The Educational Toy Every Parent Should Know About

The Educational Toy Every Parent Should Know About

In this episode of Early Childhood Chats, host Andy Roszak sits down with Drew Vernon from Tonies to talk about a product that has become a staple in his own household and is making waves in early childhood classrooms across the country. Tonies is a screen-free audio system designed for young children, featuring a soft, portable speaker box and magnetic character figures that trigger stories, songs, and educational content when placed on top. Drew shares the origin story of the company, which began in Dusseldorf, Germany, when two dads on a preschool board saw teachers still using CDs and streaming devices that kids could not operate on their own. He walks through his own journey from Procter and Gamble to LEGO to leading the education program at Tonies in the United States.The conversation covers the growing body of research on screen time and child development, the L.A. school district’s recent decision to restrict screens through first grade, the power of audio-based learning in building vocabulary and creative visualization, and the many ways teachers can integrate the Toniebox into classroom centers. Drew also talks about Creative Tonies, the blank recordable figures that let parents, grandparents, and even incarcerated fathers record personal messages and stories for their children. Andy shares his own experience using Creative Tonies to connect his one-hundred-and-one-year-old grandmother with his daughters, and the two discuss the Toniebox 2’s new features including Bluetooth, a sunrise alarm, and a screen-free game system called Tonie Play.Learn more about Tonies: https://us.tonies.com/https://www.instagram.com/tonies.us/Episode Timestamps0:00 Introduction and Andy’s experience as a Tonies parent1:30 Drew Vernon’s background: from P&G to LEGO to Tonies3:30 The origin story of Tonies in Dusseldorf, Germany5:15 How the Toniebox works: magnets, RFID, and kid-friendly design6:30 My First Tonies for ages one and up7:00 Licensing partnerships: Disney, Paw Patrol, Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, and more8:30 The philosophy behind screen-free audio and creative visualization10:30 Screen time research and the impact of COVID on children’s media habits13:00 The L.A. school district restricting screens through first grade14:30 Creative Tonies: recording your own voice for your children16:00 Incarcerated fathers staying connected through Creative Tonies17:30 Using Tonies during travel, road trips, and at Great Wolf Lodge18:30 Integrating Tonies into the classroom: five learning centers model20:30 Age range: from My First Tonies at age one to audiobooks at age ten21:30 Bluetooth headphones, external speakers, and classroom ratios22:30 Battery life and portability (eight hours)23:00 What’s next: Pokemon partnership and Tonie Play game system25:00 Where to buy and the twenty percent teacher discount26:00 Drew’s favorite Tonie: the LeVar Burton Reading Rainbow collaboration28:00 Wi-Fi and connectivity explained30:00 Drew’s closing thoughts on giving kids the right tools for one childhood----------------------------Early Childhood Chats is hosted by Andrew Roszak - JD, MPA, EMT-PExecutive Director at the Institute for Childhood Preparedness. The Institute for Childhood Preparedness is proud to use its decades of experience to offer comprehensive and expert disaster and emergency preparedness trainings live in-person, via webinar, and on-demand online. // Visit: https://www.childhoodpreparedness.org/ to find out more // Schedule your training today https://www.childhoodpreparedness.org/trainingFOLLOW UShttps://www.instagram.com/childhoodpreparedness/ https://www.facebook.com/ChildPreparedhttps://twitter.com/ChildPreparedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/institute-for-childhood-preparedness© Institute for Childhood Preparedness 2026 all rights reserved

