My first suggestion is just to ask your kiddos to recap the video. As they do, you’ll figure out what details to ask more about to help them produce a more complete summary.

And here are some specific questions I ask my kiddos. You could even turn these into a short writing assignment.

• Tell me something you didn’t know before you watched.
• Tell me something that extended your knowledge of something you already knew.
• What questions do you still have?
• Is there anything you already know that they left out?  Why do you think they left it out?
• Tell me something you think I would find interesting.
• What’s another historic event that is related to the video? How?
• How else could that event have ended?
• Who’s viewpoint was it told from?  Who’s viewpoint wasn’t represented?

Hide & Seek with Netflix

Easily, the worst thing about Netflix is their stupid search that still struggles to find shows based on keywords.

But did you know there’s a whole secret world of codes that allow you to filter to some pretty specific genres on Netflix? I sorted through the lists to find the ones most applicable for your homeschool.

These smaller menus are not complete, but they are a great starting point.

Educational Sections on Netflix

• Educational shows for the younger crowd
• Biographies
• Documentaries (all subjects)
• Historical Documentaries
• Movies Based on Children’s Books
• Science & Nature Documentaries

(Curious to see the entire list? Check out this guide.)

Recommendations, please!

This is TOUGH. There are so many shows we’ve enjoyed over the last decade & across all sorts of topics.

With that said, these five will get you started.

1. Our Great National Parks (world geography; Netflix)
2. Meltdown: Three Mile Island (history, science; Netflix)
3. America: The Story of Us (history; Amazon Prime & History Vault)
4. Horrible Histories (history; Amazon Prime)
5. American Experience series (mostly history; PBS)

Ready for even more ideas? I’ve got you covered.