Feeling guilty about all the TV your kids have watched since the pandemic began? Here are 6 guilt-free ideas for screen time for toddlers that both you and your kids will love.

1. Circle Time

When I started making this list, Monica Sutton was in the middle of crushing the YouTube game with her daily Circle Time show. Since then, she’s taken a hiatus from churning out every day content to focus on creating other online learning spaces for preschoolers. But the weekday consistency that her near-year of Circle Time has provided our kiddos is priceless. 

The moment my toddlers hear Ms. Monica sing that the good morning train is coming, they run to the TV. Her days of the week song (set to the theme of “The Addams Family”) is now a staple in my home; it’s how our kids learned the days of the week in English. We specifically play it for Two each weekday. He gets extremely jealous when his brother’s PK3 class has virtual circle time, because Three won’t let him participate. So we separate the boys: Three has class in their room, and Two gets Ms. Monica in the living room. We’ve started playing her reruns from the beginning, back when the letter of the day was A and we were fresh, innocent babies who thought the pandemic quarantine would last a few weeks. Just make sure you play the correct day of the week, or your kids will get confused.

2. Book Read-Alouds

I hate reading out loud. I. HATE. IT. It makes my mouth dry and doing funny voices hurts my throat. Unfortunately (hahaha), my kids love books. So how do I juggle my hatred for read alouds with my kids wanting to read Sandra Boynton’s book from hell Doggies seven times in a row? 

I outsource it to YouTube. Did you know there are whole channels of book read alouds? I particularly enjoy Sankofa Read Aloud, because it features books that highlight African American experiences, and allows me to discover new books to share with the boys. But you can just as easily type the name of a particular book followed by “read aloud” into the search bar of YouTube. I’ve created a playlist of all my kids’ favorite books. When reading Moo Baa La La La five times simply isn’t enough, I just pop on the playlist and protect my sanity.

3. Theme Weeks

For the first four months of the pandemic, I actually came up with a different theme every week. I was a decade younger and more energetic then, not someone with the expertise to write an article about screen time for toddlers. I’d pull out the boys’ toys and clothes related to that theme – think buckets, a beach ball and flip flops for Beach Week – and curate a playlist that incorporated English and ASL vocabulary, letters, numbers, colors, book read alouds, science and social-emotional learning. I slowed my roll once Baby Girl was born and I went back to work, but we’ve got dozens of playlists saved up, ready to play at a moment’s notice: Very Hungry Caterpillar, cats, opposites, family, feelings, bikes and scooters, etc. You can seriously make anything a theme!

Right now, my kids are in their bedroom, playing with wooden blocks while they watch a YouTube playlist called “B is for blocks.” Three has finally mastered the fine motor skill of stacking blocks, but he prefers to throw them. I initially created this playlist to provide visual modeling of other children playing with blocks appropriately. But then I added videos about the letter B, counting blocks, basic shapes and some social emotional learning (Daniel Tiger getting angry at baby Margaret for knocking down his blocks) into the playlist, with clips from some of their favorite shows. So yeah, my kids are watching TV right now – it’s Saturday morning, come on – but it’s educational and accompanied by an extension activity. Since it’s allowing me to type this post, that makes the playlist a triple win.

4. Flocabulary

Are your kids slightly older? Check out Flocabulary, which makes educational music videos that don’t suck for kids in grades K-12. Like for real, some of these songs kinda slap. They’re all rap and R&B, and with a $10/month subscription, each video comes with lesson activities. I recommend Flocab for the parents of school-age children who want to help their kids with virtual school, but don’t have the content knowledge (or energy, let’s be real) to be of meaningful assistance.

As a government teacher, I used their civics videos for review; I loved hearing students hum earworms under their breath while they took tests. But now as a resource teacher for high school students with Down syndrome, I use Flocabulary for review and pre-teaching of concepts for every single class. I also love their regular current events video installment, Week in Rap. 

5. Signing Time

Signing Time saved our lives when we first adopted Three and he didn’t speak one lick of English. The classic Signing Time episodes teach ASL signs using spoken and written English words and images. That makes this program useful for learning both languages and reading sight words. Now our boys use both ASL and English as primary languages, and Two is recognizing shorter sight words, like “fox.” That’s right: screen time for toddlers can make them suckers bilingual.

Is it super white bread? Yes. The host Rachel Coleman is a former Mormon folk singer from Utah who produces the programming with her family; Alex and Leah are her nephew and child. She came up with this idea, to teach their community ASL after her first child was born Deaf. But she has obviously considered racial, religious and ability diversity in her montage casting. I particularly appreciate the inclusion of children with Down syndrome. I’d recommend her whole suite of programs for elementary school kids. We do the $9.99/month digital subscription. The app can be kind of wonky some times, but our kids regularly demand to watch “Time,” so it’s totally worth it.

6. Family Videos

By now, you can see that screen time for toddlers doesn’t have to be garbage. It doesn’t have to be educational to have value, though.

This is the only non-educational idea on this list, but it’s one that is so simple, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. Why not pop in some of the old VHS recordings of family Christmas or your eighth birthday party? They’ll love seeing you as a little kid and their grandparents looking all young and fly. Plus, it gives children the opportunity to see dearly departed relatives they’ll never meet. We recently showed my kids a video of my grandmothers in the hospital with my parents, just after my youngest sibling was born. Libby was a baby? Mommy has a Grandma? Grandma and Pa have mommies? Their tiny minds were blown. But now Two can point to a photo of my paternal grandmother and say, “Nana.” These old videos are free, but that’s pretty priceless.