Empowering Parents and Caretakers

Balancing Screen Time with Green Time

"Greentime" refers to spending time outdoors in nature, essentially replacing time spent on screens (like phones, computers, TV) with activities like playing in a park, going for a hike, or simply relaxing in your backyard, essentially prioritizing outdoor engagement over screen time; the idea is that replacing some screen time with green time can be beneficial for mental and physical health. Key points about "greentime":

• Benefits:Research suggests that spending time in nature can reduce stress, improve mood, boost creativity, and enhance focus, which are often negatively impacted by excessive screen time. 

• What constitutes "greentime":This can include activities like walking in a park, gardening, birdwatching, playing outdoor sports, or simply sitting outside and enjoying the scenery. 

• Balancing screen and green time: The goal is to find a balance between necessary screen time for work or education and dedicated time spent outdoors to reap the benefits of nature. 

Practical tips and resources for managing your children's screen time effectively are on every page.

Our Philosophy:
More Green Time, Less Screen Time

Screen time and green time are linked to psychological well-being in contrasting ways.

A new collection of 186 studies shows that high levels of time spent in nature are associated with positive mental health, cognitive functioning, and academic achievement benefits for children and adolescents, while high levels of screen time are associated with depression, anxiety, stress, and poor self-regulation.

That’s why schools and homeschools emphasize outdoor learning and play as important aspects of the school day for each student in every grade. Read the full article,

Psychological impacts of "screen time" and "green time" for children and adolescents: A systematic scoping review, published by Children & Nature Network.

Planning around a child's interests involves observing their interests and then creating learning experiences that are based on those interests

This process can help children feel valued and make learning more engaging.

How to discover a child's interests 

• Observe: Watch how your child plays and what they enjoy

• Listen: Talk to your child and be open to their ideas

• Write it down: Keep a record of your child's interests

How to plan around a child's interests

• Create opportunities: Provide activities that are based on your child's interests 

• Encourage choices: Let your child help make decisions about what they want to do 

• Use objects: Involve objects that your child is interested in 

• Help them learn: Use repeated behaviors to help your child learn 

Adapting to Changing Interests

Children’s interests often change quickly; staying flexible and observant is key. Regularly refresh your activity plans to align with their evolving interests fir continuous engagement and excited about learning.

Why it's important

• Planning around a child's interests can help them feel valued and like an expert in their own experiences 

• It can also make learning more meaningful and engaging 

• Tailoring activities to a child's interests helps nannies and parents provide personalized learning experiences. This approach enhances education and strengthens the caregiver-child relationship, creating a nurturing environment.

Activity Resources

Engaging activities to inspire play and learning at home are on each page.

Below are some classic ideas activities that parents and educators can do with kids to help them form connections with nature and learn more about why Going Green matters. We will keep adding to the list, so please come back soon for more ideas.

Read "Let's Go Green Together"

Read the book aloud together and select some questions from page 43 to discuss. Then print out the GreenKid Award, fill it out, and hang it up somewhere you will see it often!

Make a Solar Oven

Use a pizza box to create a solar oven. Cook s’mores or cookies on it! For instructions search online for “solar oven pizza box.”

Camp-out

Camp out for a night in your yard or a park that allows camping. Get great information for this activity at NWF.org where you can learn about the Great American Campout program.

Picnic

Go on a picnic. Try to make it a waste-free picnic using reusable containers. You could also try to prepare your picnic with organic food.

Recycled Art

Create a piece of art out of used items that would otherwise become trash. (search the internet for “recycling craft ideas”)

Read outside

Enjoy a book together outside. Get as close to nature as you can. If you don’t need to sit in a chair, sit on the ground. Find a spot near a tree or beside a waterway if that is possible. You could choose a book with a nature theme.

Create A Habitat

Plant something outside. You could plant a small garden in the ground or in flower pots. You could choose native plants and look up on the internet why native plants are beneficial to learn about this important topic. It might interest you to have your yard certified officially as a wildlife habitat, which you can learn how to do at NWF.org.

Planting even one new plant creates more habitat for animals. For example, planting milkweed provides vital habitat for monarch caterpillars because it is the only plant monarch caterpillars will lay their eggs on. However, a whole communities of insects live on just one milkweed plant (search “milkweed community” online to learn more).

Be Water Wise

Measure How Much Water you save when you turn off the water while brushing your teeth.  Turn on the faucet at the sink where you brush your teeth and use containers to collect the water that comes out for 30 seconds. If you have any containers with measuring lines such as a pitcher, use them to collect the water. If not, after you collect the water, you can pour the water into a measuring cup a little at a time and add up how much water you collected.  

Dentists recommend brushing teeth for 2 minutes. Assuming you do that, multiply the amount of water you collected for 30 seconds by 4 to see how much water is saves every time you brush teeth.  You can use a chart online to convert cups to gallons.  When you’re finished, use the water you collected to water plants, cook, or to drink!

