Children's Educational Videos for Homeschooling and More

I have an idea that has been brewing for a while but I'm finally making it happen.

After years of homeschooling three kids (our oldest is 10) I have been left wishing many times that there were more fun and engaging videos that could get the kids interested in things like permaculture principles, the environment, and many other homeschool subjects like etymology or morphemes that are easy to lose kids attention on but a really inherently fascinating.

I have a decent talent for art and have wanted to do video production ever since I was in high school. I am not personally interested in animation, however I would love to create puppet characters and possibly contribute if an animator wanted to work with me.

My first idea is something like a good better best episode about reducing reusing and recycling. I am thinking of something like a Jim Henson/Sesame Street/Blue's Clues educational style videos.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? I am starting completely from scratch, the resources I have right now are some limited experience with YouTube, a DSLR camera, a natural inclination to art and building... Very limited business experience... I would love your feedback!

It sounds like a good idea. I hope you'll keep us updated.

My family uses some videos as part of homeschooling, mostly science ones for my 8 and 9 year olds.

One suggestion I might make is to have the videos labelled with a recommended age range, so that it's easy for parents of older children to find videos that will interest them, and for parents of young children to find suitable ones.

Kate Downham wrote:It sounds like a good idea. I hope you'll keep us updated.

My family uses some videos as part of homeschooling, mostly science ones for my 8 and 9 year olds.

One suggestion I might make is to have the videos labelled with a recommended age range, so that it's easy for parents of older children to find videos that will interest them, and for parents of young children to find suitable ones.

Yes! That is a great idea, labeling for age appropriate-ness.

Do you guys watch Sci-Show or Crash Course? I love those but I feel like Crash Course is great for like 12-13 and up while Sci-Show kids is more or less entertainment for younger kids and while it gets then interested in sciencey things it's not really structured in a way that helps them grasp bigger concepts.

I haven't heard of those ones, I will look them up : )

Right now they are watching chemistry videos from the University of Nottingham, and Isaac Arthur's videos about space, both of these channels are on YouTube.

Glad I could share them! I will look up those other channels, too! Kahn Academy is another great homeschooling resource (of college which is how I found it!).

I am hoping I can tie in general education ideas with ecology and those "lever 2 and 3" concepts Paul talks about. Introducing kids at ayoung age to permaculture concepts for problem solving seems like a great way to get little ones started out right!

I agree.

At a permaculture course I'm doing someone recently brought up the topic of how recycling became mainstream in Australia - it was through education programs in schools, teaching the children about it, who then wanted to recycle at home. It would be great to see this happening for other waste-reducing and permaculture ideas. Children can be very influential at the present time, and then will go on to shape the future.

This is from my YouTube channel I've been working on for a little over a year, it's no children's show but I did a thing!