How do I actually teach young children, not just watch them?

You can watch children and keep them safe, which matters, but teaching them in the way they actually learn feels out of reach. That gap is real and worth naming, because minding children and teaching them are different things, and no one is born knowing the second. Young children learn through play, through doing, through repetition and relationship, not through being told. Teaching them is less about instructing and more about setting up the right experiences and then guiding gently while they discover. Once you see learning as something you arrange rather than deliver, it starts to click. Start by learning a little about how children this age actually develop, then plan one activity with a learning goal hidden inside the play. Watch what they do with it. You will begin to see the teaching inside the watching. The skill is real and learnable, and you are closer to it than you think.