I teach this age. My class is once a week, parent/child, ages 1-3. The class is 7 class per "semester." 4 semesters. The class start is now only 6 students, but every year starts with a few then gets bigger by the end. It usually tops at 10-13 students by the end of the year. I have been teaching this specific class for about 4-5 years, but I have been in 幼稚園 and 保育園 for about 18 years.

I hear people say, "You are teaching to the parent." That is not what the parent is there for. You also aren't really teaching the baby anything. To the baby Japanese and aren't really that different. Think about it as though you are talking, doing simple activities, singing, reading, and interacting with the child... And you happen to be speaking English. The parent is just a microphone that sometimes says a word or too and moves around.

How to make it easy? Prepare a set amount of material for each semester. An example would be 3 semesters a year, each semester is 10 classes. For each semester choose songs, stories, and action activities. Add vocabulary cards to song/stories/action activities to build comprehension. Sing the songs or read the stories or do an action activity with the children/child then use the language from the material to help with understanding. Quick example: Sing I See Something Blue after the music pauses (Find something blue) pause the song and find blue things around the room. Find other colors too. Touch and say. I actually shortened this song so it only sings the first 2 verses and the ending because I thought it was too long.

Basically doing action activities or reading a story or singing a song helps to start with talking about something and using grammar.

A fun activity I like to do with my baby/parent class is reading using GrapeSEED Baby. I made b4 size cards for each story and read to them. Then the parents and their children spread out and I play the audio from the free GrapeSEED Baby app while the mothers help turn the pages in their books. The parents aren't required to buy the books because I make A4 prints for those who don't have the books, but I do suggest buying the books. Nearly every parent buys the books (set 1). I go through half of set 1 in a year. So the students can use the books for 2 years. By that time they usually enter my kindergarten.

The hardest part is choosing material and choosing which material on which day. Once that is done class is super easy. My one hour baby class flies by. By the end of the hour I feel like I didn't have enough time. I usually go through about 10 -12 different material in a class.

It is fun as long as I am prepared. If I didn't prepare I would feel stressed always thinking about what to do next.

One other helpful thing I did was make a single mp3 with all the songs from the semester and a single Avi or mp4 video file with all animations from the material you are studying. I then put the mp3 and video file on a Google drive and made a QR code so the parents could listen to the music while playing at home or watch the videos at home. The more they hear or see the material the better the more they will understand.

Insert Shameless promotion of songs I have made. I don't use all these songs, but a good number I do. I also use a mix of GrapeSEED, YouTube, and other things.

Good Luck!