Curious Kids · for grown-ups
A guide for grown-ups
Curious Kids is twelve short adventures about AI for children aged 8 to 12, on their own or with you. Each takes about 10 minutes: a short story, two games, a few check questions that earn a sticker, a word jar, and a corner for you.
Our promise
- No accounts. Children never sign up or sign in, and we never ask for a name or an email address.
- Nothing leaves this device. Progress and stickers are saved only in this browser. They are never sent to us, synced, or added to an account, even if you are signed in on the same device.
- No ads, no analytics, no tracking, no share buttons, and no videos or widgets from other sites.
- No real AI. Pip is a pretend AI: a small script built into the page, always labelled as pretend. Children never use a real AI tool here.
- No links out of the kids area, except back to the main site.
To clear your child’s stickers, clear this site’s data in your browser settings. More in our privacy policy.
How to use it together
- Sit together for the first one. Read the story aloud, or press “Read to me”. After that, many children like to go on alone.
- Talk, don’t test. Each lesson ends with a “For grown-ups” corner: three questions to talk about and a five-minute offline activity.
- Try the “Try it” activities. Most need no screen at all. The ones marked “with a grown-up” are for you to do together.
- Go in order. The twelve lessons tell one story, from finding Pip to making your own AI rules card.
Lesson by lesson
Lesson 1: What Is AI?
The big idea: AI is a tool people made. It's clever at some things, but it isn't magic and it isn't alive.
Safety message: AI is a tool, not a person.
What your child learns: AI is a tool made by people: clever at some tasks, but not magic, not alive, and without feelings. Some everyday machines use AI (voice helpers, maps, recommendations) and some don't.
Talk about it:
- Which machines in our home do you think use AI? How could we check?
- If a chatbot says “I'm sad”, does it really feel sad? Why do you think it says that?
- What's one job you'd like AI to help with, and one you'd never want it to do?
Lesson 2: How AI Learns From Examples
The big idea: AI learns by looking at lots of examples. Bad or too few examples teach it the wrong thing.
Safety message: Examples matter.
What your child learns: AI systems learn patterns from examples (training data). If the examples are too few or too alike, the system learns the wrong pattern and makes confident mistakes on things it hasn't seen, like calling a black cat "not a cat" because every example cat was orange.
Talk about it:
- If you wanted to teach someone what a dog is using only photos, which photos would you choose?
- Why did Pip call the orange fox a cat? What could Theo have done differently?
- Can people learn the wrong pattern from too few examples too? Can you think of a time?
Lesson 3: AI Can Be Wrong
The big idea: AI can say wrong things in a very sure voice. Check important answers.
Safety message: Check with a grown-up or a good book.
What your child learns: AI can give wrong answers in a confident tone, so confidence is not proof. When an answer matters, check it with a good source, such as a book or a trusted adult.
Talk about it:
- Can you remember a time someone sounded sure but was wrong? How did you find out?
- What makes a book or a person a good source?
- Which answers are important enough to check, and which are fine to just enjoy?
Lesson 4: Asking Good Questions
The big idea: Clear questions get better answers. Say what you want and who it's for.
Safety message: Be clear and kind.
What your child learns: AI tools only work with the words they are given, so clear requests get better results. A good request says what you want, who it's for, and roughly how long. Kind words are a good habit, and a request never needs private details like a real name or address.
Talk about it:
- What's the difference between "make a story" and a clear question? What details would you add?
- Why do you think we say please and thank you, even to a pretend AI?
- What private things should never go into a question to an AI?
Lesson 5: AI Is Not Your Friend (But It Can Help)
The big idea: Chatbots can sound friendly, but they don't have feelings. Real friends and family do.
Safety message: Talk to a real person about feelings.
What your child learns: Chatbots can sound warm and caring, but they have no feelings and can't care about anyone. They are useful for jobs like spelling or ideas; feelings, worries, and comfort belong with real people. Enjoying a chat with AI is fine, as long as the child knows what it is.
Talk about it:
- When you feel sad or worried, who are the people you like to talk to?
- Why do you think a chatbot can sound so kind when it has no feelings?
- What's something a real friend can do that a chatbot never can?
Lesson 6: Keep Your Secrets Safe
The big idea: Some things are private: your full name, address, school, photos, passwords.
Safety message: Never share private things with AI or online.
What your child learns: Some information is private: full name, home address, school, phone number, passwords, and photos of their face. Favourite things, jokes, and pets are fine to share. If a game, website, or chatbot asks for private details, they say no, close it, and tell a grown-up.
