Victorian Farm

In this 6-episode series, historian Ruth Goodman spends a year restoring a Victorian farm and living like a Victorian, along with archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn, and visiting experts in all aspects of Victorian life. The kids are fascinated by detailed explanations of how things were done in Victorian days, and so are we. While some of this Victorian era knowledge may seem esoteric, a lot of it sheds fascinating light on how we do things today, explains history from a new perspective, or suggests techniques we may want to return to (eg some of the ways of reusing, recycling, cleaning, or preserving things) as we try to figure out more sustainable ways of living. Overall this is suitable for all ages, but be forewarned that it does cover all aspects of Victorian farm life, including cooking using all parts of the animal (such as eyeballs!), sheep reproduction, birth of lambs, illness, and so on, so there may be questions from your children.

Age: 4+
Child rating: 9/10
Adult rating: 9/10
Running time: hour-long episodes
Available: I downloaded it from Amazon

The Miracle of Bali: Recital of Music

We’ve been enjoying David Attenborough’s nature documentaries for a long time, but had no idea that he also made cultural documentaries earlier in his career until we found this on the BBC website. We all enjoyed watching this 1969 documentary about Balinese music. What was striking and wonderful, compared to most more recent documentaries, is that it was mostly just extended footage of the music and dance, with very little voice-over. (There are two other episodes in the Miracle of Bali series, but I haven’t watched them yet so I don’t know if they are suitable for kids or not.)

Age: 0+
Child rating: 10/10
Adult rating: 10/10
Running time: 37 minutes
Available: On the BBC website, or on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKvMguF16r0

The Repair Shop

Our new favourite to watch as a family is The Repair Shop, which is as slow and gentle as can be. The premise is simple: people bring in old, broken items, typically family heirlooms, and experts painstakingly fix them. It’s a bit like the making-things segments in Mister Rogers, but with heartwarming family stories as well. The kids are entranced. And I’m getting inspired to try to fix more broken things rather than replacing them!

Age: 0+
Child rating: 10/10
Adult rating: 9/10
Running time: 30, 45, or 60 minutes per episode
Available: BBC iPlayer. I’m not sure where to find it outside of the UK.

Great British Bake Off

We’ve been having such a good time watching Great British Bake Off with the kids. Our 3 year old is scared even by most kids shows these days, so it’s been really nice to find something that is genuinely enjoyable for all four of us, and doesn’t give anyone nightmares. I think it’s great for the kids (and us) to see adults, from all kinds of different backgrounds, caring about and working hard on creative projects, celebrating successes and working through failures, supporting each other, and having a good time! I think we’ve all been inspired to do more cooking and baking too! (So far we’ve watched the 2018 and 2017 seasons, so I can’t vouch for any of the seasons before that. One episode was flagged by Channel 4 as not suitable for kids, so we haven’t watched that!)

Age: 0+
Child rating: 10/10
Parent rating: 10/10
Running time: 1 hour
Where to find it: In the UK you can watch it on Channel 4, and in Canada on CBC.

Bathing Babies in Three Cultures

Here’s some fascinating footage by Margaret Mead, of babies being bathed in 1940s Papua New Guinea, 1930s and 1940s America, and 1940s Bali. It includes a voiceover of Margaret Mead describing the baths, which strives for anthropological neutrality, but doesn’t quite hide the fact that she thinks the 1940s American technique is the most modern and scientific. M. loves this, and has watched it many times, and L. (10 months) is enjoying it too.

My favourite line, from the 1930s America section is “The bath is a long elaborate process, which may take as much as an hour, and dominate the whole life of the household for the day.” We just fit the kids’ baths in when we can, and I’m always a bit mystified by families for whom it’s a major part of the daily routine!

Age: 0+
Child rating: 9/10
Adult rating: 9/10
Running time: 12 minutes
Available for free on Youtube

Smart Girls Admire Firefighters

If your child is a firefighter enthusiast, I highly recommend this video from Amy Poehler’s Smart Girl series. The featured firefighter is strong, smart, brave, and a great role model for kids of all genders. Even I was inspired!

Age: 3+
Child rating: 10/10
Adult rating: 7/10
Running time: 4 minutes
Available for free from Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls website

All Aboard! The Sleigh Ride

If you are looking for an extremely slow-paced, meditative film for a wintery or Christmasy night, this is it. All Aboard! The Sleigh Ride consists of nothing but two hours of footage of Sami reindeer herders following an ancient postal route through the taiga forest of Northern Norway, beautifully filmed by BBC Four. The soundtrack is simply a recording of the journey, with no music or voiceover. Occasional written texts provide some contextual information. M. was entranced for the first hour, which is really quite a long time for a toddler to watch nothing but a couple people and a couple reindeer moving through the snow. Then he was ready to move on to something else (though he continued to ask questions about reindeer for several days afterwards).

Age: 0+
Child rating: 8/10
Adult rating: 8/10
Running time: 2 hours
Available for free on the BBC Four website

Making a traditional Japanese wooden Kokeshi Doll

Many of M.’s favourite videos are of people making things or doing physical labour, and there’s a great wealth of such videos on the website The Kids Should See This. This video, as the title suggests, is of a man making a traditional Japanese wooded Kokeshi doll. The doll is turned on a lathe, and painted with great precision.

Age: 0+
Adult rating: 8/10
Child Rating: 10/10
Running time: 4 minutes
Available free on The Kids Should See This

Babies

M. really enjoyed watching this when he was a baby. When he saw the scenes with babies nursing, it made him want to nurse, so sometimes I would put it on when it was getting late and I wanted him to nurse and go to sleep. (It worked!)

Age: 0+
Child rating: 10/10
Adult rating: 10/10
Running time: 79 minutes

Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

This is a great US show: 895 episodes were made from the late 1960’s through 2000. I think most American and Canadian kids who grew up in the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s watched it, but we’ve just moved to Scotland, and we’ve been surprised to find that no one here has heard of it! Most episodes consist of some very honest, gentle discussion of things young children might be thinking about, a visit somewhere (a fire station, an orange grove, a string quartet, etc.), and the Land of Make Believe, where characters work through more complex emotions and story lines. It’s a bit slow-paced for parents, but provides lots of good material for discussion with your kid afterwards. Mr. Rogers has a real gift talking to children about things that matter to them, but without talking down to them. M. found the Land of Make-Believe a bit intense at first, so we used to have to skip that part. Fred Rogers was also trained as a musician, and wrote all the music. In addition to the regular episodes, there are 8 mini-operas, with well-composed, serious music, and storylines that young kids find very engaging.

Age: 2+
Child rating: 10/10
Parent rating: 7/10 for watching enjoyment, 10/10 for values imparted and post-show discussion with kids
Running time: 30-minute episodes
Some episodes available free on Youtube