Week off!
But here are three YouTube videos
Hey Snarfs, there’s been a preponderance of non-Snarf activity in my life, and I didn’t get around to writing a post or even a timely message saying that.
But hey, here are three short videos that we’ve enjoyed as a family multiple times. Each of these is connected to a larger series, so you can explore the channels if you get interested.
(Side note about YouTube: It is a wonderful and terrifying place. I do not recommend letting your kids using it unattended. At points I’ve aspired to put together a collection of approved videos, but right now that collection only exists in my head. I think YouTube has a kid-safe filter but I’ve also heard of creepy and malicious videos slipping through that. When in doubt, look for verified accounts of users you trust.)
Okay, here are the videos:
Electric Car. This is the video for a song from They Might Be Giants’ kid’s album Here Comes Science. They have a bunch of kids albums and they’re pretty much all great. There are music videos for maybe every song on this album and at least some of their recent ones. This might be our favorite, but you don’t lack for great options.
This Too Shall Pass. This is another music video. OK Go is a band whose music is fine but nothing special that makes incredible music videos. As someone who watched a lot of early MTV, I’m nostalgic for music videos that are created as a central part of the song’s public presentation, and OK Go takes that to another level. They’re all pretty fun, but this is the only one we watch because who doesn’t love a good Rube Goldberg machine.
The Mixed Up Chameleon. As a parent, there is a 300% chance you are familiar with the work of Eric Carle (author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and many more). You can find many of his stories as short animated stories that hold onto his beautiful style. They’re pleasantly calm without the usual franticness and Disney-style animation of most cartoons.
I know some of you have some great recommendations. Go ahead and send me a reply or drop them in the comments for all to enjoy.
Here, I’ll make it easy for you (and I also just discovered Substack’s button function):
Till next week!
This was an excellent post for a week off! YouTube is so hard with kids. I appreciate hearing about the channels you mention. After wrestling with an old iPad that would not let us install YouTube Kids, we finally got it on an Android device. It is much better than regular YT for my 7.5 yr old who leaned on screens way too much in the pandemic and I kept taking YouTube off of every device in the house. But like you mention, even on YouTube Kids, junk gets through -- nothing terrifying, but a lot of low quality pointless videos. KidzBop (both on and off YouTube) was a nice recent discovery for us. Uptown Funk, for example, becomes much more kid friendly, thanks to KidzBop and they make other popular songs kid friendly which is a nice thing.