Childcare - what activities by what age?

[Lostinspades]

We have an 18 month old baby, and we have a nanny. She’s great and our son spends a lot of his day running around, playing with other children (we live abroad on a compound). At weekends, he spends all day with us, and while one day might involve a trip to the shops, the other day will be a trip to the zoo/park/walk by the river. Right now, he gets one-on-one attention and love, and at his age, I think it’s perfect.

My question is about ensuring our son is spending his days doing appropriate activities as he gets older (not exactly ‘educational’, but at some point we think it’ll be good if he’s doing more hand painting, puzzles, etc).

With all this in mind, what do you think are good ways for a child to spend their days as they grow, but before they go to school?

Uou just do the activities you want to do with him.
I introduced puzzles at that age, he has the wooden ones for different animals and we would make the noises. As he got a but older ( 2+) he got actaul puzzles starting with 2 piece puzzles. I did it first to show him them encouraged him to try.
Colouring same just give him the pencils or crayons and sit next to him and draw. Ditto with paint ect.

Kids that age have a very short attention span so they don't tend to last that long at any activity.
Reading books to kids is good for their speech develoent so if there is a library near you you could incorporate a trip to their or just read what you have at home.
In terms of just playing outside you've hit the nail on the head it's most of what they need at that age.

I think that’s pretty reassuring. He’s getting what he needs for now. He does have some puzzles he’s not too good at them yet, and we read to him once before dinner and then again at bed time. Some of this is inspired a little by guilt, worrying that he’s getting good childcare.

My mum is a lifelong primary school teacher specialising in the tinies, and we have others in the family. We get given a lot of home made playdough, lovely educational jigsaws and games.

Our nearly three year old isn't arsed with much of it. It's an old mumsnet thing - boys are like labradors, just get them outside.

He is starting to show interest in lego and imaginative play if garden based. You can follow their lead.

We’re quite good on books in the evening and weekend. He’s spoken to a lota and he has involvement in what’s going on. The only possible challenge is that he’s being brought up tri-lingually. He’s coming out with words in at least two languages (two of the languages are pretty similar so hard to tell at this stage)