Puddle Jumping: Homeschool Review Crew

review, #hsreviews, #edutainment, #KidsRadio, #SongsforKids, kids radio, songs for kids, edutainment

Just so you understand fully where I'm coming from on this one - my husband is a full-time musician who used to own and operate a Christian disc jockey service, solely because he saw a need to offer uplifting, wholesome music that was Christ-centered, so you may understand my excitement to discover that I would have the opportunity to review Smart Kidz Radio from Smart Kidz Media which is termed edutainment. While they don't necessarily profess to offer Christ-centered music, they are striving to provide a safe, family-friendly and encouraging atmosphere where children, 2 to 10 years of age, can listen to music directed toward them with the hopes of learning life lessons while building self-esteem and not tearing it down with harmful lyrics or unwanted advertisements.

So, let me first explain what Smart Kidz Radio is, and then I'll fill you in on what we thought as we had the opportunity to experience it in our own home.

What is Smart Kidz Radio?

There are a lot of radio stations out there and a lot of different styles of music to listen to, but up until now, there has been no radio station on the internet that is just for kids between the ages of 2-10. Smart Kidz Radio aims to change that. This online radio station features original songs and stories that are intended to help children learn valuable life skills and to help boost their self-esteem. The purpose of Smart Kidz Radio is to make available original family-friendly and family-focused songs as well as stories that will be enjoyed by children and families in a safe, secure listening setting.

There is also a podcast area where you can listen to stories, such as Cinderella and other fairy tales or fables.

Smart Kidz Radio is offered in two forms: an ongoing live stream which is free to listen to, or an on-demand program that you can upgrade to in order to hear programming you want when you want it. As part of the on-demand program, you can download and listen without an internet connection. I received online access to the live stream with the promise of upgrading my account to on demand after two weeks. It is my understanding that with the On Demand, you will also be able to use the apps which are still to be released. Here is how the two options work:

How Did We Use It - What Did We Think?

I logged on to the free live streaming to see what it was all about and listened with my 11 year old. I tried it out more than one day to get a taste of a variety of what they offer. We heard a lot of different life lessons - one on rights, one on boy and girl differences, one simply intended to soothe a child off to sleep. In the music was a lot of children's voices singing out these messages to a variety of styles of music.

To give you a full picture of our thoughts, I feel the need to address my possibly odd character traits and unique parenting style especially since music literally pays the bills around our house (with my husband now a full-time musician and guitar teacher, rarely ever DJing nowadays). My individual and my children's, musical tastes vary vastly, and over the years I have come to realize that my enjoyment of musical styles is very selective and quite limited and often different than what my children enjoy - each with their own individual tastes. We do agree on some common ground, however. We mostly tend to prefer music that is original, is recorded with adults or youth with amazing vocal ranges, and well done, not auto-tuned, etc. Amazingly, my kids and I agree on these preferences so we would have liked to have heard more adult voices than the kid voices as we listened for this review.

My personal parenting style is probably also very unique and selective in that, even though my husband's choice to own and operate a selectively Christian DJ service is prominent in our household, I am not big on imposed filters. While, we are careful about what our children have been exposed to, especially in their early years, rather than implore an outside filter, I have raised each child putting an emphasis on their being able to filter and determine in the real world what music and advertisements, or anything coming at them online or offline, are edifying to our spiritual Christian beliefs and which things are not. While the early years require more sheltering or filtering to some degree, the pre and early teen years seem to call for less imposed filters and more of a supervised exposure to real life. For us, this approach has generated a lot of conversations and dialog to help my children determine for themselves how to decipher their own guidance as they weave the twists and turns of the real world as they move out from under our shelter and eventually into independent adulthood.

Having said that, I think the idea is fantastic, to offer a safe environment where kids can listen to self-esteem boosting, family-friendly music directed toward their age group, especially in the early toddler, pre-K and even some of early elementary years and especially for families who do not homeschool or who cannot be with their children 24/7 and want to make sure they are exposed to moral life lessons even in their music and without the worry of an unwanted ad popping up out of nowhere to destroy their innocence. I think this is most fitting for children in the younger range of the Smart Kidz Radio widely projected age range of children 2 to 10. I think the songs and life lessons I heard are most appropriate for ages 3 through about 6 or 7 and would like to see a more mature and musically sound variety for the tweens (Though, maybe this is already available with the On Demand content. I don't know since I haven't figured out how to access this side of the Smart Kidz Radio that was promised as part of this review.). The idea of making it available as an app is also a great idea since this would make it portable to listen on the go, and parents could listen with their children during car rides.