Should Child Care Programs Have Cameras? Childcare Experts Discuss

In this episode of Early Childhood Chats, host Andy Roszak talks with Kevin Wright from Watch Me Grow about a topic that generates a lot of opinions and not enough informed conversation: cameras in childcare settings. Watch Me Grow is a video platform built exclusively for the early childhood education industry, offering commercial-grade camera integration, secure parent viewing, long-term footage retention for compliance, and a growing suite of AI-powered features designed to support proactive program management rather than reactive crisis response.Kevin walks through his own path into early childhood technology, including his time at a childcare management platform before joining Watch Me Grow during the merger with PB&J TV. The conversation covers how parent viewing actually works in practice, including the data showing that average parent viewing time is less than a minute per day or week, how centers are using cameras as coaching and professional development tools rather than surveillance, the legal and insurance value of reliable footage retention, and how programs are offsetting costs by offering camera access as a value-added service to families. Kevin also previews Watch Me Grow’s active supervision AI feature, which detects when an adult is not present in a classroom and flags the event for director review. Andy and Kevin discuss the shift in perception from cameras as punitive “big brother” tools to proactive instruments for quality improvement, staff support, and family trust.Learn more about Watch Me Grow:https://watchmegrow.com/Episode Timestamps0:00 Introduction: cameras at the intersection of early childhood and technology1:00 Kevin Wright’s background and how he ended up at Watch Me Grow2:30 The PB&J TV and Watch Me Grow merger3:30 Why Watch Me Grow is built exclusively for early childhood education4:30 What Watch Me Grow actually is: the platform explained6:30 Parent viewing: how it works and how centers customize access8:30 The data on parent viewing: enrollment boosts, retention, and average viewing time under one minute10:30 Cameras as a professional development and coaching tool13:00 The hockey film analogy: watching to build best practices, not to catch mistakes14:30 Myths and misconceptions about cameras in childcare16:30 The story of a director who could not produce footage when it mattered18:00 Camera placement: classrooms, hallways, playgrounds, parking lots, and exteriors20:00 Offsetting costs: charging a technology fee for parent viewing access22:00 The legal value of reliable footage: discovery, insurance claims, and the jury argument24:00 The shift from reactive to proactive: using video to identify trends before incidents escalate26:00 The iPad story: how video revealed a staffing need, not a teacher failure28:00 Active supervision AI: detecting when an adult is not present in a classroom31:00 What’s next: ratio tracking, smart observations, and emotional learning features33:00 Security benefits: after-hours surveillance, vandalism, vehicle incidents35:00 The vehicle-into-building story from Canada and why footage matters for insurance37:00 How to reach Watch Me Grow and the discovery conversation process39:00 Closing thoughts on transparency and the future of video in early childhood----------------------------// Visit: https://www.childhoodpreparedness.org/ to find out more // Schedule your training today https://www.childhoodpreparedness.org/trainingFOLLOW UShttps://www.instagram.com/childhoodpreparedness/ https://www.facebook.com/ChildPreparedhttps://twitter.com/ChildPreparedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/institute-for-childhood-preparedness

Why Preschool Behavior Is Getting Worse (Real Solutions Inside)

In this episode of Early Childhood Chats, we tackle one of the most urgent challenges in early education today: the growing gap in mental health support for young children.Host Andy Rozak sits down with Dr. Neal Horen and Shai Idelson from the Thrive Center at Georgetown University to discuss rising behavioral challenges in classrooms, increasing preschool expulsion rates, and why early childhood educators are facing unprecedented stress and burnout.We dive into:* Why infant and early childhood mental health matters more than ever* The reality of challenging behaviors in today’s classrooms* The shortage of mental health consultants and why programs struggle to access support* Innovative solutions to build internal capacity and expand the workforce* Practical strategies for educators and directors to manage stress and support childrenIf you work in early childhood education, Head Start, childcare, or behavioral health, this conversation is a must-watch.Learn more about the Thrive Center: 👉 https://thrivecenter.georgetown.edu/👉 https://www.facebook.com/GUUCEDD👉 https://www.linkedin.com/company/thrive-center-at-georgetown-university/👉 https://www.instagram.com/guthrivecenter/👉 https://www.iecmhc.org/👉 Georgetown Thrive Center: thrivecenter.georgetown.edu👉 Practical Certificate in IECMH Consultation: thrivecenter.georgetown.edu/training-and-education/certificates/practical-certificate-in-infant-early-childhood-mental-health-consultation/👉 Head Start East Partner Events: headstarteast.org/event#EarlyChildhoodEducation #MentalHealthSupport #Childcare #HeadStart #TeacherBurnout----------------------------Early Childhood Chats is hosted by Andrew Roszak - JD, MPA, EMT-PExecutive Director at the Institute for Childhood Preparedness. The Institute for Childhood Preparedness is proud to use its decades of experience to offer comprehensive and expert disaster and emergency preparedness trainings live in-person, via webinar, and on-demand online. // Visit: https://www.childhoodpreparedness.org/ to find out more // Schedule your training today https://www.childhoodpreparedness.org/trainingFOLLOW UShttps://www.instagram.com/childhoodpreparedness/ https://www.facebook.com/ChildPreparedhttps://twitter.com/ChildPreparedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/institute-for-childhood-preparedness© Institute for Childhood Preparedness 2025 all rights reserved

