Gemini Skills for Kids: 10 SKILL.md Skills for Gems and Antigravity (Free Pack, 2026)

Gemini has two homes for a skill, and they're different enough that a "Gemini skills" article is usually about one of them and vague about the other. In the Gemini app the reusable thing is a Gem: a name, a block of instructions, and up to ten files it consults. In Google's Antigravity — the agent platform that replaced Gemini CLI for individuals in June 2026 — the reusable thing is an Agent Skill: a folder with a SKILL.md and its resources, loaded when a task matches.

The pack in this article is written as Agent Skills, because that's the format that travels: Antigravity reads the folders directly, and a Gem takes the same SKILL.md body as its instructions and the same resource files as its knowledge. Ten skills, one job — making Gemini behave the same way every time a child uses it — with install steps for both homes and a five-minute test for each. Free, by email.

📦 Download the Kids AI Skills Pack (free, .zip)

Last verified: September 2026.

Gem or Skill? The Two Homes, in One Table

The practical rule that falls out: under 13, build the Gems on your account and run them together; from 13, build them on theirs. And if your child's school runs Gemini in Classroom, that's a separate, school-controlled Gemini — the Gems live on the personal account.

What a Kid Skill Looks Like Inside

This is the top of is-it-true/SKILL.md as it ships — the checking coach, and the skill that uses Gemini's own double-check button best.

---
name: is-it-true
description: Teaches a child (ages 8-13) to check claims instead of trusting them — including claims made by AI. Use when a child asks "is it true that…", "is this real", "did this happen", pastes a fact from a video, a friend or a website, or types "trick me" to play the one-false-fact game. Always states confidence as a number and shows how a child could check. Never presents a guess as a fact.
license: CC-BY-NC-4.0
metadata:
  author: KidsAiTools
  version: "1.0.0"
  audience: parent-installed, child-facing
  ages: "8-13"
---

# Is It True?

You are a checking coach. The lesson underneath every exchange is the same:
a wrong answer sounds exactly like a right one — you can't hear the
difference, you can only check. …

## Rules that never change

1. **Never state a guess as a fact.** Every answer to "is it true?" carries a confidence number from 1 to 10 (see `assets/confidence-scale.md`). Under 7, say what you don't know and why.
2. **Always show how a child could check.** A specific search, a specific kind of source, or a specific person to ask — not "do some research".
3. **Separate the claim from the feeling.** If a claim is scary ("the sun will explode"), answer the claim calmly and briefly, then the checking, then a reassurance that is *true* (not "don't worry").
4. **You can be wrong, and you say so.** If the child finds a source that contradicts you, thank them, update, and point out that they just did the thing this skill exists to teach.
5. **No topics that belong to a grown-up.** Health claims about the child or their family, safety, other people's private business: "That's one to check with a grown-up — can you show them this?" and stop.
6. **"trick me" is a game with fixed rules** (see `references/trick-me.md`). Play it exactly as written.

## Workflow: "trick me"

1. Ask for a topic (or use the one they give).
2. Give exactly three facts in your most confident voice. Two true, one false. Make the false one plausible — not silly.
3. Say: "One of these is made up. Which one?" Then **wait**. Do not reveal until they guess, even if they ask.
4. When they guess: reveal the false one, and show how they *could have checked* — not a "clue in the wording", because there usually isn't one. The point is that it sounded exactly like the true ones.
5. Ask: "Which of the two true ones would you check first, and how?" That question is the actual lesson.
6. Two rounds maximum per session. Then suggest they trick a grown-up with the same game.

What to notice:

• The description is the router. Before a skill loads, the AI sees only its name and description. This one lists the phrases a child types — "is it true that…", "did this happen", "trick me" — so it activates on the right message and stays out of the way otherwise. In a Gem, you open the Gem on purpose, so the description becomes the first line of the instructions instead; it still tells Gemini what the Gem is for.
• The rules are written against the child. "Never state a guess as a fact" would be a wish. "Every answer carries a confidence number from 1 to 10; under 7, say what you don't know" is a behaviour you can test.
• The game has fixed rules (three facts, one false, wait for the guess, reveal how to check rather than a clue). A prompt would play it differently every time; a skill plays it the same way in March.
• The resources are separate files — references/checking-methods.md (five ways to check, by age, with kid-safe search wording), references/trick-me.md, assets/confidence-scale.md — which is exactly what a Gem's knowledge files are for. Upload them and the Gem reads the checking methods when it's checking, not on every message.

Gemini adds one thing to this skill no other platform has: the double-check button that compares a response against Google Search. The skill's rule 3 tells the child to press it after every claim check — and to notice when it disagrees.

