Series for older children/tweens

[CushionsandCandles]

Help!
We are stuck at home for the next 10 days with two kids with confirmed COVID. (Boys aged 11 and 12).
I'm a bit fussy about screen time and don't just want them watching cr@p.
Is there a series of some educational value that may appeal to them? I would rather they watched something short-ish a couple of times a day.
They loved things like Race Around the World, Horrible Histories and In The Factory so looking for that sort of thing.
Thanks

Hopeful bump for some ideas please

Have you seen Ghosts? Made by the Horrible Histories team, there are 2 seasons on iPlayer and a new series has just started this week

Not sure it exactly fits your brief, but if you have Netflix I’d recommend The Mysterious Benedict Society and Series of Unfortunate Events. My children absolutely loved them - good quality drama based on brilliant books.

I was about to say Ghosts! It's not educational though but it's the thing my 11 year old and I most like to watch together. It seems a bit harsh to restrict to educational in the circumstances. Laughter may be more beneficial.
Or for educational my dd likes watching Attenborough documentaries on I player or netflix with her dad sometimes.

Bit random but my DD likes ‘your garden made perfect’ - and I like it too so that’s a win, but not sure if it’s really educational. She also likes Eat well for less and there are a few on iplayer and that’s kind of similar to into the factory (sort of!)

I’d add Clarksons Farm as a suggestion. Mine are 11&13 and really enjoyed it. Learnt a fair bit too.

I cant remember which channel its on now but my kids used to like "How it's made"

I would go for something fun to be honest - they’re already ill and stuck at home. My son is this age and loves Cobra Kai and liked A Series or Unfortunate Events. Maybe you could mix it up with also watching a couple of documentaries?

Deadly 60 on bbc iplayer is good- Steve Backshall investigating the deadliest animals from around the world

Not that I’m saying educational programmes are necessarily not fun, but if it’s only a couple of short episodes a day, I wouldn’t go all out making sure everything they watch had ‘educational value.’

My dc love taskmaster.

Our DS 11 loved His Dark Materials. Both series are on the iPlayer.

Clarksons farm, who do you think you are and bake off have all been hits.

I've given them free range with the remote and they landed on judge Judy of all things - which I thought at least provided a strong professional female role model.

Elona Holmes on Netflix is good.
We enjoy watching series such as race around the world, Great British bake off, sewing bee, bake off the professionals etc.

Oh, second a pp suggestion of His Dark Materials - my two read the books too just before the first series came out. Pretty sure ds11 wiped a secret tear away at a few scenes though and dd9 definitely found parts of it really emotional!

not educational, but Lost in Space on Netflix is popular with mine of that age.

also Operation Ouch on CBBC

And there are zillions of Attenborough documentaries on BBC that keep kids entertained too.

Jonathan Bird’s Blue World got me and dd2 through the first lockdown - educational and fun, and inspired quite a lot of googling about scuba diving and various sea creatures, plus lots of use of maps to see where he was this time.

www.blueworldtv.com/
We got it off Amazon, but there are also some on YouTube.

.

Good Omens
Sword of Shanara
Lord of the Rings

Not really educational but a new series of Lego masters has just started on E4 and we watch that with our 8 year old. We also like master chef, operation ouch, horrible histories, How, and art ninja.

We also watched a documentary on Netflix about the Lego building in Denmark I think it was that was really good. Can find the title if you're interested.

Mine developed a huge fascination with Robot Wars at one point. And, for some strange reason - the garden show with Charlie Dimmock in

Avatar, The Last Airbender on Netflix (anime).