Brain Architects and Bold Investments: New Mexico's Universal Child Care Story

Every state in the country is watching New Mexico right now. In November 2025, New Mexico lifted its income eligibility cap for child care assistance, making quality child care available to any family with a child from birth through age twelve whose parents are working or in school. In a matter of months, the number of children served grew from 32,000 to 48,000 — and the state is already exceeding its own projections.But the story is not really about what happened in November. It is about what happened in 2019, and in the years of advocacy and organizing that came before it. Kendal Chavez, Deputy Secretary of the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department, joins Andy Roszak to pull back the curtain on how the state got here: the creation of a unified early childhood department, a trust fund now worth eleven billion dollars seeded from oil and gas revenues, a wage scale and career ladder for the early childhood workforce, a zoning reform bill that removed local barriers to building new child care facilities, and an evidence base that is already showing children in the state's most under-resourced communities outperforming national cohorts.This is a conversation about governance, political will, and what is actually possible when a state decides that early childhood is not a nice-to-have — it is the strategy.GUESTKendal Chavez, Deputy Secretary, New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD)Appointed by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham in August 2025. Brings more than fifteen years of public-sector experience at the intersection of education, public health, food systems, and child and family well-being. Holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of New Mexico and previously served as a Policy Advisor to the Governor.ABOUT THE NEW MEXICO ECECDThe New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department was created in 2019 as one of the first unified early childhood agencies in the country. Its mission is to bring all programs and services for children prenatal through age five under one roof, giving families a single point of access and giving the state a coordinated system for investing in young children. The department oversees child care assistance, universal pre-K for four-year-olds, home visiting, and early intervention programs — all connected and funded in part through New Mexico's Early Childhood Trust Fund. Website: nmeced.orgTOPIC OVERVIEWNew Mexico's universal child care initiative is not a single policy announcement — it is the culmination of more than six years of deliberate system-building under Governor Lujan Grisham, supported by decades of advocacy before her. When the state lifted its income eligibility cap in November 2025, it did so with an eleven-billion-dollar trust fund already in place, a unified department managing all early childhood programs, a workforce wage scale codified in law, a cost-based reimbursement model that incentivizes quality, and a zoning reform bill removing local barriers to expanding supply. In this conversation, Kendal Chavez walks through every piece of that infrastructure and explains what it means for families, educators, and policymakers who are watching from other states.---------------------------Early Childhood Chats is hosted by Andrew Roszak - JD, MPA, EMT-PFounder of the Institute for Childhood Preparedness and Head Start East. // Visit: https://www.childhoodpreparedness.org/ to find out more // Schedule your training today https://www.childhoodpreparedness.org/trainingFOLLOW UShttps://www.instagram.com/childhoodpreparedness/ https://www.facebook.com/ChildPreparedhttps://twitter.com/ChildPreparedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/institute-for-childhood-preparedness© Institute for Childhood Preparedness 2026 all rights reserved

The Lost Skill: Why Handwriting Is Disappearing and What It Costs Our Kids

Most early childhood educators know handwriting matters. Fewer realize how much is lost when it disappears from the classroom. Research from Indiana University and the University of Washington has consistently shown that children who practice handwriting show stronger neurological activation in regions tied to reading and language development than children who rely on keyboards. Yet across the country, the skill is fading quietly — replaced by screen-based instruction, academic pressure pushed down into preschool, and a system that asks children to produce letters before they have the developmental readiness to form them.Holly Britton spent more than 25 years in classrooms watching this happen firsthand. After pivoting during COVID to build what she had been conceptualizing for years, she founded Squiggle Squad, a research-based, developmentally appropriate program built on a stroke-by-stroke approach that separates motor skill from letter learning. The results have been striking.In this conversation, Holly and Andy discuss the developmental window for handwriting instruction, how play-based classrooms can incorporate handwriting without abandoning their philosophy, and what the rise of AI and screens means for how young children learn to think. Holly also shares practical, no-cost starting points any teacher or parent can use right now."Handwriting, as innocuous as it seems, is deeply human. For us not to teach that human skill is, to me, as awful as not teaching them how to read."🔗 Learn more about Squiggle Squad: https://squigglesquad.com👉 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SquiggleSquad/👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/squigglesquadhandwriting/👉 Email Holly: holly@squigglesquad.comSubstack: https://hollyonhandwriting.substack.com/about📌 Subscribe for more early childhood education insights#handwriting #earlychildhoodeducation #braindevelopment #literacy #teachingtips #educationpodcast #learning----------------------------Early Childhood Chats is hosted by Andrew Roszak - JD, MPA, EMT-PExecutive Director at the Institute for Childhood Preparedness. The Institute for Childhood Preparedness is proud to use its decades of experience to offer comprehensive and expert disaster and emergency preparedness trainings live in-person, via webinar, and on-demand online. // Visit: https://www.childhoodpreparedness.org/ to find out more // Schedule your training today https://www.childhoodpreparedness.org/trainingFOLLOW UShttps://www.instagram.com/childhoodpreparedness/ https://www.facebook.com/ChildPreparedhttps://twitter.com/ChildPreparedhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/institute-for-childhood-preparedness© Institute for Childhood Preparedness 2026 all rights reserved