The Berenstain Bears are currently a favorite with my preschoolers, along with their Children’s Storybook Bible, Usborne 10-Minute stories, Thomas and Friends 5-Minute Bedtime Stories, etc. But then they also like funny ones like the Pout Pout Fish. Books with photographs are a hit—like Little Humans, or a childhood book of mine called The Little Kitten.
My mom has commented on how well they quietly sit through a “longer” book and I credit that to my reading to them since they were babies and keeping the TV off. Cartoons get on my nerves and I despise commercials. Absolutely no youtube surfing either unless I’m the one looking for something specific; they do love watching videos of sea creatures or farmyard animals and it’s nice to have a backup source of information when they start asking me questions about things like octopi or killer whales.
Oh I loved The Berenstain Bears as a child, I had forgotten about those books! Thanks for sharing I will check those out.
I have had the same experience. At the age of one my kids could usually sit through a longer book too, and reading to them young really does instill a love for literature!
Nature shows are usually a good choice. Sometimes we will let them watch "survival shows" such as Bear Gril too. They also like Heidi and Swiss Family Robinson... and some of the old Disney movies from the 50's.
By the way, I love and concur with your first paragraph about kids’ movies. Not too many people are willing to be that blunt about them! There are a handful that we’ve got that I’ve deemed okay, but it’s pretty limited. Frankly I’m a little scarred from myself being a protected kid who never knew what everyone else was talking about—it was fine and dandy when we were homeschooled, but it was BRUTAL once enrolled in public middle school—so I’m trying to strike a balance between “nothing goes” and “everything goes” though the scale is definitely tipped much closer to the nothing end.
It’s part of the reason I’m leaning toward homeschool for my own kiddos, but I have to get the husband on board :)
Bear Grylls would be pretty awesome. I’ve thought about looking around for The Crocodile Hunter. Then, the past two days have been spent by sick husband and kids (Pixie woke up with a fever this morning, darn! I’m the last man standing here!) watching the Sportsman Channel. It cracks me up because you’d think minutes on end of the camera panning the landscape or watching a deer munch grass behind a bush would be so boring to kids, but nope. They love it.