Have a Nature Scavenger Hunt

One way to do this is to handout an egg carton and a list of 12 items to collect in the carton such as natural items that are: soft, hard, spiky, yellow, brown, strong, fragile, beautiful, old, sharp, smooth, closed, open, wet, dry, etc. For more ideas search online for images of  “nature scavenger hunt bingo cards.”

Find and Identify

Collect some items from nature or take close-up photos (e.g., flowers, leaves, weeds, bark, sea shells, Feathers).  Then research the items you found on the internet or in books to try to learn more about them.  You can learn more about the items displayed on page 27 of Let’s Go Green Together under resources on this website.

Be a nature photographer

Get outside and take photos of nature. Kids could also make a photo album of the pictures. The album could include poems and quotes about nature (kids can write them or find them online or in books). Kids can try to identify the species of animals or plants in the photographs by looking at identification guides online or in books.

Globe Game Adventure

Have child close eyes and point to a spot on a globe or map. Then looking at the globe/map plan out together a route to this location including your modes of transportation. Then set out on your imaginary journey together! Do you need to cross a mountain range? Climb over a couch to hike over the mountains. Do you have to cross a waterway? Pretend to swim and/or sail your imaginary boat over the ocean or fly over the water with your arms spread wide.

Make a pressed flower and leaf book

Collect flowers and leaves and put them in a heavy book. When they are dry, tape them into a notebook and see if you can find the names of the plants online, in books, or at a local nursery.

Water Plants Wisely

Keep a watering can by the sink. Have everyone in the home pour extra water and ice cubes in the can instead of down the drain. Whenever the watering can gets full, kids can water plants inside or outside the home.

Explorer Backpack

Provide your kids with some tools for exploring nature to be used in the yard, a local park, or the beach (e.g. compass, net, magnifying glass, binoculars, tweezers, buy or make a bug catcher). You could put the items together in a backpack or any bag to be the official explorer bag.

Homeschool Support

Find information on the current legal climate and regulations you’re required to follow.

• Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)

• HSLDA Legal Summary for New York

• New York State Education Department Home Instruction Page

• Common Core (HSLDA)

Homeschool Facts

• National Home Education Research Institute

• Homeschool Freedom

Getting Started

Links to help you begin your journey with confidence

• You Can Homeschool

• Beginning Homeschooling

Curriculum Selection

Catalogs, recommendations, and more from around the Internet

• 101 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum

• Rainbow Resource

• Homeschooling Toddlers to Tweens

• Notgrass Company

Magazines

Resources from many of the top names in the homeschooling movement.

• Home Educating Family

• The Old Schoolhouse 

• Homeschooling Today

• Homeschool Digest

• The Teaching Home

• Practical Homeschooling

• Wisdom Gate

• Home Education Magazine

Testing

Resources to help you evaluate how your student is learning, and retaining what’s taught.

• BJU Testing

• Seton Testing Services

• PASS Test – Hewitt Homeschooling

Homeschooling Success

Detailed research highlighting the statistical evidence of the benefits of homeschooling.

• National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI)

• HSLDA Collection of Research Articles

College

Higher education options for your homeschool student.

• HSLDA College Information

• Patrick Henry College

Ideas and other resources

• Free Homeschooling Resources

• Time for Learning

Custom resources for families utilizing a play and learn approach.

Tailoring Activities to Children's Interests:
A Guide for Parents 

Every child is unique, with their own interests, preferences, and ways of learning. As parents and nannies, recognizing and understanding these individual traits is crucial in planning activities that not only engage but also effectively contribute to their development. At The STEM Nanny Company, we believe that the best learning happens when it aligns with a child’s natural curiosity and enthusiasm. Here’s how you can observe and plan activities that resonate with the unique needs and interests of each child you care for.

Why Observing Interests Matters in Child Development?

Children engage more deeply when activities reflect their personal interests. Using these interests as a basis for planning activities enhances the learning experience, making it both enjoyable and impactful. Engaged children pay more attention, ask more questions, and explore more eagerly, creating an ideal state for learning and memory retention.

Identifying a Child’s Interests

To identify what captures a child's attention, observe them during free play. Notice which toys they choose frequently and what topics they discuss. Pay attention to the books they read repeatedly or characters they prefer. These preferences offer clear indicators of their interests. Additionally, having regular conversations with the child, asking open-ended questions like "What do you like about this?" can provide deeper insights into what they enjoy and why.

Planning Learning Activities Around Interests

After pinpointing a child’s interests, tailor your activities to incorporate these themes. For instance, if a child is fascinated by animals, you might organize a trip to the zoo, engage in pretend play about veterinarians, or explore animal habitats through simple science projects. If they show an interest in trains, introduce counting and engineering concepts by building tracks or sorting trains by size and type.

Once you have identified a child’s interests, you can begin to incorporate them into educational activities at home.

