I have a couple of tweens (boy and girl) and they like YouTube. I can only handle so many cute cat videos and people falling into pools before I have to leave for the next room. Or alternatively I’ll pick something I like and that I think they might enjoy but often they’ll leave.
Every once in awhile I’ll find a channel that’s interesting to me and them and it’s fun to watch together. I am always looking for more.
To kick off any kind of discussion here’s what we’ve liked:
My daughter (who’s far from being a tween, but still) enjoys Rachel and Jun’s Adventures , which admittedly has a lot of cat content, and a variety of how-to channels, including one by a farrier and Bernadette Banner , who recreates Edwardian clothing and talks a lot about the culture of the time reflected in women’s clothing.
My 12 year old is really interested in military stuff, so we’ll occasionally watch “The Operations Room” on YouTube. It’s a channel of animated and narrated military operations/battles. Their narrator leaves a lot to be desired, but they do a fantastic job of laying out why the battles took place when/where they did, and why they went down as they did, which is something that’s harder to see/understand seeing paper maps and paragraphs in a history book.
Otherwise, my children are somewhat obsessed with Minecraft, and they love the “Survive and Thrive” series by Paul Soares Jr., as he explains how/why you do various things at various stages of your Minecraft game, rather than just playing it in a hyperkinetic fashion and making staggeringly inane commentary like so many other YouTube gamers.
Every now and then, we’ll watch some Townsends if something from the Colonial period or 19th century comes up as a question. For example, they had to try and start fires in Cub Scouts without using matches or lighters- we saw how they actually did it with flint and steel on there.
Thanks guys, I will check these all out and the YT ‘also watch’ recommendations for those.
Any more would be appreciated. I didn’t mean to create any kind of theme here, we’re open minded and just generally looking to laugh or learn about anything. Making quality content accessible is difficult which is why I asked the clever people here for the few that exist.