displace Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 I'm hoping to obtain or check out some documentaries for DS. He likes Brainpop Jr. and some Brainpop movies but I'd like to start opening up the door to documentaries. So far I cannot interest him in much after taping things on DVR that I felt he'd enjoy. If I do get him to watch it's usually only for 5 min. He recently saw an IMAX movie at the science museum called The Unseen World which he did like. I didn't watch with him so all I know is that it was maybe about microscopic stuff. He's also watched Titanoboa (some prehistoric snake thing?) on Netflix he liked, and he's seen some dino ones that he's not very interested in anymore. His interests: science and chemistry (chemistry superficially like exciting reactions), and greek mythology. Absolutely no violence and only brief mention of wars or killing would be acceptable and likely fast-forwarded. I was thinking of just aiming for IMAX movies as he did see one he liked and I can sell it as it's from the same companies, etc. Any solid recommendations for a documentary or two? My problem is a lot of advice is Nova, Smithsonian, etc. Which I LOVE, but there's just so much out there now that I'm having trouble finding anything. I'm overwhelmed and need a jumping off point to try. Any recs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zarabellesmom Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 My daughter liked the David Attenborough nature documentaries at that age. They used to be on Netflix, but I don't know if they still are. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
73349 Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 DS likes Popular Mechanics for Kids. We recorded from TV a show called a Live from Space (a tour of the ISS); IDK if it's available on Netflix or anything. He also liked the Seconds from Disaster episode about the space shuttle Columbia, but a lot of kids (including yours) might not. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zarabellesmom Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 How It's Made 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
displace Posted March 20, 2015 Author Share Posted March 20, 2015 Ok, good. Popular Mechanics he sometimes watches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duckens Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 1) Bill Nye -- Our PBS channel used to show them, but at odd times. We had to TIVO them. Our library also has a ton of them. 2) Nova Science Now-- Shorter stories, more modern topics. Hunting the Elements (about the Periodic Table) is a favorite. 3) Nova-- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your kid loses interest after 5 minutes. Mine, too, depending on the subject. I tell dd that this is her time to do her latch hook or her crocheting. Is there something your son can do while halfway watching the show? Legos? Drawing? Threading pony beads? Perler beads? 4)DK Eyewitness Video: I find these shallow in their information compared to Nova or Nature, but they are better than nothing. And, I don't think there is any killing.Netflix has Eyewitness for Amphibians, Human Machine, and Arctic and Antarctic. Our library also carries a lot of these, so check your local library, too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monica_in_Switzerland Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Depending on how you define violence, all of the Life, Blue Planet, Life of Birds, etc from BBC are fantastic. Lots of animals eating animals, but that doesn't seem to bother my sensitive 8yo. Magic Schoolbus is great, not really a documentary, but my kids have learned a ton from it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
displace Posted March 21, 2015 Author Share Posted March 21, 2015 Thanks for the additional lovely recs! Animal nature is fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duckens Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 Animal nature is fine. More suggestions: We watch a lot of Nature on PBS. Netflix has a few. My older loved the Walking with Dinosaurs series. --Walking with Dinosaurs --Chased by Dinosaurs --Allosaurus --Walking with Beasts --Walking with Monsters 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
displace Posted March 24, 2015 Author Share Posted March 24, 2015 More suggestions: We watch a lot of Nature on PBS. Netflix has a few. My older loved the Walking with Dinosaurs series. --Walking with Dinosaurs --Chased by Dinosaurs --Allosaurus --Walking with Beasts --Walking with Monsters I was going to put the dinosaur docs on Netflix but then I couldn't find them. They may have been removed :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 Terry Jones, The Story of One was popular here. Good tie in to history and math. Most of the others I can think of might be boring or too violent for a 1st grader. DS loves documentaries so we watch them a lot. If I think of any others I will post. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duckens Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 duckens, on 24 Mar 2015 - 07:19 AM, said: More suggestions: We watch a lot of Nature on PBS. Netflix has a few. My older loved the Walking with Dinosaurs series. --Walking with Dinosaurs --Chased by Dinosaurs --Allosaurus --Walking with Beasts --Walking with Monsters I was going to put the dinosaur docs on Netflix but then I couldn't find them. They may have been removed :( Did you try the link for them? It should take to you to the Dinosaur ones on Netflix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sahamamama Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 When my girls were around that age, we focused on geography instead of history. We took an "Around the World" tour, and part of that was watching the Families of the World series of videos. These were well-worth watching, no violence, age-appropriate, although some of the child narrators are hard to understand (or listen to). Some libraries are now getting access to these digitally through Overdrive. We also very much enjoyed watching Rick Steves videos. Most of his commentary is aimed at adults, but whatever might have been too much went right over their heads, and the scenery is wonderful. The Private Life of Deer (Nature, PBS) The Gathering Swarms (Nature, PBS) Ireland's Wild River (Nature, PBS) -- absolutely stunning! http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/ Critter Quest! series (Smithsonian KIDS) You might also want to look at SuperCharged Science, even though it is far from free and your son is a bit young for it. Also, The Happy Scientist has many videos on his website. Not exactly documentaries, but they are video-based instruction. HTH. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
displace Posted March 25, 2015 Author Share Posted March 25, 2015 Did you try the link for them? It should take to you to the Dinosaur ones on Netflix. Um, no. Oops! â˜ºï¸ Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
