Halloween is fast-approaching! In past years, our family has done Japan-inspired family costumes like Totoro and Pokemon, but this year we let each kid pick whatever they wanted– so they chose Elastigirl (from The Incredibles), a stormtrooper (from Star Wars), and Cinderella.
The weather in our part of the world has been just awful for Halloween festivities– cold and rainy every day. Perhaps it is the same for you. So I have compiled some of my favorite kid-friendly Japanese Halloween videos, so you and your kids can snuggle up under a blanket, maybe munch on some Pocky? and learn Japanese 🙂 Enjoy, and ハッピーハロウィン！
I know I have videos all over the place on my blog, and many of them need updating (sorry!). So I’ve compiled a list of the best YouTube channels onto one post for you. Please let me know if there are any great ones that I’ve missed! Thank you so much to the people and companies who create these videos so the rest of us can learn Japanese! 🙂
Best Japanese YouTube Channels for Babies and Toddlers:
1. ノッカーナアニメーション (nokkana animation): adorable, short videos that will entertain your little one and teach them a few words in the process. Lot’s of Peek-a-Boo-style videos. There are dozens and dozens of videos and playlists, teaching everything from hiragana, colors, nursery songs, and a lot of more. (They also have a similar channel called Nokkana World).
Best Japanese YouTube Channels for Preschoolers:
1. しまじろうチャンネル(SHIMAJIROCH): I just love everything by Benesse. I credit Shimajiro and his pals for a lot of my children’s Japanese education. This YouTube channel is full of short stories and fun songs.
3. チブクラ！(Small Crafts): Short videos that will inspire you and your preschooler to craft.
4. oojioo: A YouTube channel just full of cute ekakiuta’s (songs that help you draw).
5. 童謡チャンネルby takanonGB: Lots of Japanese children’s songs with lyrics so you can sing along.
6. 動く絵本、童謡、いないいないばあ の動画「ゆめあるチャンネル」: Lots of Japanese children’s songs, fingerplays, and stories! They’ve added a lot of new content since I last visited a few years ago. Here is their website: www.yumearuehon.com
7. Visit my blog post where I’ve listed all the best hiragana learning videos!
8. YouTube Channel SongsPlace has many children’s songs and fingerplays.
9. SongsLand is another channel with Japanese children’s songs.
10. PinkFong has a lot of Japanese animated short stories (lots of Aesop’s Fables) and songs. There’s English videos mixed in there as well.
11. Takanotetsuya has many great songs for preschoolers. I think this channel is intended to be for prospective preschool teachers in Japan.
12. 保育士バンク！チャンネル【公式】This is another channel full of songs of preschoolers, performed by preschool teachers.
13. TEASOBI channel : even more songs and finger rhymes
14. 子ある日和 手遊び歌 Japanese children’s songs performed by teachers, plus origami instructional videos.
Best Japanese YouTube Channels for Grade-Schoolers:
1. jun egusa has created a lot of animated videos to teach math, Japanese history, kanji, etc! I’m pretty impressed.
2. The Mr. Men Little Miss videos by Sanrio has many many little episodes that could help with Japanese listening skills.
3. YouTube Channel キッズボンボンhas many videos about animals, science, kanji, hiragana, fairy tales and Japanese folktales, etc.
4. The FujiTV Kids YouTube channel has many educational and just-for-fun videos.
Best Japanese Educational Videos for Grade-Schoolers:
1. NHK for School is hands-down, the best resource I have found. You can search all of their educational videos by grade level or subject matter. Love this website so much! I have sung its praises before in this blog post.
2. The Science Channel website has a lot of great videos for gradeschoolers on up.
Best Japanese Educational Videos for High Schoolers and Beyond:
I’ve blogged about Doraemon (ドラエモン)before, but if you haven’t heard of it, it is a very popular cartoon/comic that has been around in Japan for many many years. The cartoon books are great for kids, and I’ve been looking into getting my 6-year old this Doraemon Kanji Book.
I was recently clicking through the Disney Channel and had to do a double-take when I saw “Doraemon” in the lineup! I guess Disney X D has started airing an English-language version of Doraemon starting this month (news article by The Japan Times HERE). I’ve set my DVR to record a few episodes, and am excited to see what the show is like in English. You can see a little preview on the Disney X D website HERE.
Here are some of the first episodes of Doraemon in Japanese, with English subtitles.
Just discovered a new TV series by Kodomo Challenge called “こどもちゃれんじライブ授業“, where children can explore many different things like various occupations, yoga, English, animals, etc. The episodes are shown “live” (children in Japan who own the Kodomo Challenge Tablet can participate in the show as they watch). In Japan, the show is on every Saturday morning. I’m not sure if it’s viewable on any TV stations elsewhere. Here are two YouTube videos I found. The first is an episode exploring a Japanese bakery, and the second is about the mysteries of animals. Enjoy!
