YouTube Kids is a funny world, I tell you. That place is filled with content creators making all sorts of weird and wonderful content that, at one point, was making them good money. YouTube went and did them dirty by demonetising massive pools of high performing videos made for youngsters, alongside some very bad quality ones that for some reason kids kept finding their way back to.
Marlo is creeping towards 3 and, just like Cameo a year and a half ago, I find that he’s stumbling into the same sorts of videos as his brother did before him. As well as the ones that help him identify colours and say their names in various languages, you’ll find full-on shows of toy unboxing and play time. Cameo knows what he likes and actively hunts for it, while Marlo tends to end up watching the same few videos over and over again.
Every now and again we’ll hear a new voice coming from his tablet and use it as an opportunity to see why he’s stumbled into new territory. One of these scrolling and swiping adventures took him towards some child’s baking show, and he’s proper into it. Like for real though – he’s describing what’s happening and he’s absolutely buzzing with the finished product.
As me and Hollie do with everything, we used it as a chance to exploit his interest in something new, and initiated baking time. With goods supplied by Katie Bakes, we had a fun hour of gingerbread man baking and decorating.
It’s complete pot luck as to whether we’re able to finish any practical things with these boys, because their attention span just doesn’t allow us to see projects through from beginning to end all the time. However, we had an unexpectedly engaged pair join in with the baking this time around. Both of them loved getting involved in the process and getting messy along the way, before they got the chance to decorate their gingerbread men with the Katie Bakes bits, as many sweets as they could find in the house.
If baking is their calling, I’m in for a treat. I’m fully backing these plans.
