Nookly vs PBS KIDS vs Scratch: Watch, Make, and Take It Into Real Life

Saturday morning, three options. Your five-year-old could watch a favorite show about a curious character building a boat, then play a matching game on the same site. Your nine-year-old could build her own animated story in a block-coding tool, with a cat who sails across the screen. Or you could spend ten minutes making a personalized boat-building challenge and a bath-time story, then put the device away and fill the tub.

None of these is "bad screen time." They're just different kinds of good. Here's how they compare.

TL;DR: who wins where?

• PBS KIDS wins for prepared shows and videos from trusted children’s media, plus games that go beyond just watching.
• Scratch wins when a child wants to be the maker, using block coding to create their own stories, games and animations.
• Nookly wins when a parent wants to choose a purpose and create personalized learning across formats — story, song, printable, game or activity — built around their child and designed to end in real-life play. It isn’t a child companion, a monitoring tool or a screen-time blocker.

Three different kinds of good

Think of these as watch, make and plan. PBS KIDS offers prepared content made by children's media professionals. Scratch hands the child the tools to make their own project. Nookly lets an adult create personalized learning pieces that mostly end up printed, sung, played or built away from the screen.

PBS KIDS: prepared, trusted, playful

PBS KIDS offers a big collection of shows and videos, and it isn't only watching: there are games too. The strength is preparation and trust. Characters are familiar, episodes are carefully made, and the stories often model curiosity and kindness.

It suits moments when you want something ready to go and reliably age-appropriate. What it can't do is know about your child's own dog, their particular worry, or the cardboard box in your hallway.

Scratch: the child builds it

Scratch is block coding for children's own projects, so this is active, creative screen use. The child decides what happens, arranges the blocks and debugs when the cat sails off the edge.

It's especially good for older kids who like making things that move. Younger children usually need a lot of adult help. And a Scratch project, however creative, mostly stays on the screen.

Where Nookly fits

Nookly is for the adult. A parent, carer or teacher describes their child and what they want to help with, and Nookly creates personalized learning pieces: stories, songs, games, cards, printables, activities. There's no child chatbot. Children don't talk to it. They get the paper, the song and the play.

Here's where Nookly adds something different. You can say: "He's five, he's scared of the bath since he slipped, he loves boats and his rubber frog, and we have foil, corks and a tray." Nookly can help you make a foil-boat challenge card, a bath-time story where the frog captains a brave little boat, and a floating-and-sinking prediction sheet. The screen time is ten minutes of your planning. The rest happens in the tub.

You can create a single experience on demand, or set up a personalized learning plan called a Blueprint for an ongoing Goal, a finite plan. Screen limits and device settings remain your family's call.

Talking about AI along the way

If your child sees you using Nookly, it's a good chance to talk about AI simply. It's a tool, not a person. It can make mistakes, so grown-ups check its work. We don't share private information with it. Common Sense Media's family guidance on AI makes similar points and stresses adult involvement.

That's another difference from a prepared show or a coding tool. With Nookly, AI stays in adult hands, and children learn about it by watching you use it thoughtfully.

Using them together

A lovely weekend might include all three. A PBS KIDS episode about building on Saturday morning. A Nookly-made boat challenge for the afternoon, played in the garden. For an older sibling, a Scratch animation of the boat on Sunday. Each one does its job, and each one can end with a conversation.

A quick example of that difference. Your five-year-old watches an episode about a character who builds a raft. Afterwards he wants to build one too. You spend a few minutes making a Nookly challenge card: "Build a raft that carries your frog across the bath using corks and foil." The show sparked the idea. The card gave it a shape. The bath did the rest.

How to choose

If you want something prepared and trusted, ready now, pick a PBS KIDS show or game. If your child wants to create and code, Scratch. If you want to decide the purpose yourself, shape it around your child, and make sure it ends in real-world play, that's Nookly. Most families will reach for different ones on different days.

Whatever you use, try naming the job first. "We're watching one episode about boats, then building one." The job is the difference between screen time that drifts and screen time that goes somewhere.

It's also worth saying that screens aren't the only route. Plenty of days, the best plan is a walk with no device at all. Tools help when they have a clear job; they don't need to be part of every afternoon.

A quick family check

Before any screen time, try three questions with your child. What are we using this for? How will we know we're done? What will we do off the screen afterwards? A five-year-old might answer, "Watch the bee video, when it ends, then look for bees in the garden." Writing the answers on a sticky note makes the plan visible, and it's surprisingly satisfying to peel off at the end.

A sample request

"My eight-year-old loves a nature show about octopuses. Make a one-page fact sheet we can check together using a library book, a drawing challenge to design an octopus hideout from recycling, and a short story where an octopus solves a puzzle." Read it, mark anything you'll need to check, and plan a library trip.

Side by side

On a phone, swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Comparing Nookly, PBS KIDS and Scratch for purposeful screen time

	PBS KIDS	Scratch	Nookly
Main job	Prepared shows, videos and games from children’s media	Children create their own coded stories, games and animations	Adults create personalized learning pieces for one child
Who is on the screen	The child, watching or playing	The child, coding and designing	Mostly the adult, briefly, while planning
Personal context	Shared characters and stories	The child’s own project ideas	The child’s interests, needs and materials at home
Formats	Episodes, clips and games	Interactive projects	Stories, songs, games, cards, printables and activities
Where it ends	Usually on the screen	Usually on the screen, shareable online	Designed to end in real-life play and conversation
AI and safety role	Not an AI tool	Not a generative-AI tool	AI is adult-directed; no child chatbot, monitoring or blocking

Descriptions checked September 28, 2026 from public PBS KIDS, Scratch Foundation and Common Sense Media pages. Nookly isn’t affiliated with any of them.

Want to try the “screen has a job” habit? Plan one real-world activity with Nookly, then close the laptop and go do it.