I love YouTube and not only because of our awesome videos posted daily on there, but because whenever you’re bored, want to learn how to fix your iPhone, find new music or check out the hottest new dance moves YouTube is always right there for you. With all the greatness that it has there’s also a lot of content that isn’t kid-friendly. Many parents become weary of having there child on YouTube for good reasons, so sometimes a child won’t even know what YouTube is or a parent has to literally look over the child’s shoulder to see what they’re watching. With all that hassle, YouTube and Google came together and launched YouTube Kids, which is a fun and interactive place designed for families to explore and enjoy a vast selection of videos on a tablet or smartphone. You can use YouTube Kids on your smartphone or tablet with:iOS 7 or above and Android 4.1 or above.
Last weekend we attended the launching at Milk Studios, which you’ll be able to watch on our channel. We found out what exactly the app was and we really loved it. The app is a kid-appropriate and it’s experience built around the breadth and depth of content that kids love. With a vast selection of videos, across a variety of topics, the choices match a child’s endless curiosity and interests, offering something for every kid; find how-to build a volcano, countless train videos, sing-along versions of favorite songs, crafting projects, match tutorials, answers to questions (what if we lived on the moon?), and much more. You’ll also find popular programming like National Geographic Kids, Sesame Street, DreamWorks Animation and Thomas & Friends, online hits like Mother Goose Club, Super Simple Songs and TuTiTu, plus kid-friendly content from filmmakers, teachers and creators all around the world.
Regarding parental controls they’ve hit that on the head! Here are some of the great features they provide-
We realize every family is different, so we’ve built options into the app that help you control the experience for your kids:
-Timer: Let the app be the bad guy with a built-in timer that lets you limit kids’ screen time. The app alerts your child when the session is over, so you don’t have to. (You’re welcome. 😉 )
-Sound settings: Sometimes you need a little peace and quiet! You have an option to turn off background music and sound effects, so your kids can keep watching while you catch a breather.
-Search settings: If you’d rather limit your children to just the pre-selected videos available on the home screen, you can turn off search.
– Product feedback: Our goal is to improve YouTube Kids all the time, so we’ve included a space for you to give us your feedback.
At first I was bit turned off that kids wouldn’t be able to search dance recitals or say our channel (which is kid friendly), but this app is strictly geared for children 5 and under for educational, entertainment purposes for that age range. With that said now it’s understandable why our great channel perhaps wouldn’t be the right fit. Another awesome thing is that it works like YouTube– if your child for some reason wants to watch “Beauty and the Beast,” which is not in the app they can search it and the app filters the kid-friendly “Beauty and the Beast.”
I’m very much on board with the app and it does keep my child entertained when mommy needs a break! From television shows like, Sesame Street to Thomas & Friends to Pocoyo your child will be entertained. Or if you want more of an education mixed into their session they have an awesome ‘Learning’ section that can teach your child Microeconomics to science to math, oh and most importantly they have a section called, ‘Spanish Lesson For Kids!’ You know how important I think it is for a child to know more than one language so that was awesome. However, wish they had more Spanish sections. They have a music section for the “Pop Star” in your child or if that’s not their thing, they can slide on over to the ‘Explore’ section which gets your child to explore their artistic side, watch kid-friendly viral videos, explore new toys that are in stores and countless more.
You have nothing to lose, but to download the free app and try it out! Let me know in the comments below what you think of the app as I’m always looking to see what other people’s experiences are.
No Comments