BONUS Kodomo Challenge Videos, “ともだちできたよ”, “はじめましてこんにちは”, and “リトミック／ダンス”. Watch them quick 🙂 Sometimes they get taken down after awhile.
One of our current favorite kid’s shows on TV Japan is “ノージーのひらめき工房“, which is listed in TV Japan as: Nosy’s Inspiring Atelier. We didn’t even realize it was a children’s show at first because of the odd name. It is a show that inspires children to be creative with materials they can find at home. It is a great show for preschool through elementary-aged kids. My kids are always inspired to create something after watching the show.
Here is an episode I found on YouTube:
What is your current favorite Japanese children’s show?
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P.S. Don’t forget TANABATA is July 7th!! Click here for my posts about this Japanese holiday.
Is your town as frozen as mine right now due to this “polar vortex”? It is the coldest it has ever been in my entire life. This morning it was -6Fahrenheit, with wind chills at -40 degrees!! School and work has been cancelled, there’s ice covering the inside of our windows, and our dog who normally begs to go outside wants to stay in. Brrr!! On top of that, we are taking turns battling the flu– awesome! Hope you all are warm, healthy, and safe.
We had a wonderful holiday break and watched a lot of movies. Our family favorite was “Frozen” by Disney! I am itching to go see it again, I am so in love with the music. Out of curiosity, I checked to see if I could find Japanese lyrics to any of the songs (the movie isn’t due to be released in Japan until spring). It looks like they are keeping the songs in English, even in the Japanese version of the movie (correct me if I’m wrong), with the Japanese translation at the bottom of the screen.
The Japanese version of “Frozen” is going to be called “アナと雪の女王 (Ana and the Snow Queen)”. I would love to see it. It is always fun for me to re-watch English movies in Japanese and notice how all the words were translated. Click HERE to go to the Japanese “Frozen” website. Warning: the trailer includes a ton of scenes from the movie.
2/5 EDIT: Here are the Japanese versions of the songs!! 🙂
When you were a child, did your parents ever ask you to run an errand (おつかい) for them on your own? I vividly remember going to the department store in Tokyo to buy some bread, all by myself… and I was only 4 years old! I felt like such a big girl! I even walked to my piano lessons by myself at that age. If you’ve ever visited Japan, you know that even today, young children take the train to school by themselves.
In this day in age in America, not only would this seem unimaginable, but downright dangerous to send a preschooler out by themselves. I don’t even let my kids play in our yard without me out there with them. (Oh how it would be nice to go back to the “good old days!”).
Anyway, “Hajimete no otsukai”, or “My first time running an errand by myself” is a pretty big milestone to some families in Japan. I recently found out that there is a TV show called “Hajimete No Otsukai/はじめてのおつかい“… the show has been around for over 20 years! TV Japan aired one of their specials recently and my kids were GLUED to the show! My kids must have been thinking, “What? A kid like me going shopping all by themselves? That is crazy!”. It was an adorable show! Here’s one of the older episodes found on YouTube:
One of my favorite Japanese children’s books is also called “Hajimete No Otsukai“. I think the book might have inspired the TV show.
I’d love to know about your “first otsukai” experience, if the country you live in is safe enough for kids to run errands by themselves, or any other thoughts you may have! 🙂
It has been a few months since we signed up for TV Japan (cable TV channel). It has been worth the investment for us. I do wish there were more shows available for school-aged children (most of the kids’ shows are geared toward toddlers) but I feel that replacing most of our TV time with Japanese instead of English shows has helped my children speak more Japanese at home. My kids’ (ages 3 and 5) favorite shows are Pitagora Switch, Design Ah, and Kid’s Discovery.
image by NTV
Our newest obsession is a show called Shimura Zoo (天才！志村どうぶつ園）by Nippon Television Network. It is a great show for all ages! The show is about celebrities taking care of adorable baby animals. I like that there’s lots of subtitles so we can practice reading Japanese too :). A lot of the episodes are available on YouTube for those of you who are not subscribed to TV Japan.
The only downside of this show is that my children now beg me to buy a pet every day…
Ashida Mana-ちゃん is the sweetest, cutest 8-year old girl. She has starred in TV shows, movies, and music videos in Japan. Little girls love her, including my daughter. Learning the lyrics to her songs might be one way to build Japanese fluency :).
Here’s some of our favorite songs:
And of course, the most famous “Maru Maru Mori Mori” song (click to view). Do your kids listen to any Japanese singers? Who do you recommend?
We were inspired by a segment of Pitagora Switch/ピタゴラスイッチ (Japanese children’s TV show) called “こんなことできません” (translation: “You can’t do this”). Basically, you think of something that humans normally wouldn’t be able to do, and use stop-motion video to make the impossible happen! Our camerawork isn’t great but my 5-year old daughter and I had fun making it. You can see other examples on the show’s website. If you make your own video, please share with us!
