You do not need a telescope to start astronomy with your child. You need a clear night, a darkish spot, and ten minutes of patience.
Start with the Moon. It is the easiest object to find, it changes visibly night after night, and it gives children a reason to look up again tomorrow. Ask them to sketch what they see each night for a week. They will discover the phases for themselves, which beats being told about them.
Next, learn three constellations, not thirty. Orion in winter, the Plough (part of Ursa Major) all year round, and Cassiopeia's distinctive W shape are enough to make the sky feel familiar. A free stargazing app can confirm what you are looking at, but try finding it first and checking second — the searching is the learning.
Talk about scale in ways children can feel. If the Sun were a football, Earth would be a peppercorn about 26 metres away. If you walked to the Moon at a steady pace, it would take about nine years. Numbers like these stick because they are surprising, and they are the doorway into real physics: gravity, light, orbits and why seasons happen.
On a cloudy night, switch to the stories: how ancient sailors navigated by stars, why the planets are named after Roman gods, or what the James Webb telescope is showing us now. Astronomy is one of the few school topics where a child's "wow, really?" is the whole lesson.
If that curiosity turns into a love of physics and space, a tutor can connect it to the school curriculum — forces, waves, light and the solar system — so the wonder becomes grades too.