Educate your kids with Google Video
Kim's husband introduced their toddler to the wonders of Google Video:
I took a nap on Sunday - a VERY RARE happening, but my husband agreed since he was going to be going four-wheeling later in the afternoon. When I woke up, I found my husband and 22 month-old son sitting in a chair with computer in lap. My husband was searching Google Video for different animal videos (child-friendly ones - hence no SHARK ATTACKS SURFER ones). Our son was in a trance, and he learned the difference between a shark, a whale and a dolphin, he got to see deer, penguins, brown bears, etc. -- it was like watching National Geographic personalized and up close.
Our son's absolute favorite was Matrix Cow - very funny rendition of a cow in a Matrix-style fight - he laughs so hard from the moment the cow snorts and jumps on his back two legs. I have to agree it was pretty funny the first time or two - but he got a bit too attached to this one… "AGAIN, do cow AGAIN".
Had to share, could be a great way to take a break from work on the computer AND let kids "use" the computer.
One of our maiden hacks in the same vein: Flickr as kid entertainment
Tags: Google Video, Learning, Parenting
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This fits in well with a hack I was thinking about sending in: dualhead desktop (i.e., two monitors connected to one computer). It lets me have a browser, word processor, etc., open on one desktop and Dora or Google video or whatever open on the other monitor in full screen. I get to work (or read the news or whatever) while the kids watch their show, and we're together and I can monitor what and how much they're watching.
Most video cards these days are equipped to drive two displays, and Windows, Mac OS, and Linux will all support it out-of-the-box (you might need to install specialized drivers from the video card manufacturer's website).
For even more sanity protection, you can clap a pair of headphones on the kid and you aren't forced to listen to "Come on! Vamanos!" for the 100th time today :-)
Posted by: Ben | 05 February 2007 at 06:12 AM
Cool idea, Ben about using two monitors. My husband does that when he's working but I never thought about using it to allow my daughter to watch something sitting next to me. I'll have to check out some Google vids for her. We use Google images a lot especially when she asks questions about animals or plants or something that we need an image of to make her understand differences or learn what something is.
Posted by: Sarah | 05 February 2007 at 07:35 AM
We've been using Google Video and YouTube for a couple of months to indugle our 2 year-old daughter's obsession with Shamu. There are quite a few recorded shows from SeaWorld on both services. Very handy! :)
Posted by: Tim Ludwig | 05 February 2007 at 08:07 AM
We have been using Google Video with my two year old (26 months) for a little while now, it's great. National Geographic's website also has a ton of animal profiles, many of the more popular ones also have associated audio clips so you can hear what the animals sound like. He LOVES it.
(However, most of the videos on the main NG site are not kid-friendly. Luckily, they do have a kids' section that does have a small selection of kid-friendly videos.)
Posted by: omar | 05 February 2007 at 08:28 AM
That's weird, I did the same thing on Saturday with my kids for the first time. We were searching Youtube for animals that my son would type out in the search box.
Posted by: Joe Banks | 05 February 2007 at 10:00 AM
http://www.foldedspace.org/weblog/2006/04/sesame_street_video_clips.html
You're welcome
Posted by: Roger | 05 February 2007 at 10:17 AM
While my wife and oldest child were playing on the game system, I sat with two of my other kids and looked up old "Electric Company" videos on YouTube. My kids loved the Spider Man shorts where he would pop up word balloons that they would have to read.
Posted by: John M. | 05 February 2007 at 10:20 AM
And of course, see "Dutch's Ultimate Anthology of Televised Toddler Entertainment":
http://sweetjunipermeta.blogspot.com/2006/07/dutchs-ultimate-anthology-of-televised.html
Posted by: Cory | 05 February 2007 at 12:41 PM
i love finding great video clips on line! Am I being a little over protective in thinking that this particular clip is really too violent for my three boys? Guess it may be the cow's ideas of how to "have fun" with their brothers that may have me sideways. We'll look for other interesting ones on it. Thanks for the tip!
Posted by: Anne R. | 06 February 2007 at 08:06 AM
We haven't introduced our daughter to TV yet, but didn't want her utterly cut off from electronic media either. Our middle territory are a couple minutes online with nature (or train) footage every few days. We started doing searches in Google Images for still images of things that, at 13 months, she was intrigued by: elephants, trains, trains, trains. Now that she's a bit older, we're doing video clips too. Found some great footage of a red fox on You Tube. Turns out the guy who shot the video has a nearly tame fox who has been showing up in his yard for a while now. Highly recommended. http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Drew2727
Posted by: Shelby | 06 February 2007 at 10:32 AM
Just don't go to Google Video's top 100 because its full of porn--one glance at the screen loading was enough to make me click away. U Tube is monitored a little better but still requires extreme caution...as does Flickr, though that's one of my favorite haunts. Basically you have to be very careful on any site whose purpose is displaying video or images.
Posted by: Marla | 07 February 2007 at 08:53 PM