Create playlists to make sure your kids are seeing only great videos
Come on, admit it.
You’re glad that you became a parent in the time of YouTube. This web giant not only provides great entertainment to kids, but also makes learning an enjoyable experience.
Let’s face it—a great many parents today are becoming increasingly dependent on watchable content uploaded on YouTube for their preschoolers’ learning and leisure. Fact is, viral videos made for youngsters have easily garnered tens of millions of views from all over the world.
You’ll be amazed at this medium’s potential in promoting learning among young boys and girls.
The Crucial Years
A child’s brain develops a whole lot more and at a faster rate during the first five years of his life. Along with books and educational toys, videos for kids stimulate your child’s brain, and thus effectively help him learn about such areas as phonics, shapes and colors, and counting, to name a few. Kids at these ages are visual learners and find colorful animated videos quite fascinating.
The knowledge and skills they gain at this crucial stage in their development greatly helps in their transition from home to school.
Co-Viewing
Children across the United States may be watching YouTube videos on a computer, tablet, or smartphone. But the most ideal platform for this purpose is arguably the streaming device (such as Apple TV, Roku, Google Chromecast, or Amazon Fire TV).
Here’s why. Being connected to a TV set, a streaming device makes for a better family experience because a child can watch the videos on a bigger screen with his parents and older siblings right in the comfort of their living room.
When tots watch a show with their parents, they tend to learn more. Watching shows with your little one allows you to witness how he reacts to what he sees on the screen. This provides you the opportunity to give your feedback so he could better understand what he is watching, or encourage him to sing along to nursery rhyme songs. Without a doubt, this interaction between a parent and his child during co-viewing gives a significant boost to the child’s learning.
Top Five YouTube Channels for Kids
Now, we come to the all-important question of what YouTube channels to check out.
It’s a known fact that the big names in traditional children’s TV shows—such as Sesame Street, Disney Junior, Nick Jr., and Cartoon Network—also have a strong presence in YouTube. This article, however, talks about alternative channels that have become popular in recent years as this video-sharing website secured a foothold in our lives.
The following is our list of the top five channels in the YouTube galaxy, providing the best entertainment and educational value for young kids.
Put up by a London-based husband and wife team whose expertise is creating 3D animation videos, Little Baby Bum features traditional nursery rhymes, as well as originally composed songs for children. Its 54-minute compilation of nursery rhymes, featuring Wheels on the Bus, among other songs, has garnered a whopping 2.1 billion views, making it the most watched educational video of all time. This YouTube channel has become so popular, thanks to its recognizable animation videos that are sure to enthrall many a fun-loving child.
Known for its highly entertaining live action and animated videos, Mother Goose Club has a cast of several colorful characters, who perform classic and original nursery rhymes using catchy melodies and interactive lessons. The engaging song and dance videos of this channel will likely encourage your child to sing along and dance.
In 2013, ChuChuTV was established by an Indian software engineer who had a little daughter whom he fondly called Chu Chu. This channel is known for creating quality animation presenting nursery rhymes and other songs for kids. This ‘edutainment’ channel is loved by tots all over the world for its unique brand of storytelling and its high-spirited music. A clear proof of this is its mind-blowing number of subscribers—18 million and still growing.
This YouTube channel pole-vaulted into prominence via the wildly popular children’s song called “Baby Shark”. But there’s more to Pinkfong than this monster hit, which has been viewed more than 1 billion times. This South Korean media firm has captivated millions of children across the globe with its immensely enjoyable videos featuring nursery rhymes, phonics songs, number songs, bedtime lullabies and more. They even have entertaining animated videos encouraging toddlers to brush their teeth and to use the potty.
If you have a young child, chances are he knows Blippi like a close buddy. What endeared him to youngsters? His bright orange and blue costume, wacky dance moves, and his good-natured big kid persona. In the last four years, Blippi has captured the imagination of young kids around the world with his fun and educational live action videos exploring firetrucks, construction equipment, airplanes, and helicopters. This channel also teaches preschoolers about colors, shapes, numbers, and the alphabet, among other things.
