HooplaKidz: nursery rhymes for babies and toddlers
There is a particular thing a very young child wants from a video, and it is not a plot. HooplaKidz does that thing: a nursery rhyme, sung through, animated simply, and then it stops.
What it is
Traditional English nursery rhymes with the words sung clearly. No story arc, no cliffhanger, no character to keep track of. That sounds like faint praise and is not: for a one- or two-year-old the predictability is the whole appeal, and the repetition is how the language goes in.
What is on KidsTube
Twenty-two rhymes, and they are the standards — Jack and Jill, Hickory Dickory Dock, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, Pop Goes the Weasel, The Mulberry Bush, Little Boy Blue, The Animal Fair. A few, Star Light Star Bright among them, are slow enough to work at bedtime.
What to know
One of the twenty-two is Ten Little Indians, an old counting rhyme whose words have not aged well; it is easy enough to skip past. Otherwise this is about as unobjectionable as children's video gets.
Best from about one to four. It also works without the pictures — in the car, or through a speaker while something else is going on.