I first saw this valuable life hack on TikTok: Search “Mario Run” on YouTube when you need to keep your kid busy for a while. I did, but I wasn’t sure if the resulting videos would actually hold a kid’s attention. So I proposed to my kindergarten-age daughter that she try out a few. Her eyes widened when she saw the thumbnail on my screen. “We do these at school!” she squealed, and immediately started demanding I play her favorite ones on the living room TV.
These videos vary in style and theme, but they all have the feel of an interactive game. You might imagine them as virtual reality games, or the kind of thing you would play with a gesture-recognizing controller. But it turns out kids don’t necessarily care if the game is actually responding to their actions; they just want to run and jump around. So here are 10 of the best videos that fulfill this purpose—and you can play them directly from YouTube, no game console needed.
