Kids / Educational

Kids Educational Vinyl Records: Story LPs, Songs and Musical Firsts

What you will find among kids educational records

This collection gathers the kids educational vinyl records listed on Vinyles.com: musical stories, introductions to classical music, learning songs and early-childhood records. Each listing shows offers from several partner stores, so you can compare prices before you pick one. Records suit young listeners well: drop the needle, look at the cover art, hear a story from start to finish with no screen involved. Plenty of parents grew up with read-along records themselves and want to pass on the same habit.

Classic children's records worth knowing

Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" was written to introduce children to the instruments of the orchestra, each character played by a different instrument, and it has been recorded with many narrators. Saint-Saëns' "The Carnival of the Animals" does a similar job. In the US, Disneyland Records' read-along books paired a record with an illustrated booklet, and Ella Jenkins recorded her participation songs for Folkways.

Pete Seeger also recorded songs for children for Folkways, and those records are still easy to enjoy today. French-language story records have a long tradition of their own, from classic story series to Anne Sylvestre's "Fabulettes" songs, which explains why some French titles appear in this collection: they work well for families raising bilingual kids or teaching French at home.

New or used: buying records for kids

For everyday use by a child, a recent edition is the easy choice: clean disc, sturdy sleeve, no surprises, and often a fair price once you compare offers. Vintage children's records have real charm for collectors, with their period cover art and booklets, but most of them were handled a lot by small hands. Before buying a used copy, a few checks save disappointment.

• Condition: scratches and skips are common on kids' records
• For read-alongs, whether the booklet is included and intact
• Format: 7-inch, 10-inch or 12-inch, and the right speed for your turntable
• The narrator or performer, which varies from one version to another

Choosing a turntable for a child

A simple turntable with an automatic tonearm or auto-return cuts down on accidents. Teaching a child to hold records by the edge and slide them back into the sleeve makes them last much longer. For more listening, the site's broader Children collection also covers songs and soundtracks for young listeners, which you can compare across stores the same way.