We’re always looking for cool educational videos for kids, whether they’re the funniest videos on YouTube, or educational videos and YouTube channels that our own kids love. In fact, we’ve joked that we could just do that, full time, every day. But hey! Someone else is doing it and they’re doing it so well that it’s become a go-to resource of our own.
Got a curious kid? Then you need to introduce them to this cool, fun tumblr that’s speaking their language. It’s called The Kid Should See This and it’s fantastic collection of videos for young, curious minds.
But it’s not your average, run-of-the-mill YouTube fare. No, we’re talking off-the-grid, quirky, interesting, rad stuff — over 2,100 carefully selected videos — covering art, science, tech, music, storytelling, all co-curated by a mother and her kids who are currently four and seven.
Drill down and the categories include stuff kids will really get excited about: Science Demos, Rube Goldberg Machines, Dinosaurs, How Things are Made, Women in STEM, and LEGO. There are nearly a dozen videos just on stacking dominos!
Inside the LEGO Factory video is a great example of cool, real-world videos that this mom finds. The quick 2-minute clip is from a Bloomberg Business video touring a LEGO factory in Denmark that, using robots and machines, churns out 36 billion pieces (or elements) every year. Your bare feet are probably twitching at the mere thought of all those tiny pieces scattered on the floor in the early morning. Stuff of nightmares, right? Still, fascinating to see how the yellow sausage is made, so to speak.
Related: Cool videos for kids that aren’t actually made for kids
Or for the kinds of things you really don’t find anywhere else, take for example this lovely video called, The Door. It’s actually a short poem by Miroslav Holub, a Czech poet and immunologist (because I always think those two things go together) that two filmmakers set to beautiful images of all these glorious doors and wonderfully sweet, stirring music. You hear a man’s accented voice begin with this rich invitation: Go and open the door. Maybe outside there’s a tree, or a wood, a garden, or a magic city. From there, you’re off on an excellent, intriguing journey that really got my mind racing about stories that lay waiting behind those doors. Imagine what kinds of storytelling adventures it could inspire in your kids!
if you can’t already tell, the breadth of subject matter of the videos on the site is outstanding. From a fascinating, 16-second simulation of the history New Horizons Pluto flyby earlier this summer, to How to Make Mini Donut Cookies — um, yeah, these are cookies that look like mini donuts (Paging: Cool Mom Eats!) — I happily went down the rabbit hole, and I can see kids of all ages doing the same.
The site disclaims that much of the videos are “most likely not stuff that was made for” kids, which is what kind of makes them perfect for kids. Basically, don’t underestimate these children of ours. Their brains are sponges, ready to take in more than the next Minecraft tutorial when they open their tablets.
Visit The Kid Should See This for tons of educational, entertaining video content for kids. Top photo features the video Contact Juggling with Swiss street performer Joseph Viatte. Your kids will love it!
