Portland's Crazy Aunt Lindsey has a daily live stream for parents and kids stuck inside
From an undisclosed Portland location — provided by Living Room Realty — Lindsey Murphy and a small production team of The Fab Lab are holed up producing roughly four hours of daily, live-streamed content to help parents in an unprecedented time of work-from-home and no school.
Called The Fab Lab Digital Daycare, the project is a COVID-19 pivot for Murphy, who is known as Crazy Aunt Lindsey, and producing online science videos. The four-person team has been producing the show for the last eight days and has sponsorship to go on for three weeks. They are looking for more sponsors to keep it going to week four. The best way to get in touch is through The Fab Lab Patreon page or hey@thefablab.com.
“We are going back to the roots of The Fab Lab,” Murphy said. “This all started because I was a child care provider.”
Some of Lindsey Murphy's fans watching her new live streaming show The Fab Lab Digital Daycare.
RAIN THE GROWTH AGENCY
She wants to be a resource for parents who are working from home with little ones or for parents who have essential jobs and are working away from their kids.
The show is designed for children between kindergarten and fifth grade. It builds on the brand Murphy has built over the last decade with her online science videos that offer DIY experiments with household items.
Each day from roughly 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Pacific time Murphy and team stream the show on Facebook. A replay is posted to The Fab Lab YouTube channel.
The show starts with an extended Fab Lab science/craft experiment. There is an active hour where community members such as fitness coaches, trainers and yoga teachers offer a pre-recorded workout for families. There is cooking session with a Fab Lab recipe — these have included green smoothies and nut butter and jam sushi.
There’s a lunch break and then in the afternoon there is community class time when someone comes in and teaches a new skill. There are American Sign Language lessons, Mandarin and Spanish lessons and recently Japanese calligraphy.
The afternoon ends with coloring and drawing time followed by story time from the Fab Lab library. Murphy recently read Sir Paul McCartney’s “Hey Grandude!” and she is reading “A Wrinkle in Time,” a chapter a day.
RAIN THE GROWTH AGENCY
She’s receiving feedback on social media and photos from parents showing kids working on the projects. Parents can sign-up on The Fab Lab website to receive emails about schedules and projects for the day.
Before the current reality of stay-at-home orders and social distancing, Murphy had a packed schedule of speaking engagements, working through a recently signed book deal, and producing Season 5 of The Fab Lab. She was also in discussions to take the Fab Lab to a larger production platform.
At the end of last year she took up as the artist-on-residence at Portland advertising agency Rain the Growth Agency. As artist-in-residence she planned to use studio space at the agency to produce Season 5.
Once the agency’s building was closed due to state mandated stay-home orders, Murphy was able to secure live streaming equipment from a friend and a new location. The team came up with the digital day care idea and they have been figuring out the technicalities of it ever since.
“We aren’t producing a weekly show. It’s a four-hour daily version,” she said. “(None of us) has ever done live TV or streaming or a three-to-four hour project.”
The Fab Lab team are all living at the studio to stay isolated during production. They are practicing strict social distancing and disinfecting every hour, she said. Guests come in and follow the same rules or send pre-recorded segments.
In addition to the sponsorship from Living Room Realty, Rain the Growth Agency provided support to get this new project off the ground.
“Now more than ever, it’s critical that parents and children have access to high-quality, educational and entertaining content on a daily basis,” said Michelle Cardinal, co-founder and CEO of Rain the Growth Agency in a written statement. “We’re proud to be able to support Lindsey and this project in such a time of need.”