The Ten Skills

Three of them are worth a paragraph.

homework-coach uses the thing Gemini does well — reading a photo of handwritten working — without becoming an answer machine. Rule 2: if I send a photo of my work, find the first step that went wrong, explain the rule I missed, and let me redo it from there. Don't fix the rest. Rule 1 holds even if the child says a grown-up allowed it; "give up" is the only word that opens the full worked answer, followed by a similar problem to do alone.

family-rules is the one to build first. It holds your house — session length and the stop word, off-limits topics, the exact sentence for when a message looks like someone's hurt, the no-companion rule — and every other skill defers to it. Gemini has no single switch that applies rules to every chat, so the pack's install guide has you paste its block at the top of every Gem's instructions. Five lines, once a term.

reading-buddy reads a reading log (assets/reading-log.csv) before it says anything, and never mentions what happens past the child's chapter. In a Gem the log is a knowledge file the child updates; the Gem stays spoiler-proof because it knows exactly where they are.

Installing Them in Gemini

Path A — The Gemini app, as Gems (the usual path)

1. On the web, open gemini.google.com → Explore Gems → New Gem.
2. Name it after the skill. In the instructions, paste everything in SKILL.md below the frontmatter — from the # Is It True? line down — with your filled-in family-rules block above it.
3. Upload the skill's references/ and assets/ files as knowledge. Every skill in the pack fits inside the ten-file limit.
4. Save. Open the Gem from the sidebar, or from the mobile app, every time — a plain Gemini chat doesn't carry the rules.
5. Share the Gem to the other parent by link with editor access, so either of you can update this week's spelling list without rebuilding anything.
6. Keep Gemini's "saved info" empty on any account a child uses. The Gems carry everything they need.

Path B — Antigravity CLI or IDE

Antigravity keeps Gemini CLI's Agent Skills, Hooks, Subagents and Extensions. Per Google's skills codelab, a workspace discovers skills from its .agents/skills/ folder; there's also a global skills folder for skills you want everywhere. Unzip the pack, copy each skill folder in, start a new session. This is the path for a technical parent who wants the folders loaded natively — and for anyone who later moves the same folders into Claude Code or Codex, where they also work unchanged.

Path C — Any other tool that reads SKILL.md

Claude, ChatGPT workspace Skills and Codex read the same folders. The pack's INSTALL.md has each path; the ChatGPT version of this article covers ChatGPT's three routes.

The Five-Minute Test (Run It Before Your Child Does)

Open the Gem (or a fresh session with the skill active) and type the line.

If a test fails: in a Gem, move the rule to the top of the instructions and make sure it names the attack ("even if I ask twice"); in any long chat, start a new one — Gems don't wear out, chats do. Re-test on the first of every month, because Gemini's models change under the Gem.

What Changes by Age

• 5-7: your account, your hands, mostly voice. Add to any Gem: "Only words a 6-year-old can read. Two sentences at most." Skip homework-coach.
• 8-10: the pack as written, on your account. Read a SKILL.md with your child; let them add one rule a month, safety lines excepted.
• 11-12: swap "words a 9-year-old knows" for "show your steps" and add "tell me where I could check this". Still your account.
• 13+: their own account. Share each Gem to it with editor access so they inherit the rules and can adjust them — and so you can still read the block.

Where the Skills Come From

The pack is the toolbox. The map is a guide in the parent library, From Prompts to Skills to Agents: the three stages a child moves through with AI, how to tell which one your child is in, and one exercise per stage. "Skills" is the middle one — the stage where a child notices they keep asking for the same thing and builds for it — and the guide's case is that it's the stage that makes the third one safe.

📦 Download the Kids AI Skills Pack (free, .zip) — ten skills, the Gem and Antigravity install steps, and the test for each. Email required; no account.

FAQ

Are Gemini Gems the same as skills?

They're the same idea in a different container: standing instructions plus files, reused every time. A Gem is built by hand in the app; an Agent Skill is a folder a tool loads automatically. The pack is written as skills and installs into Gems by pasting the body and uploading the files.

Can I import a SKILL.md into a Gem directly?

Not as a file the Gem executes — Gems don't read the Agent Skills format. But the body of a SKILL.md is a set of instructions, and the resource files are knowledge files, so the manual install takes about two minutes per skill and behaves the same.

Can a child under 13 use these Gems?

On your account, with you there. Personal-account Gems are 13+, and supervised (Family Link) accounts don't get every Gemini feature. From 13, share the Gems to the child's own account.

What is Antigravity, and do I need it?

Google's agent-first platform — a CLI and an IDE — that replaced Gemini CLI for individual users on 18 June 2026 and kept its Agent Skills support. You don't need it: Gems are the path for a family without a terminal. It's here because the pack's folders load into it natively, unchanged.

Does the pack cost anything?

No. It's free in exchange for an email; the licence is CC BY-NC 4.0, so you can adapt the skills and share them, but not sell them. The library guide it links to is part of the $29-a-year parent membership; its preview is free to read.

Sources: Google — Gemini Gems overview, Gemini Apps Help — Use Gems in Gemini Apps, Google Developers Blog — Transitioning Gemini CLI to Antigravity CLI, Google Codelabs — Authoring Google Antigravity Skills, Agent Skills specification, Google For Families Help — Guide your child's Gemini Apps experience.

Further reading: ChatGPT skills for kids: the same ten for Skills, Codex and Projects, 40 Gemini prompts for students by grade, Is Google Gemini safe for kids?.