The Kid Should See This.
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There's just so much science, nature, music, art, technology, storytelling and assorted good stuff out there that my kids (and maybe your kids) haven't seen. It's most likely not stuff that was made for them...
But we don't underestimate kids around here.
Kid-friendly not-made-for-kids videos for all! Collected by Rion Nakaya and her three four year old co-curator.
Tip Jar: Curating this blog takes work! If you like the videos on this site, please support the science education projects that we've picked on DonorsChoose.org.
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Giant piano! And on this particular giant piano (with rainbow light up keys!), a happy gentleman at NYC’s F.A.O. Schwartz plays the Mario theme song… and not perfectly, which is the best part! — It’s the only way you can tell how much practice and work it must take to tap out such an epic song on such a giant instrument.
h/t @mindfulmimi.
May the 4th be with you! Have a piano? Or just love music and/or Star Wars music? Then please enjoy this simple Imperial March tutorial, a slightly more advanced Cantina Band tutorial, and for inspiration, five year old Lucas playing the Star Wars theme on piano.
Here’s Tito Puente rocking the Bronx with A Maria Cervantes on the vibraphone in 1945. And here he is again with the same song at the Montreal Jazz Festival almost 40 years later in 1983.
We aren’t using the telegraph as a metaphor anymore, but why aren’t we still teaching our kids about the central nervous system, peripheral nerves, the autonomic system in cartoons? Don’t our brains get email from our feet?!
Here’s the 1979 classic, Telegraph Line, from School House Rock. (Updated video.)
Nothing gets you moving quite like boogie woogie and the Andrews Sisters were brilliant at it. Here they are in a 1941 clip from Abbott and Costello’s Buck Privates. (Loved having both kids dancing around the living room to this!)
Reggie Watts is a comedian and musician in Brooklyn that you may have seen on tv or on the internets. He plays with accents, beat-boxing, sound effects, a wide range of music styles, and other often improv’d creations.
While his work is for mature audiences, our kid really likes this particular video (by Ronen V) of Reggie breaking out the layers and loops with gear that includes a multi-track looper, as well as some very clear visuals that help explain the improvised song’s construction.
One of the kiddo’s favorite songs from They Might Be Giants’ Here Comes Science — after Meet the Elements, of course — here comes What is a Shooting Star? (Hint: A shooting star is not a star, it’s not a star at all. A shooting star’s a meteor that’s heading for a fall…)
One more from a música portuguesa a gostar dela própria, a project created to celebrate and archive the variety of music made in Portugal. This video was shot in Riachos, Torres Novas and is charming and super catchy. We watched it twice after watching quite a few other videos from the project.
This kind of endeavor is so great for capturing music, tradition, culture, language, history, storytelling and so many other aspects for both adults and kids. I wish there were many, many documentation projects like this.
h/t Rosa Pomar.
Even if your kid has seen this on the interwebs or tv already, they might want to see it again. This Beluga Whale is named Juno and lives at the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut. And yes, Juno likes mariachi music.
Thanks, Jenni.
