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Online German videos & media for kids

Source: Pxhere
Looking for German videos, books, podcasts, etc. to increase your kids' language exposure? Here are some places you might start.

I'm always trying to find online resources that will help give more German exposure to my kids, so I compiled this list (originally in Japanese) based on recommendations in a few Facebook groups, especially 'Raising Bilingual/Multilingual Children' and 'Raising Bilingual Kids and Little Global Citizens' — many many thanks to those wonderful parents for sharing with the rest of us! Plus recommendations of my own.

Some of these, I haven't looked at yet. And I'm sure some of the links may break over time; if you notice any, please leave a comment.

(And sorry it's not a beautiful list...limited formatting options in Blogspot!)

Age range: Pre-schoolers to mid-elementary school

SONGS (for the little ones)

For a book of songs, we love this one that my MIL got for us:
  • Kinderlieder as der guten alten Zeit: It's a great collection (which also happens to include most songs in Nena's Unser Apfelhaus) and for people like me who don't know the tunes, having the simple score let's me plunk them out on a piano for the kids. The newer edition comes with a CD too.

      VIDEOS

      ☆ Kika.de

      The perfect place to find high-quality videos for kids from a German TV station. You can browse by intended audience age.
      Kikaninchen.
      Credit: ZDF Enterprises
      If you don't know where to start, the following seem to be popular:
      (There's also a KiKA von ARD und ZDF channel on YouTube, from where you can watch episodes from Kikaninchen and Zoe's Zauberschrank.)

      ☆ YouTube

      Of course, there are lots on YouTube!
      This channel offers a couple of series. Currently there seem to be:
      • Pippi Langstrumpf (cartoon)
      • Au Schwarte (CGI animation about some pigs siblings. Cute!)
      • Die Biene Maja (CGI animation, it's a newer series, not the cartoon from the 70s)
      • Lassie (modern cartoon take with a girl called Zoe)
      • Lauras Stern (for little ones)

      Series with YouTube channels

      Other series have their channels too (possibly some are not official).

      Other titles to search for

      Here are some other series titles you could check out. The links are just YouTube searches, so no guarantees what it will pull up though.

      For slightly bigger kids with more advanced German?

      ☆ Other online videos

      • Weltreise Deutschland: This one may be for school-age kids, not younger. The program interviews children in Germany who have ties to other countries and asks them to share their 'other' culture with viewers. It's nice for multi-cultural kids to see that there are many others like them.

      PODCASTS

      I haven't tried too many of these yet (the intent is to do so from now!) so can't say which I recommend, but here's a list you could start off with.
      Other podcast recommendations to check out: 30 Podcasts für Kinder und Erwachsene

      BOOKS

      These aren't online per se, but I'm adding some titles here. I've tried to link to author's and publisher's websites, but otherwise resorted to Amazon (not affiliate links).

      ☆ Our favorites

      Yeah we have a lot of them.
      • Wieso? Weshalb? Warum? series: Lovely (sturdy!) books that explain the world around us, whether about animals, vehicles, nature, outer space, etc.
      • Pixi books: Little paperback story books that are sized just right for small hands. 
        • Conni series: These were the first Pixi books that we had. Conni is a girl of kindergarten age and she does many things for the first time. Great to introduce experiences (riding a plane, starting kindergarten, etc.) to little ones.
      • Der kleine Drache Kokossnuss series: A super popular series about a little dragon called 'Kokossnuss' and his adventures with his friends.
      • Pettersson und Findus: Classic tales of old man Pettersson and his talking cat, Findus.
      ...And a few more random books we have that we love :)

      • Der Kleiner Eisbär (by Hans de Beer)
      • Henriette Bimmelbahn (by James Krüss): A classic! Lovely rhythm and rhymes to read aloud.
      • Pippi Langstrumpf (by Astrid Lindgren): Another Scandinavian classic, in German.
      • Heule Eule (by Philippe Goosens): Just too cute!! Great for little ones, 2 or 3yrs up.
      • Die kleine Hexe (by Lieve Baeten): We just have 1 book from the series, but the tales and illustrations are lovely. I want more of these :)

      ☆ Others that have been recommended

      ☆ With sound

      • TipToi: When your child touches the books with a special TipToi pen, it reads out the words. We've never had the opportunity to try it, but it sounds useful for letting kids learn words and interact with books on their own.
      • LeYo!: You can download a free app with these books; kids can point the phone camera at the book and the app will read it out loud or make sounds, etc. It's too bad there aren't more books in this series.

      ☆ Ebooks & audiobooks from Goethe Institute

        The Goethe Institute offers loans of ebooks and audiobooks (for downloading), so if there is one in your town, you might consider becoming a member. (Here are, for example, the ebooks you can borrow from the library of the Goethe Institute in Bangkok.)

        APPS...to be added hopefully!

        This is the next area I'm looking at, but in the meantime, here are two useful databases to help you search for an app:
        ===
        If you have other recommendations and feedback, please leave a comment!
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