Screen time in elementary classrooms got a lot of attention from lawmakers this year. Utah now requires schools to cut back on non-essential screen time, with the strictest limits in the early grades. Iowa passed a law limiting how much time children in kindergarten through fifth grade are taught on computers. Tennessee lawmakers passed a bill requiring districts to adopt policies that limit digital devices in K-5. And Los Angeles Unified started this school year with no classroom screen time at all for first grade and younger.

If you are a teacher, administrator, or parent choosing a Spanish curriculum right now, you probably have two questions. How much screen time does it require? And what is a child doing during that time?

The short answer on elementary screen time

Calico Spanish is a teacher-facing curriculum. Teachers use the platform to plan and lead lessons. Learners spend most of their time with posters, workbooks, and comics, and watch short video clips together as part of a lesson the teacher is leading. Calico doesn’t give individual students their own logins, so there is no account for a child to sit at a screen and work through alone.

What the elementary screen-time concern is about

Most of the new laws and reporting focus on one kind of technology: tools that put a device in front of each child for long, independent stretches. When those tools are built to hold attention rather than teach, they can crowd out time with a teacher and with classmates, and they can affect attention and behavior. Some education writers call it a “harm-reduction” question: does the tool help kids think, or does it keep them clicking?

Why clicking through an app is different from learning a language

For a language program, there is a second question to ask: who is doing the teaching?

People acquire a new language from “comprehensible input,” language they can understand because it sits just a step beyond what they already know. Researchers sometimes shorten this to “i+1.” A teacher provides it moment to moment. They notice what the group already understands, introduce new words in a context that makes sense, and try another way when something does not land.

A self-paced app plays the same video or quiz for every child, in the same order, whether or not the last screen made sense. A child can click every answer “correctly” without anyone checking that the Spanish was understood.

Not all elementary screen time is the same

Being careful about screen time does not have to mean dropping every video or image from your lessons. A short clip a teacher plays for the whole group, pauses, and talks about is a very different experience from a child working through a program alone. For screen time and for comprehensible input, what matters is who is in charge: a teacher reading the room, or a program that moves every child along at the same pace.

What a Calico lesson looks like

A Calico lesson starts with the teacher. They plan from the curriculum platform, then teach with the materials in the room: posters on the wall, workbooks on the table, comics for reading practice. When a short video helps, the group watches it together and the teacher pauses to talk about it. Because the teacher is delivering the Spanish, they can see who is following and adjust on the spot. Learners work with things they can hold, write in, and look at together, with no device or login of their own.

Questions to ask when you’re evaluating a curriculum

• Does each child need their own device and account, or does a teacher lead the lesson?
• When the program uses video or digital content, is it a short, shared part of a lesson or a long activity a child does alone?
• Who adjusts the language when a learner is lost: a teacher, or the program?
• What do learners hold and use day to day: screens, or books, worksheets, and posters?
• If your school, district, or state sets screen-time limits, would this curriculum still work within them?

See how a Calico lesson works

If screen time is part of your decision, look at how a Calico lesson is put together and decide whether the mix of teacher-led instruction and printed materials fits your classroom or home.

Sources

• Education Commission of the States, Addressing Classroom Screen Time Beyond Cell Phones
• Linewize, K-12 State Screen Time Legislation
• The Gazette, RFK Jr. attends signing of Iowa MAHA public health bill
• WSMV, Tennessee lawmakers pass bill requiring schools adopt digital device policies
• WVLT, Tennessee’s new school-year laws for 2026-27
• NPR, The school year begins in LA with one big change: limited screen time
• MultiState, Elementary School Screen Time Limits Gain Momentum in 2026