My girls have heard two languages since birth: Spanish and English. Our greatest desire is for them to be fluent in both languages and learn to love both of our cultures. Unfortunately, it’s already plain to see that our three year old knows English far better than Spanish. We know this is probably because I stay at home and our girls hear English constantly. Since my husband works outside the home, he is around them for maybe 3 hours each day during the week. This leaves very few opportunities to really soak in his native language.
My husband is from Argentina, and he would prefer that our girls learn Castellano (Spanish) from Argentina. He doesn’t want them to learn Mexican Spanish or Peruvian Spanish or even Spain Spanish. He wants them to know his language.
10+ YouTube Shows for Your Budding Spanish Speaker
Occasionally, I will let my girls watch a show on YouTube that is in Spanish, but there are very few that are great choices. In fact, we haven’t seen very many shows in Argentine Spanish for their age group at all. So I have tried my hardest to take note of the shows we like the best and gather them together for anyone who has a budding Spanish speaker in their home.
Here is the list of YouTube Spanish channels that are great for kids ages 2-5. I have listed the English counterpart for each one (if there is one) and given the country of origin if I was able to find that out.
Disney Junior
There are a variety of shows you can watch through the Disney Junior channels on YouTube including Tsum Tsum, Princess Sofia, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Doc McStuffins.
Disney Junior LatinoAmerica
Disney Junior Espana
Disney Junior – English
You can also go straight to Disney Junior’s website to watch short videos in Spanish.
El Pollito Pio
It’s not technically a show, but El Pollito Pio is highly entertaining. Very annoying for adults, of course, but children LOVE it. The song was popular in Brazil in the 80s, and it became famous in Italy in 2012 when it was given a do-over. It has since been translated into several European languages, including Spanish and English.
El Pollito Pio
The Little Chick Cheep
El Reino Infantil
With over a billion views, El Reino Infantil is a highly popular and entertaining channel on YouTube. You can watch shows about the farm, the zoo, numbers, ABCs, and more.
La Gallina Pintadita
La Gallina Pintadita started out as a Brazilian children’s show (Galinha Pintadinha) and grew exponentially in less than 10 years time. Now it has been translated to both Spanish and English. This is one that we have watched numerous times because it is so addicting (yes, even for me!).
La Gallina Pintadita
Lottie Dottie Chicken
Leoncito Alado
The purpose of Leoncito Alado is to entertain children and teach them values. Several of the shows are lullabies and classical music that can help your baby sleep.
Little Baby Bum
Do a search for any children’s song on YouTube and you’ll likely run across Little Baby Bum. It is a channel that hails from the United Kingdom. We often watch one of these shows when I do a quick search for a song we are learning.
Little Baby Bum – Spanish
Little Baby Bum – English
Peppa Pig
Peppa Pig is a show about a family of pigs with the star of the show being Peppa, the sister pig. This is another show that started in the UK.
Peppa Pig – Spanish
Peppa Pig – English
Plaza Sésamo
I prefer to watch Sesame Street over Plaza Sésamo, probably because the voices are more tolerable different. The benefit, though, is all the extra vocabulary that your child might not otherwise hear at home. Sesame Street is an American kid’s show and Plaza Sésamo is from Mexico.
Plim Plim
Plim Plim is an adorable short show that features a clown and his friends. The clown, Plim Plim, is a superhero of sorts and always shows up when his friends need help. This show comes from a folk song in Argentina, and it was created for Disney Junior.
Plim Plim – Spanish
Plim Plim – English
Pocoyó
I’d say Pocoyó is our favorite Spanish show of all. It’s highly entertaining, and I often find myself watching it even if the girls leave the room. 😉 It is a show from Spain and has been translated into UK English as well as many other languages.
Pocoyó – Spanish
Pocoyo – English
Toy Cantando
Toy Cantando is a channel on YouTube that has a lot of music and short stories. We haven’t seen many of the shows yet, but I think this will be a great one to use for our at-home preschool for story time.
These final two shows are both from Argentina, but I haven’t let my girls watch them yet because I feel like they are for an older age group. Maybe by age 5 they will start watching them.
Hijitus
Mafalda (YouTube won’t let me link to playlist anymore)
If you want to find a show that is from your spouse’s (or your) home country, check out this really great list.
If you are raising a bilingual child, I’m dying to know, what Spanish shows do you watch on YouTube?