Talk about it:
- What things do you think are private in our family? Why?
- If a game promised you a prize for your address, what would you do?
- Who are the grown-ups you could tell if something online asked for private things?
Lesson 7: Real or Fake?
The big idea: AI can make pictures, videos, and voices that look real. Look for clues and ask.
Safety message: If something feels off, ask a grown-up.
What your child learns: AI tools can make pictures, videos, and voices that look real. Sometimes there are clues (odd hands, melted writing, wrong shadows), but good fakes can have none. The safe habit is to pause, look, ask a grown-up, and check where it came from before sharing.
Talk about it:
- Have you ever seen a picture or video that made you think, “is that real?” What did you do?
- Why might someone make a fake picture? Is it OK if it's just a joke?
- If a picture has no clues, how could we find out if it's real?
Lesson 8: Creating With AI
The big idea: AI can help you make stories and pictures. Your own ideas matter most, and it's honest to say when AI helped.
Safety message: Be honest about AI help.
What your child learns: AI can help with creative work, for example by suggesting ideas, but the child's own ideas and effort matter most. It's honest to say when AI helped, and for schoolwork the teacher sets the rules about what help is allowed.
Talk about it:
- If a friend helped with your drawing, would you say so? Is AI help any different?
- What's the difference between getting an idea from AI and letting AI do the whole thing?
- What do you think your teacher's rules about AI help are? How could we find out?
Lesson 9: AI All Around You
The big idea: AI is already in maps, voice helpers, games, and suggestions. Spot it!
Safety message: Notice when AI is choosing for you.
What your child learns: AI is built into everyday things: maps, voice helpers, photo filters, games, and recommendations. Your child practised spotting it, and noticing when an app is quietly choosing for them (the next video, the next song, things to buy).
Talk about it:
- Which apps in our home choose things for us? Do we mind?
- When a video starts by itself, how could you decide whether to keep watching?
- Why do you think apps want to choose the next video for you?
Lesson 10: Is AI Fair?
The big idea: AI learns from examples. If the examples leave some people or things out, AI can be unfair to them.
Safety message: If AI leaves someone out, say so and tell a grown-up.
What your child learns: AI learns from examples. When some groups are missing or rare in those examples, the AI can work worse for them: that is one source of bias. Fairer AI needs varied examples and testing with many kinds of people.
Talk about it:
- Can you think of a time something didn't work as well for you as for someone else, like a game, a pair of gloves, or a voice helper?
- Why do you think Pip decided a rain boot wasn't a shoe?
- If you built an AI, what examples would you give it so it works for everyone?
Lesson 11: Learning With AI
The big idea: AI can help you understand things, but your brain does the learning. You do the thinking and the work.
Safety message: Follow your school's rules about AI, and ask if you're not sure.
What your child learns: AI can be a patient explainer, but learning happens when the child does the thinking. Good uses: explaining, giving ideas, asking check questions. Poor uses: doing the work. School rules about AI come first.
Talk about it:
- What's something you understand much better because you worked it out yourself?
- When would it be OK to ask AI for help with homework, and when not?
- What are your school's rules about AI? Shall we find out together?
Lesson 12: Be a Smart AI Explorer
The big idea: Put it all together and make your own AI rules with a grown-up.
Safety message: Your AI rules card.
What your child learns: This lesson pulls the whole section together: AI is a tool without feelings, it learns from examples and can be confidently wrong, clear and kind questions help, private details stay private, fakes exist, AI help should be admitted honestly, and AI is quietly choosing things in many everyday apps. Your child chose their own wording for a family AI rules card and practised a simple plan for surprising answers: stop, think, check, decide.
Talk about it:
- Which rule on your card do you think is the most important? Why?
- What would you do if an app or a chatbot told you something really surprising?
- Is there a rule you think grown-ups should follow too?
About real AI tools
Most AI assistants and chatbots have a minimum age, often 13 or older (check each tool’s current terms). If your child is curious to try one, do it together, with you doing the typing. The lessons never require a real tool.
If your child is worried, or has shared something private
- If AI worries them: keep it concrete. AI is a tool that people made; it makes guesses, and it can’t want anything or do anything by itself.
- If they shared something private: stay calm and thank them for telling you. Then act as needed: change passwords, check privacy settings, block or report an account, and ask the service to delete the details.
- If they talk to chatbots about feelings: don’t shame them. Listen, and help them find real people to talk to. If sadness or worry lasts, talk to their teacher or doctor.