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Not everything creative needs a prompt. The Web is increasingly flooded with AI-generated images and videos, much of it aimed at kids. Sometimes it’s nice to break free of that synthetic media.
As a dad of 10 and 12-year-old daughters, I appreciate resources for kids and families that celebrate human imagination, curiosity, and hands-on exploration.
I had a fruitful recent conversation about resources for kids with a fellow dad, Kevin Maguire, who writes the great newsletter The New Fatherhood. If you’re a dad looking for great reads and a sense of community, check out Kevin’s newsletter. (Also read Recalculating, by Ignacio Pereyra). Kevin wrote the section below about simplifying screens and shared the tip about muted.io.
The rest of the apps and resources below are ones I’ve enjoyed in recent years with my wife and daughters. From coding with visual blocks to identifying plants on nature walks, these are some of our favorite tools for sparking creativity.
Building brains without bots
- Scratch, developed at the MIT Media Lab, is a superb program for learning to code. It’s fun and free for kids — and adults. My daughters like assembling Scratch’s visual blocks on screen to create interactive stories, games and animations. It’s designed for kids 8 to 16. ScratchJr is a great alternative for kids 5 to 7. Free
- Dash Robot lets kids program it to move, light up, and make sounds. It teaches block coding, like Scratch, and our daughters enjoy making up their own instructions to send Dash on creative adventures. For kids 5 to 14. $180.
- Seek is one of our favorite family apps. Point the app at any plant, flower, animal, or bug you see on a walk to learn more about it. It’s given us insight into much of the greenery (& critters) around us. iOS & Android. Free
Guidde | Create how-to guides with AI
Tired of explaining the same thing over and over again to your colleagues?
Guidde is an AI-powered tool that helps you explain the most complex tasks in seconds with AI-generated documentation.
- Turn boring documentation into stunning visual guides
- Save valuable time by creating video documentation 11x faster
- Share or embed your guide anywhere
Just click capture on the browser extension. The app automatically generates step-by-step video guides with visuals, voiceover, and a call to action. The best part? The extension is 100% free.
Words that work wonders
- Libby lets you access thousands of free ebook or audiobooks with a free library card. It works for more than 90% of public libraries in North America, and Libby can be found in 78 countries worldwide. Free
- Khan Academy is the most robust online spot for helping kids with learning almost any school subject. It’s completely free. No ads. Khan Academy Kids has great learning activities and games for kids 2-8. It’s also free and ad-free, and it’s fun for both math and reading. Free
Family screen time that actually works
- Common Sense Media | Wondering if a show, movie or video game is age appropriate? Get a quick sense of whether it’s a good fit for your family. Free
- Kanopy is a terrific free resource for educational videos, documentaries and classic films. Access it with your library card. A unique feature: watch Oscar-winning short films you won’t find on other streaming platforms. Kanopy Kids is a curated collection for learning, less commercial than the kids section on Netflix. Free
- JustWatch | See which platform hosts a particular movie or show. Free
- Nex | Like a Nintendo Wii made for 2025, this video game system gets our bodies moving with fun, non-violent, family-friendly games. It was easy to set up, pluging right into an HDMI port on our TV. It’s a little bigger than a Rubiks Cube.
We love playing with the Nex Playground
Four of us can play together. We like the sports, dancing and trivia games. Some titles are just for little kids (e.g. Elmo, Peppa Pig), but most are engaging for older kids and adults. The device costs $249 with five included games. An $89 annual subscription gets you 40+ more games.
Read my Fast Company interview [gift link] with Nex’s founding CEO about how his game system has spread.
