My Daycare Coach

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 ...

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 so...

       When you own a family daycare and you want to hire an assistant it is a little different that hiring an employee for another business. I always recommend getting set up with your payroll and insurances before you start the interviewing process. Some providers may want to run their business very casual and think that paying under the table would be ok to start out. You will want to do everything the legal way for lots of reasons. 1st off you want to be legal so you don't get sued, have to pay for medical bills if there happens to be an accident, or chance getting your business shut down. I know some may want to take their chances on those, but the other benefits to hiring legally are worth it as well. If you are paying your assistant with taxes and social security being taken out, then you can write these costs off on your taxes. Otherwise you can't claim this expense. The cost of your employees will most likely be your biggest expense as a family childcare p...

What am doing? Am I ready? I love children and I've been talking about it for awhile. But what am I getting myself into?  If you've wanted to know what it means to be a family childcare provider read on... Awe the life of a provider.... When you wake up early and have your first family knocking on your door before you've finished your cup of coffee at 7:23. You greet parents, help children and sometimes their moms with separation anxiety. Then the messes start with the activities you've set out. Your day consists of making order to disorder. You make meals that inevitably the child will eat maybe two bites from. You sit down to read a story to a couple of children and then be interrupted by another child needing to go potty, then cleaning up some glitter that spilled. Next you have to turn down "When the wheels on the bus" to answer the phone that might be the family wanting to start next week, but more likely it's just another telemarket...

With over 15 years experience, I've learned a thing or two about what to do and what not to do running a daycare. I am going to share with you some of my best tips, and how to's here on this blog. I began mentoring family childcare providers beginning in May of 2015, and then professionally in January of 2016. I have found that more than developing and growing a family childcare, I have a passion for coaching others in the field. I can't wait to share with you how you can grow you family childcare business today.