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My toddler is learning castellano from me and LOVES Frozen. We watch Frozen in Spanish and Disney has a short films collection on Netflix which has Spanish voice overs. The short films are around 8-10 minutes each, perfect for her attention span, and she gets to watch a few of them ( the last one is Frozen Fever!) with me. Even though it is not in Spanish, we watch the Fuzies puppet show on Youtube because of all the songs.
Too bad we don’t have Netflix. 🙁 I’ll check out the puppet show! Thanks for sharing, Mary!
*Correction* Thanks so much for this list!!! My first two children are bilingual…and from there, the last four aren’t so much ? The olders come home from school in Englih all day, and continue it. It’s sad to me, but I love this list, thanks so much for posting it!
So glad you enjoyed it! I hope my kids all learn at least the basics in Spanish!
You should watch “Junior Express”. It’s a very popular Argentine show for Disney Junior. If you’re looking for something more educational try “Monosilabo” it’s about a monkey singing and teaching syllables and spanish words.
Thanks for those suggestions. I can’t wait to share them with my girls!
Hola! I’m from Argentina too, and I totally relate with your husband. I want him to learn “my Spanish”. When my parents came to visit to California, they introduced us to Piñón Fijo. I forgot about him! He’s a very sweet clown who sings very educational songs with Latin (Argentinian) tunes. The clips are very colorful and the songs very catchy! The other one my son loves is “Animales de la granja”. Those cartoons are all songs from my chilhood. I personally love it. I must say We try to limit screen time as much as we can though. However, those clips make us sing and dance!
Sorry when I said “I want him to learn my Spanish”, I meant my 20 month old son ?
I just checked out Piñón Fijo! Thanks for sharing that great resource!
This list is great. I myself am in a similar situation my husband is Cuban and we use most of these for my 2 year old to learn and hear more spanish. she also watches Disney Junior which for us being located in the Caribbean is streamed from Latin America so in between she sees commericals in spanish and a few shows like Markoy Marli, playground (teacges both english and spanish) and Bubba Y sus Amigos which are strictly in spanish. Thanks for this list I will be adding the new pages to her list
Metegol is a fantastic movie originally made in Argentina! It is probably for an older age group I’d say 8 + but wonderful none the less
My kids are trilingual. We live in Rome but I’m from Argentina and my husband from New Orleans. I teach them Argentinean Spanish but they watch Cantajuegos and Playground (canciones).
Lolalá videos by Cantoalegre
These are short videos are really good. They tell a story of a family of chicks usually reinforcing a specific concept for kids to learn.
Cantoalegre TV has really nice children’s songs too. They’re Colombian and they use a lot of authentic rhythms. My boys love both the videos and the songs.
Hi Mary – Your children will benefit from any well-spoken Spanish exposure. I am Argentinian – the only difference between all these countries’ Spanish is a strong accent and the country-specific slang used. Spain also has a different way of pronouncing certain consonants. The biggest pronunciation difference in the way Argentine’s speak is that the “ll” (double L) and y are pronounces like the “j” in just. This is unique among all Latin American countries. This is why the rest of Latin America can easily pick out an Argentinian. This, and out outsized egos, which for some reason seems to be larger than life – even though our country is a disaster economically and politically, like most of our neighbors.
Thanks. Check out “el perro y el gato,” (the dog and the cat). It’s a really good bilingual show for kids and you can watch some episodes on YouTube.
i like very much article, congratulations!
Hi I am in a similar situation. My little girl loves Pocoyó too. You can also find great songs on a channel called Chiquitines TV. There’s another good one called Telerín. I think they are now expanding it too and making small episodes called Cleo y Cuquin. My 2 year old loves them all and songs along to the songs.. now get her to speak Spanish on an English speaking country is a bit harder…
Thanks for sharing your favorites, Maria!
Thanks for the nice list, i found some new sources i didnt know. My 2 year old really likes the songs of Cantoalegre, from Colombia i think, Canticuenticos from Argentina and the channel of Beatriz Montero is also fantastic, with lots of stories and songs. https://www.youtube.com/user/BeatrizMontero/playlists
What a great resource! I will definitely be bookmarking this page to come back to! Thanks for putting this together. 🙂 ~Jessica (ourgloballove.com
Hi!! I suggested checking “la Granja de Zenón” I’m not a big fan of the cartoons but children love the catchy songs
Saludos!
I am a 63 year old trying to learn Spanish AGAIN. My daughter is bilingual (having taking it for yrs, minored in college and studied aboad in Chile) and my best friend is from Mexico so I do get help; however, I have the most trouble when I hear a conversation because the words sound like they run into each other. I’m excited to look at these programs for the listening skills and additional help with words.