Movies, books, games and activities you would recommend to smaller mutants.
Here are some of mine.
Music:
Professor Elemental - The Great Ape Escape 7-8+
They Might Be Giants - No! 4+
DVDs:
The Upside Down Show 3-5
Classic Electric Company 5-8
Pocoyo 3-5
Reading:
Mo Williem’s Gerald and Piggy Series 4-6
For older kids: Squirrel Girl Graphic Novels 7+
Edited: Added age ranges based on my grandkid.
Reading:
I’ve had good luck with the Princess in Black series by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale.
Nearly anything by Mo Willems is worth tracking down.
TV you might not expect:
All my kids (3-8years old) love Battle Bots and The Great British Baking Show. I like that both those shows seem to be full of nice people trying to do their best supported by those around them.
The Netflix “A series of Unfortunate Events” was really good.
MST3K! The new one has a monster song my daughter loves.
How about some classic British 70’s stuff?
Mr Benn
Bagpuss
Ivor the Engine
Much much (and I must stress this much) better than the film.
I think it would be helpful to mention the age range for these…
@Sagoli; a little dark, no?
I’m in need of a new dinosaur show. Everything is either entertainment/cartoon or educational but too violent for 3-4 yo.
I mean, I don’t love to watch it, but my little guy (3.5) kinda likes Dinotrux on Netflix…
Not terribly in my opinion. My kids are well out of pre-school and at an age in which they very much appreciate being exposed to “difficult” subjects and then discussing them afterwards. I think most children actually appreciate seeing child protagonists who experience real challenges.
But I agree that 3 and 4 are much too young, if only because I remember my kids having very short attention spans at that age. Wish I had a recommendation for your little ones!
Yeah, we’ve Dinotrux and Dinosaur train and Dino Dan - all good shows, though more entertainment than education. My son has shown an interest in more documentary style shows, but the problem is there’s a lot of violence in those shows - that’s to be expected, considering being a dinsosaur meant pretty much eating or being eaten. I found a good one with the bbc but still, too much gore.
PS mine is 4 in August. Yours?
[ nervously shuffles feet ]
My 4 and 8 yo love that show.
Right on. Maybe it’s just been too long for me to remember accurately, but it seems like during more dialogue-heavy shows ftom around age 3-6 they would vascillate between watching and wandering away to get toys.
A couple of my childhood favourites:
Music:
Fred Penner, The Cat Came Back
Movies:
The Sword in the Stone
Book:
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle.
Music
Choo Choo Boogaloo by Buckwheat Zydeco (specifically for the two versions of Skip to the Loo)
Also recommend the Met production of The Magic Flute DVD with Julie Taymor’s great puppetry if you have a budding opera fan. This production is in English.
One of my favorite memories is seeing Ingmar Bergman’s Magic Flute on the big screen.
What about Walking with Dinosaurs (Netflix, originally BBC)? It has some factual errors, but it’s less violent and more documentary than some others. My eldest niece liked it when she was 5, although she lost patience when the scene I told her about (baby dinosaurs hiding from predators in their elders’ poo) failed to materialise soon enough.
Donsosuars hiding in poo? Sounds like the perfect show for my kid!
I think it’s around episode 6.
The dinosaurs are CGI and some clever puppetry. Just maybe vet a couple of episodes for the violence angle – it’s hard to tell what will set kids off. Adults will articulate it, at least.
Anybody watched any Tumble Leaf? Excellent stop motion amd all themes are very gently and playfully built around engineering amd simple machines. I’d watch it myself but my daughter also loves it.
We try to watch it in our house - I like the way Tumble Leaf introduces scientific method. But so far it hasn’t grabbed my son the way that other shows have. I say “Why don’t we watch Tumble Leaf?” and he says “No let’s watch I Love Toy Trains!” (which is basically just an hour long video about toy train sets).
Again? Ugh.