Bonus Five
I know what you’re thinking. Five channels to recommend is too few. So, here’s more. Below are five additional channels that your kids will surely like:
- Super Simple Songs— Features tons of really cool animated videos of nursery rhymes and original children’s songs created by a team of educators
- The Singing Walrus— Presents enjoyable early education songs performed by adorable tiny animated characters
- ABCkidTV— Teaches young kids letters and numbers, shapes and colors, and a lot more through engaging animated videos
- Super Kids TV — Highlights loads of engrossing animations about shapes and colors
- Kids Learning Tube— Provides a treasure trove of valuable classroom lessons sung in folksy tunes
Be In Charge of Your Child’s Viewing Program
As you may know, the way YouTube works is you search videos on a certain subject by typing a subject on the search box (for example, “nursery rhymes”), and you play the video of your choice. If autoplay is enabled, other videos on the same subject automatically plays one after another, seemingly without end—just like the stars in the sky.
A word of caution: You cannot just rely on this web giant’s algorithm to play videos that will be beneficial and enjoyable to your child. You’ll see great videos, but not all are great. For instance, there are poor quality animation videos with unauthorized use of characters like Spiderman, Elsa and other popular figures. Even worse are animations that show violence or destruction, such as cars or trucks crashing into each other. The little ones don’t need to see those kinds of videos.
Because you need to limit your child’s screen time, as his pediatrician would suggest, you have to make sure that he is seeing only awesome videos on YouTube. What better way to accomplish this than creating YouTube playlists for your child?
Yes, you will find existing playlists created by other YouTube users, and there are good ones. But many playlists are not desirable, in that they are way too long, or they include videos that do not suit your taste.
Take a moment to sit at your computer, and search for great YouTube videos on categories such as Nursery Rhymes, Alphabet, Phonics, Shapes & Colors, Counting, etc. Use each category plus your child’s name as title for each playlist. Add each video you selected in the appropriate playlist. Essentially, you are creating your kid’s viewing program.
Here’s how you can create a YouTube playlist:
- Log in to YouTube account.
- Select a video to play depending on the category that you searched for.
- Click on the Add to icon below the video.
- Hit Create New Playlist. Enter the name of the playlist and select the privacy setting that you want for that playlist (public, unlisted, or private).
- Once the playlist already exists, you can just click on the playlist title each time you’re adding a video.
It’s not a problem that your child will see those videos over and over. Repetition reinforces learning. You can put the best videos at the top of the playlist, or trust your instincts in creating some balance. In any case, you can always change the sequence every now and then.
Your playlists will evolve. Week after week, you will come across great new videos relevant to your created playlists. Add these videos to the proper playlists. Conversely, if you realize that there are certain videos in your playlists that do not satisfy your taste after further review, get rid of them.
Take note which videos get the best reactions from your child. Save them in a separate playlist called Favorite Videos. These will be your go-to videos when he’s bored or not in a good mood. A tot is most likely to cheer up when he sees a video that he finds quite entertaining. For this particular category you may include videos of your child’s favorite cartoon characters.
Moreover, if your child is just beginning to talk, you should know that there are YouTube videos showing first words flashcards. Gather these videos, and you can create a First Words playlist.
For those parents whose kids are starting to learn how to read, they may create a Reading playlist by compiling videos showing sight words flash cards or animation of letters forming words.
If your child likes stories being read to him, but you don’t always have time do just that, there are YouTube videos of books for children being read aloud. You can create a playlist out of these videos and call it Read Aloud Stories.
You may also gather one or two videos from each category that you have created to form a playlist simply called Learning. This way, you have the option of having your kid watch a little of everything in one playlist.
Lastly, take this endeavor a step further by creating a playlist that you may call Genius. Include here videos where names of all US presidents are being sung in catchy melodies. There are the same kind of videos about the 50 States and their capitals, the planets in the solar system, the continents and countries of the world. You may also throw in videos counting from 1 to 100 in engaging tunes. You just might discover that your child is not too young to learn these higher-level stuff.
A Healthy Balance
Just a friendly reminder: As mentioned earlier, make sure to set limits to your child’s screen time because watching appropriate YouTube videos is just one of the fun activities that can help in his development.
Make sure, too, that he spends some time for his other daily activities, such as playing with his favorite toys, and book reading with Mom or Dad. In addition, make an effort to bring him to playdates with other kids, and take him to play areas in the park.
That’s the way it is. Every parent goes to great lengths to give his or her child a well-balanced life.
