During Anya's early days of YouTube conquest, she was watching mostly VeggieTales, Pororo and the occasional Elmo and Barney (strangely, she likes Barney on the Big TV screen and much prefers it to remain that way). In those days, other than a couple of catchy VeggieTales silly songs; I was hardly into YouTube.
These days, I (and the Husband) am (are) singing a different tune altogether. And it is because we have discovered some other publishers / channels / makers and their videos are becoming a hit in our little household, for both young and old!
I thought I will share with my dear mommy (& daddy, if there is?) friends here. After all, as what we have been teaching Anya lately, good things are meant to be shared.
1. Barefoot books
Barefoot books videos were introduced to us by
Anya's music and movement teacher. She showed "Driving my Tractor" one morning. The illustrations were beautiful, the song had a nice groove and the singer sounded like Jason Mraz. Naturally, We enjoyed it immensely. After we got home, I did a quick search on YouTube and found that they had a dozen (or so) more songs. Most of them, I have bookmarked them. But our top favorites remained to be "Driving my Tractor" and another one called, "Up, up, up".
2. KidsTV123
This one, I discovered by chance while surfing around for new videos for Anya. Now, I like KidsTV123's because they are made with a purpose to educate children on something - be it ABCs, phonics, shapes and colors etc.. The illustrations are simple but the songs are mostly catchy with, again, very crucial for me, singers who sound like pop singers more than cheesy and overly animated children-songs singers. The latter are a big turn-off for me. Yes, imagination movers, I'm talking about you.
Some of the videos that are currently doing wonders to our little girl's mind? "Brush your teeth" and "The shape song". After watching the former a couple of times, she now brushes her teeth with new enthusiasm, putting in great effort to use the correct techniques. She is also rather intrigued by "Phonics song 2", repeatedly playing it, although I think she has not quite figured out the message behind the song. (But at post time, we realized she has memorized a large chunk of the song!)
3. Gigglebellies
We have not venture out much on this one. Only two videos so far and we were contented to stick with them. This is because, while we allow the kid to watch YouTube, we limit the time usage. Typically, 30 minutes is all we allow for her to tinker on our iPad. That, plus a one song-video per child policy before bedtime prayer. So by the time Anya goes through the above list of videos (with repetitions of a few of her favorites), 30 minutes is up.
Anyway, the two videos are namely "Twinkle twinkle little star" and "The wheel on the bus". I really like their variation for "Twinkle" where they meshed in their own version of "Star light, star bright". Very soothing, superbly apt for a lullaby. In fact, it was a life-saver for us during Arielle's last bout of sickness. She was crying through the night (again), tired and cranky yet too uncomfortable to sleep. Eventually, we caught her attention by playing a couple of barefoot songs (those that we know will catcher action because she had been nearby whenever Anya watches them and was beginning to show interest in them). Once we got her attention, we switched to gigglebellies's "Twinkle" and it proved to have a calming effect. With that, she finally doze off the sleep after the video was replayed for more than 30 minutes. Thank God though, her usual lullaby player works again these days to ease her down for sleep.
As for "Wheels on the bus", it is because simply transportation are one of Anya's thing, so she goes for it.
So yes, the above three children video-makers are our top Favourite search on YouTube currently. As mentioned earlier on, while we allow our children to watch YouTube, it does come with a set of rules. For any kind of child's play, there will always be two schools of thought. We are cool about allowing TV and tinkering with some gadgets,but as I said, with limitations, supervision, and parental censorship. And we are firm believers that too much of something is usually never good. And yes, it is tried and tested when it comes to allowing too much YouTube and TV for Anya. She kind of goes into a trance and refuses to budge from the sofa, had lesser self-control, was less guarded about keeping a good behavior and then it all went into a downward spiral and with a big meltdown (and showdown) at the end of that day.
Therefore, if you are just beginning to introduce the world of YouTube to your kiddo, I sincerely hope that it does mostly good for your child(ren) and lots of fun for you all. And if you are a parent who is already letting your child(ren) to watch videos, do you have any other videos to share here? Feel free, as I will love hear from you. :)
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