My Daycare Coach

Here is my new parent board! I'm so happy with how it turned out. I plan of making a children's sign in board on the poster down by the shoe bench.  I am starting my new adventure again.  Well here we go again. I am returning to daycare after a year and 4 month break. I learned a lot working as a child development specialist. I helped get the EHS program going in my county. I mentored 16 family childcare providers. Some of the things I did were helped them get their health and safety up to the performance standards and offered technical assistance for help with setting up their environments, how to handle challenging behaviors, and curriculum planning. During this process I learned a lot of new things as well. I've done over 120 hours in trainings. Plus when you work with other providers in their environments, you pick up on new ways to do things. I feel this job has been a great benefit to me as I open my family childcare back up. 

A really fun adventure we did in daycare was this scavenger hunt. The set up took a little time but was so worth it. My preschoolers had a great time. We did this activity during our pirate themed week, but can be done any day when you need to get outside. So here's what I did. First I created this map of my neighborhood. We walk around the block this same way quite often. I printed some pictures of google pictures of things we could find on our walk. I started us out at our mailbox which happens to look like a school bus. To the left of our house we always have to past the boat in my neighbors driveway, so that was the next picture I printed out. At the corner right before we turn is my neighbor that has a cool play structure. My kids always talk about this so I knew we had to include it. Next we have to walk by some junipers bushes, so as you can guess that was the next picture I printed out. I included some other recognizable items in our neighborhood and printed out pictures

I really wanted to have some t-shirts for my daycare children to wear but the prices for having them done professionally was too much for my budget. So I decided to make my own! I had all my children bring in their own white shirt. Some brought it t-shirts, some tank tops. It didn't matter because they were all going to match when I got done with them. We were planning on wearing our shirts for the parade so I wanted them to stand out a lot. We have always used a smiley face to brand my Daycare named Silly School and so that's what I chose for our shirts as well. I purchased some yellow Rit brand fabric dye and used it to the recommended directions. It was very simple to use  Add to water and stir the shirts around and let them sit for a while. After I had some dry yellow shirts I made a simple smiley face template and used black fabrics paint that I found at Michael's to paint the simple design  I made sure to add cardboard inside the shirt so the paint wouldn't leak

When the weather outside is frightful, come inside and make something delightful. Here are some fun winter crafts to do with your 2 and 3 year olds. The first is a color page of a scarf. After the children color them or 🎨 them. Help them to hole punch the ends and add cut yarn pieces. Some of the 2 year olds need more scaffolding. You can punch the hole and cut the yarn pieces for them a head of time.  For the mitten, have a precut paper mitten and allow the children to add colored tissue pieces. Then add glue. We used chubby paint brushes to paint on our glue. For a parent friendly approach (that some of my daycare assistants preferred) You could trim around the edges that overlapped the mitten.  For these winter hats, have paper plate halves available with markers and lick and stick tape and Pom poms and glue too.  For our winter tree, we used a die cut of a tree layered with 2 colors of paper. The children added "snow" cotton balls with glue sticks and some stic

I found this Idea on Pinterest a while back and thought I would give it a try. It was a great way to get the families at my daycare involved with our program..( I'm always looking for ways to involve my families) I asked them and everyone I knew to save their milk jugs, rinse them, and bring them to daycare before a 3 day weekend. My three assistants and I took turns with 2 glue guns going to create this wonderful space. 💪🏻 It took a total of about 2 days with plenty of breaks to finish. But our children loved it! They thought it was the coolest thing ever. The Dramatic play was flourishing.  Have you ever tried a crazy Pinterest idea? How did it turn out for you? Leave me a comment below and share a story with me. I'd love to hear from you. 

It's that time of year again. Children are getting sick and parents need to go to work and then they attempt to drop their sick child off at daycare ... This can be a sticky situation if you don't have a plan in place   To help avoid this situation from occurring here are some steps you can take for your family childcare: Step 1. Include in your parent handbook simply and clearly your expectations around sickness  Always go over this piece in your handbook during their enrollment. Maybe even have them initial this section   Step 2. Also during enrollment explain to your parents that you want to have a healthy atmosphere for their child to play and grow in and that is why you only care for healthy children. If you help them see this as benefiting them, they are more likely to follow your guidelines when asked.  Step 3.  Periodically ( flu season*cough) remind your family's of your sickness policy. Post a cute sign like my free example below as soon as the we