displace Posted March 25, 2015 Author Share Posted March 25, 2015 When my girls were around that age, we focused on geography instead of history. We took an "Around the World" tour, and part of that was watching the Families of the World series of videos. These were well-worth watching, no violence, age-appropriate, although some of the child narrators are hard to understand (or listen to). Some libraries are now getting access to these digitally through Overdrive. We also very much enjoyed watching Rick Steves videos. Most of his commentary is aimed at adults, but whatever might have been too much went right over their heads, and the scenery is wonderful. The Private Life of Deer (Nature, PBS) The Gathering Swarms (Nature, PBS) Ireland's Wild River (Nature, PBS) -- absolutely stunning! http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/ Critter Quest! series (Smithsonian KIDS) You might also want to look at SuperCharged Science, even though it is far from free and your son is a bit young for it. Also, The Happy Scientist has many videos on his website. Not exactly documentaries, but they are video-based instruction. HTH. This is perfect! I was just thinking of seeing if there was a kids travel show. We're listening to Vivaldi and talking about Venice and now DS is pretty interested so I can start off on Italy tours. I like Rick steves but IDK if DS would. And we're starting some geography so it can tie in also. We're science nuts so I'll look into the science videos too. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MistyMountain Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 All of my Kids liked your Inner Fish on netflix. They also enjoy David Attenborough videos, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Magic School Bus, Cosmos, and Horrible Histories. Bill Nye is on YouTube and Horrible Histories is on Hulu. My library carries the Science of Disney Imagineering videos and these really short videos based on The Way Things Work book. My ds enjoys just about any documentary that is history or science related. My ds loves Nova. We watch those through amazon. He likes just about any one but especially the ones on airplanes, the Hubble and the Mars Rover. There is a NOVA episode on the elements that he enjoyed that showed explosions. http://periodicvideos.com We haven't watched these yet but this site contains videos of all the elements. Ted Ed has videos too but they might be the same ones. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
displace Posted March 26, 2015 Author Share Posted March 26, 2015 All of my Kids liked your Inner Fish on netflix. They also enjoy David Attenborough videos, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Magic School Bus, Cosmos, and Horrible Histories. Bill Nye is on YouTube and Horrible Histories is on Hulu. My library carries the Science of Disney Imagineering videos and these really short videos based on The Way Things Work book. My ds enjoys just about any documentary that is history or science related. My ds loves Nova. We watch those through amazon. He likes just about any one but especially the ones on airplanes, the Hubble and the Mars Rover. There is a NOVA episode on the elements that he enjoyed that showed explosions. http://periodicvideos.com We haven't watched these yet but this site contains videos of all the elements. Ted Ed has videos too but they might be the same ones. DS likes the inner fish and is watching it instead of playing games on the iPad! Thanks for the hint! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blondeviolin Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 DisneyNature has some fun ones too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 There is a lot of Nova on YouTube, including the periodic table one. ds loves them and has completely lost interest in commercial mainstream kids' videos this week--we'll see how long that lasts. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
queenie Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 My girls love Little Travelers on Amazon Prime. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blue daisy Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Following because there are some really great recommendations here but I also want to give another vote for anything with David Attenborough. We have several of the BBC Earth series and the kids all enjoy them. There is quite a bit of animal nature (hunting, fighting, mating), so as long as that doesn't bother him, I'd definitely check them out. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FO4UR Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Wild Kratz is really good for 1st grade. Liberty's Kids... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 David Attenborough. Our favourite was Blue Planet. Some of the animals eat each other. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Five More Minutes Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 My girls enjoyed David Attenborough (especially Planet Earth, Nature's Most Amazing Events, and Life of Mammals). Ian Stewart is a rock star as far as they're concerned (Earth, The Biography; How the Earth Changed History; The Rise of the Continents). Growing Up Wild was a kid documentary series that they enjoyed. Hmmm ... they also liked Wonders of the Solar System and Wonders of the Universe with Brian Cox; Orbit; Your Inner Fish; Mutant Planet; Cosmos; How the Earth Was Made; Wild Canada. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikslo Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Royal Institution's Chemical Curiosities They blow stuff up, that sort of thing 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idnib Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 If you go with Blue Planet, and I do recommend it overall, there's a scene in episode 1 that really upset my daughter. She's not very sensitive to things like animal death, animals eating animals, etc but this one got to her. It had a pod of orcas that separated a gray whale calf from its mother and attacked it, killing it while the mother attempted to defend it. There was a lot of drama about the baby whale trying to keep up with its mother and not being able to and it eventually got tired and was caught. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blue daisy Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 If you go with Blue Planet, and I do recommend it overall, there's a scene in episode 1 that really upset my daughter. She's not very sensitive to things like animal death, animals eating animals, etc but this one got to her. It had a pod of orcas that separated a gray whale calf from its mother and attacked it, killing it while the mother attempted to defend it. There was a lot of drama about the baby whale trying to keep up with its mother and not being able to and it eventually got tired and was caught. I found the scene on Youtube so you can preview it. I agree with this - that was an emotional scene. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strawberryjam Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 We watch TONS of documentaries in our house and I have a son with similar interest to yours... Some of the favourites we've had: BBC "The Planets" series "Seamonsters: A Walking with the Dinosaurs Trilogy" (amazing graphics, watched this set several times - on YouTube) EYEWITNESS videos on YouTube - cats, dogs, jungle, ocean, rocks and minerals, dinosaurs, volcano, skeleton, natural disasters, insects, etc. "Ice World" (dramatic re-enactment about the ice age - on YouTube) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrsBasil Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 My son was fascinated by the Easter Island episode of Nova. It focused on a theory of how the statues were moved. If he likes bugs, he might like Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan. I have not previewed this one myself, but my husband said it was fine and DS loves it. Microcosmos is also about bugs and DS loves that. He's watched a lot of the ones already mentioned and likes some of those. He also likes the cheesier Nigel Marvin hosted shows Prehistoric Park and Chased by Sea Monsters. Not exactly a documentary, but he's really into prehistoric animals of all kinds and those were hits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrsBasil Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Um, no. Oops! â˜ºï¸ Thanks They are still on Netflix for DVD rental, but no longer available for streaming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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