Squiz Kids

From lost socks to millions of followers, the Macfarlane brothers know where a homemade movie can lead.

Filmmakers and content creators Lachlan and Austin Macfarlane join Bryce under the Squiz Kids Spotlight to talk about making movies as kids, building an audience of millions and the hard work behind their wildly creative videos.

Their best advice for young creators? Don’t wait! Just start making stuff.

Plus, find out how budding filmmakers aged 15 and under can enter this year’s Trop Jr short-film competition. If you’ve got a movie idea bubbling away, now’s the time to grab a phone, tablet or camera and bring it to life for Trop Jr.

To enter, you’ll need to be aged 15 or under and create a short film of no more than five minutes featuring this year’s special signature item: a map. It could lead to buried treasure, point the way to another dimension, or simply appear somewhere in the background. It’s entirely up to you.

The deadline for entries has been extended to October 23, so get cracking!

⁠https://www.tropfest.com/tropjr⁠

Macfarlane Bros: When you give a kid unrestricted internet access

⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4OjoWAiFqY⁠

Your daily kids news podcast.

New world map unveiled; Korea’s robot theme park; the Star Wars museum of storytelling; and soiled undies and kissing bears win science prize.

The familiar world map set to get a serious resize!

K-pop dancers, pianists and kickboxers... South Korea’s new theme park has robots doing the entertaining.

Buried undies, kissing polar bears and stolen baby lollies. Welcome to the wonderfully weird Ig Nobel Awards!

Star Wars creator George Lucas has turned his love of storytelling into a spectacular new museum in Los Angeles.

For the full episode transcript, click here.

Researched and hosted by Bryce Corbett.

Trop Jr: Short Film Competition for kids  https://www.tropfest.com/tropjr

Macfarlane Bros: When you give a kid unrestricted internet access  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4OjoWAiFqY

In this Squiz Kids Shortcut for Fathers' Day, Christie and Bryce explore the wild world of animal dads. From devoted emperor penguins and pregnant seahorses to fathers whose parenting methods are a little more questionable.

They also travel through history to discover how the role of dads has changed and meet the many different people who can do the dadding in our lives.

So grab your dad, stepdad, grandad or another special father figure and listen together.

There’s a S’Quiz at the end!

Eight-year-old Ethan from Casula in Sydney wants to know how 3D printers work. Christie discovers how computer designs are sliced into thousands of incredibly thin layers, then built into real objects using everything from melted plastic and powdered metal to concrete and chocolate.

Along the way, we find out how 3D printing could help astronauts, hospitals and people living in remote communities.

Do you have a science question you'd like Christie to answer? Send it in to [email protected], and you might hear your answer in an upcoming episode.

A fun kids vs adults news quiz to test who’s been paying the most attention to the week in news.

For the full episode transcript, click here.

Your daily kids news podcast.

The algorithm robot in the spotlight; Canada’s mysterious moving island; Footy finals fever is here; and where have all the dugongs gone?

The algorithm knows what you watch, click and like, and keeps serving up more to keep you scrolling. Now Australian politicians are debating whether we should get to choose if it tracks us at all.

Is it an island or an enormous raft? A football-field-sized chunk of trees and plants has been spotted floating across a Canadian lake.

Grab the snacks and claim the couch... Australian footy is entering crunch time!

Scientists are trying to solve a worrying mystery in northern Australia, where dugong numbers may have fallen dramatically.

For the full episode transcript, click here.

Researched and hosted by Bryce Corbett.

Your daily kids news podcast.

Big ticks for bush schooling; a backyard Viking Treasure find; gamers get a glimpse of the future; and a phone survives a fall from space!

Could climbing trees help your times tables? Sydney students swapped the classroom for the bush and returned more confident, engaged and connected to nature.

Forget finding worms while gardening — one Danish homeowner uncovered a Viking fortune!

Hundreds of thousands of gamers descended on Germany for Gamescom, getting an early look at the games heading our way.

Talk about a drop test! A phone was carried more than 30 kilometres above Earth before being released without a parachute.

For the full episode transcript, click here(opens in new tab).

LEGO Skylines Trailer

Minecraft Dungeons II Trailer

Researched and hosted by Christie Kijurina

Some dads brave the Antarctic winter to protect a single egg… others give birth to hundreds of babies… and almost all of them believe their jokes are hilarious.

In this Squiz Kids Shortcut for Father’s Day, Christie and Bryce meet some of the animal kingdom’s most extraordinary fathers. From egg-balancing emperor penguins and pregnant seahorses to fish dads that occasionally eat their own offspring.

They also discover how dadding has changed throughout human history, explore the origins of Father’s Day, and celebrate the dads, grandads, stepdads and other special people who do the dadding in our lives.

There’s also a S’Quiz at the end… so listen carefully!

For the full episode transcript, click here.

Your daily kids news podcast.

Nepal’s glacier landslide explained; Roger the working seagull; Media literacy in the spotlight; and Fat Marmot Week crowns a winner.

Rescuers are working around the clock after catastrophic flooding devastated communities in Nepal and Tibet.

All hail Dawn, the newly crowned champion of Fat Marmot Week!

More Aussie kids are turning to AI for their news, but research shows plenty are also accidentally sharing fake stories.

Meet Roger, possibly Britain’s first seagull security guard.

For the full episode transcript, click here.

Donate to help victims of Nepal-Tibet tragedy: https://emergencyaction.org.au/nepal-flood-appeal/

Bears in a pool

Squiz Kids Instagram

Researched and hosted by Bryce Corbett

To celebrate World Lake Day, we went searching through the Squiz Kids Vault for an episode all about water. Which was lucky, really, because we’d sprung a leak and were well on the way to creating an underground lake of our own.

Thankfully, we found this Shortcut sitting safe and dry on a high shelf.

Join us as we discover where Earth’s water came from, why it’s essential to life and how the same water has been travelling around our planet for billions of years.