Broad Activity Ideas

Explore these fun activity ideas that you can customize based on your child’s interest:

a. Physical Fun: Get active with simple sports or dance activities. Playing tag or following a dance routine can be fun ways to move and help improve coordination.

b. Mind Games: Keep the mind engaged with puzzles and problem-solving games. From classic jigsaw puzzles to more challenging games, these activities are a fun way to practice thinking skills.

c. Creative Projects: Dive into arts and crafts or make music together. These activities are perfect for letting kids use their imagination and express their creativity.

d. Play Together: Enjoy time with group games or sharing stories. These fun activities are great for learning to work together and understanding others.

Adapting to Changing Interests

Children’s interests often change quickly; staying flexible and observant is key. Regularly refresh your activity plans to align with their evolving interests fir continuous engagement and excited about learning.

Parent Resources

Strengthen Family Relationships

For better or for worse, family relationships play a central role in shaping an individual’s well-being across the course of their life. These relationships can be a source of comfort, guidance, and strength to draw from in times of stress. Developing and nurturing your family can also give you the lift you need to endure life’s challenges and meet your goals with confidence and courage.

Creating and maintaining strong healthy family relationships takes time, effort, and patience. With the daily pressures of work, children, and chores, it can be easy to neglect your relationships and take your loved ones for granted. Here are some suggestions to help strengthen your family relationships and ensure there is natural growth and bonding within your family.

• Work on good communication skills. Focus on listening and understanding what your family member is trying to say. Carve out time to work on communication skills by putting away phones and other devices at the dinner table so you can interact with each other.

• Establish traditions, values, and goals together. If you have already developed some family traditions, do your best to continue what you started. Sit down to discuss and reinforce values, invent new traditions, and plan how you will accomplish goals together.

• Try new things together. Play a new board game, discover a new craft, or try different foods. Choose a night each week for movies and games. If you have children, let them help make decisions about new things to try.

• Connect with distant family members. Make time to connect with long distance family members by phone, email, or video calls. Staying in touch with people outside of your home will help you feel more connected to them.

• Stay active. Physical activity can help reduce stress. Have a family dance party or set family exercise goals, schedule weekly walks together, or create competitions to see how many pushups or jumping jacks each of you can do. These activities can create moments of bonding.

• Laugh together. Find things to do that will make you laugh. Choose a funny movie to watch together, read a favorite book, or tell each other jokes.

Resources From our Incredible Horizons Website

• Infant & Toddler Play Ideas to the Rescue

• FREE One year old Curriculum and Play

• Babies Love Being Outside

• Incredible Baby STEAM

• Fabulous Physics for Babies and More

• Babies and Toddlers At Home

• Building Babies Language Skills

• Hopeful Art for Incredible Babies and up

• Hopeful Art- Creative Collage

• Littles Learning Through Play

• Backyard Seasonal STEAM Activities

• Playful learning at home

• Hip Homeschool Options

• More Hip Homeschool for age 5 and up

• Homeschool--Early Childhood

• Kitchen Science STEAM

• They are kids too

• Our Incredible Resources for Baby

• Resources for Families with Toddlers

• Preschool or Pre K Resounces

• Family Resources for OUTDOOR PLAY

• TLP and Self Regulation

• Language Focased Activities Age 1-3

• Fun in the Forest

• Tinkering In the trees

• Splashing in the Sea or Ocean

• Wonderful Water Sensory Science

• Positive Parenting

• Simple Ways To Enjoy Parent Hood

• You will love "Yes Space"

• Improving Your Child's Self Control

• Land Lovers

• Tinkering oudoors with kids- Blog

• Having Fun with Your Newborn

And these from our Family Activities website

• PLAYING WITH BABIES

• Listening and Language Development

• Playful Ways to Learn-Hands on

• Sensory Fun with your Baby

• Boosting your Baby's Sensory Learning

• Exploratory Play for Babies

• Exploratory Play 18 month and up

• How to play with your baby

• Discover and Explore with Babies and Tots

My Favorite woodland activities

Identify wildlife

Wildlife is all around us, from sights and sounds to tracks and trails. Discover what's out there all year round with our identification guides.

Foraging:What to look out for each month Foraging for wild food connects us with nature and gives us a reason to get adventurous in the kitchen! See our year-round guide to sustainable foraging: what's in season and how to prepare and eat i

 Walking
Taking a walk in the woods is the easiest way to enjoy the outdoors and get closer to nature. From woodland glade to unexplored pathways, where will your visit to the woods take you?

 Woodland activities for children and families Spot wildlife. Craft with nature. Go on scavenger hunts. We've got plenty of ideas to help families enjoy woods and the great outdoors all year round.

Nature's Calendar
Help monitor the effects of climate change on wildlife near you. Your records contribute to a growing body of evidence on global warming

Woods through the seasons
Any woods are a wonderful place to visit all year round. Visit in spring for swathes of bluebells, summer for sunlit picnics, autumn for bright bold colors and winter for snow-topped tree