Reply to How to ask nanny to make activities more enriching?

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[quote=Anonymous]Personally, while I’m anti-screen under 2, I like some screen time starting around 2 or 3.  My charges earn time on fun educational sites (abcmouse is a favorite with younger kids; khan academy and prodigy are preferred by older children), and they can use time after they meet social, intellectual, physical, creative and emotional goals.  I always introduce sites that have many different choices for children, and within the site, they can use their time in any way they wish.

Here is a breakdown of daily goals with a toddler/preschooler.  There may be some ideas here that your nanny could use, OP.  I prefer to let children lead, so we have a whiteboard with a picture for each goal group, and once a child has checked off each one, they can use their earned screen time (they can also wipe their progress and start over after using the screen).  I believe in choices for kids, so I offer toddlers and preschoolers 2 choices, kinder-2nd grade get 4 choices, and older children are responsible for picking their own and then explaining how they’ve earned screens.

Social goals for toddlers and preschoolers revolve around manners and thinking about others.  They include calling a grandparent on FaceTime and talking for 5-10 minutes (staying silent the whole time does NOT count), calling a friend on FaceTime (showing art projects they made and also being a good listener), asking a sibling to play and not fighting, offering to help someone in the household do something, etc.

Intellectual goals at that age are met through play and fun.  They play store and count items, pretend to make recipes and the child recalls which ingredients and the quantities, do science experiments, make and use sensory toys, match phonics to letters (working on letter recognition simultaneously), order numerals, do color-by-number and color-by letter pictures, etc.

Physical goals are divided into gross and fine motor skills.  Using scissors or tweezers, threading anything, squeezing kinetic sand or play dough, and using a pencil, marker, crayon or paintbrush develop fine motor skills.  Using an indoor trampoline, bouncing on the ball, doing jumping jacks, skipping, crabwalking, playing hide and seek, playing scavenger hunt, walk racing, walking backwards with a mirror, ballroom dancing, and using the over-the-door bar all work on gross motor skills like hand-eye coordination and balance while getting some energy out.

Creative goals are all-encompassing.  To me, it doesn’t matter if a child is creative in abstract or concrete ways.  Practicing a piece of music and fiddling with the keyboard to figure out a tune in their head are equally valid (though both are a stretch for most 2-4yo).  Most of the things they make (including cooking with me!) involve creativity and another goal, so it’s simply a letter of helping them pick something simply for a creative outlet.  We’ve made pinecone bird feeders, hummingbird feeders, fly traps, beetle traps, gnat traps, dream catchers, paper mache, suncatchers, window stencils, bracelets, necklaces, beads, and balloon animals.  We’ve made peanut butter play dough, (edible) stained glass windows, spinach tarts, mini quiche, etc.  They’ve put on plays, told oral stories, had a sing-a-long, sang karaoke, made their own songs, and played twenty questions (youngest needed a LOT of adult help with answering).

Emotional goals are the trickiest.  With the current environment, older children are journaling or talking to me (no judgement or repercussions on what is said during that time period).  With younger children, talking to me or drawing a freeform picture of what they’re feeling seems to work.  They can always go use the (makeshift) punching bag or do jumping jacks/pushups.  Inevitably, children feel the strain just the adults, and they have to have outlets.  I am separating emotional goals from social right now, because their emotional goals need to be about self-care; prior to covid, I pumped social and emotional goals together.[/quote]

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