Be prepared to binge these YouTube shows with your little one!
YouTube has become the new craze for kids, offering many creative and catchy educational shows for school-age children. Whether you’re watching Black creators like Tabitha Brown on Tab Time or Monica J. Sutton who brought children a sense of normalcy during the pandemic with “circle time,” there are plenty of kid-friendly channels to support. Husband and wife duo Leo Sullivan and Ethelyn O even started up their own website, Afrokids TV, to use representation to further educate little Black learners. Their selfless efforts landed the channel on Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Android TV, and in the Apple App Store and Google Play. Here’s four YouTubers with channels that are dedicated to bringing your child the best online learning experience:
Akili & Me is a children’s show that has been airing in Nigeria since 2018. Now available on YouTube, this channel has reached over 17 million families! It aims to teach children ages 3-6 about numbers, reading, empathy and social-emotional skills.
Does your child love to read? What better way to get them to cuddle up with a book than with Ruthy’s Reading Room? It’s a children’s story time channel that shares children’s books from Black authors! After observing how the local library’s facilitator interacted with children, mother and social worker Michelle McDonald wanted to bring that to her community. She told Kingstonist, “Building a culturally diverse and inclusive community begins with positive representation.” By sharing these culturally diverse books online through her alter ego “Ruthy,” she’s making reading fun again for Black children who can now see themselves in children’s books. On this channel, your children can watch and read along all while feeling included and represented!
Now if you don’t know about Gracie’s Corner then where have you been? They even have parents dancing! Gracie’s Corner gathered over 77 million YouTube views in the month of July alone. If you need a catchy tune for counting money, deep breathing, or months of the year, then Gracie’s Corner is the channel to subscribe to. The beauty of this channel is that a Black family is behind it; the Hollingsworth family created this animated series based on their 10-year-old daughter, Graceyn “Gracie” Hollingsworth. Every episode, Gracie is joined with friends and family to bust out all her creative and cool songs.
With 2.05K subscribers, Kujo’s Kid Zone was started in 2019 by none other than Kujo himself. Kujo and his signature bright red glasses encourage children to ask questions. Not only is he empowering young children and their differences, but he’s also answering a lot of curious children’s everyday “why’s.” In each episode, he and a bright student go on a “Mission of Discovery” through puppets, songs, and storytelling with the goal to teach children a variety of subjects. The goal is to create “a diverse, inclusive, and welcoming community by showing positive role models for Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOC) and the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community.” Luckily for you, Kujo is dropping 14 new stories this season with topics like “Is Kwanzaa Like Christmas?” and “Why Are You Different?”
Any child will cease to be amazed with all the Black creators making learning fun!
Happy watching!
Photo: Akili & Me/Kujo’s Kid Zone/Gracie’s Corner/Ruthy’s Reading Room