Inspirational and Empowering Child Care Business Owners To Build Successful Child Care Businesses

Archive for the ‘Child Care Center’ Category

It’s Time to Review Your Daily Schedule

Your daily schedule is a vital part of your curriculum. In fact, having a daily schedule is  a indication that you have a plan for each day that the children are in your program.

In addition to having fun and enriching lesson plans in your childcare program, it is vital that you (the family home provider) or your childcare center staff think about creating a daily schedule with the following in mind:

  • The hours that the children are in your program
  • Planning for large blocks of time for play
  • A Balanced day
  • Time to meet individual needs
  • Planning for transitions
  • Consistency in events

In my childcare center, every classroom has a bulletin board that displays a daily schedule. The daily schedule in each classroom indicates how the children spend their time in my program.

Here is a sample daily schedule for a preschool classroom.

As a home provider, my daily schedule indicated what a day was like in my program for each age group.

Would you like to see what my schedule looked like when I cared for a mixed age group?

 

Here is an example of what a day was like in my home daycare:

6-8am- Children arriving, quiet play, preschoolers choosing center and infants resting or toddlers exploring environment.

8-8:15am- Cleaning-up, diapering, toileting, washing hands and older preschoolers helping set the table for breakfast.

8:30-9:00am- Breakfast time, children arriving, children that finish can look at books quietly.

9-9:15am- Clean-up, prepare for group time. Arrival cut-off time

9:15-9:30- Morning group time: Prayer, songs, movement, discuss activities with Toddlers/preschoolers. Infants were in play pens on back or resting quietly.

9:30-10:00- Outdoors, Infants/toddlers and preschoolers outdoors

10:00-10:15- wash hands, diapering, transition inside. Preschoolers choose centers. Assistant helped with diapering infants/toddlers/

10:15-11:15- Free Choice, Small group activities, Preschoolers choosing center. Reading to infants and encouraging large and fine motor skills.

11:15-11:30- Clean-up, wash hands, prepare for lunch. Preschoolers help set-up table for lunch. Assistant help to feed infants that are ready to eat.

11:30-12:00- Lunch time. Toddler and Preschoolers help serve food family style.

12:00-12:15- Clean-up, toileting, diapering, time for toddlers and preschoolers to get on cots. Look at books quietly for 10 minutes. Some infants may already be sleeping.

12:15-2:30- Nap time or Quiet time

2:30-2:45- wake-up children, put-away cots, diapering, washing hands. Prepare for snack.

2:45-3:00pm- Snack time

3:00-3:15pm- Clean-up, prepare to go outdoors

3:15-3:45pm- Outdoors, Games, Infant, toddlers and preschoolers outdoors

3:45-4:00- wash hands, story time

4:00-departure- Free choice activities/choose/explore center, Children departing. Age groups mixed together

 

I hope that the daily schedules above has inspired you to create a balanced consistent daily schedule that meets the individual needs of the children in your program and most importantly; create a schedule that helps you to plan for smooth transitions.

Most childcare centers and home day cares have interest or learning centers in their classrooms. If you would like to find out how to create centers in your home daycare or center, please leave a comment below.

 

With Curriculum in Mind!

Shiketa

Category:

Child Care Center, Curriculum, Home Daycare

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Empower your Preschool Teachers to Create Enriching Lesson Plans

My staff members are currently planning for our upcoming preschool year. Our new preschool year begins on Monday August 15, 2011.

 My goal for this preschool year was to plan more one-on-one activities, plan activities that meet the interest of the children and to incorporate more new ideas to the lessons.

I thought I would check in with one of my Lead Teachers as I finished up my monthly food program claim to see how she was doing with her  Lessons. I decided to check with this particular teacher, because she is fairly new to lesson planning and Lesson planning can be quite overwhelming for a new teacher.

Moreover, I decided to check with the teacher, because, I had recently given her a copy of the August/September mailbox magazine. To my surprise, she incorporated many of the ideas that were in the magazine into her lesson.

As I reviewed her lessons and gave her positive feedback, I realized that when you give your teachers, resources that will inspire them to succeed, they will exceed your expectations!

One of the activities that I noticed on the lesson plan was a preschool rock garden. I have a passion for natural living and I think that it is always a great idea to incorporate nature into lessons.

I thought a rock garden was a great idea that the kids will love. So I asked her to tell me about the Rock Garden.  She said, she found the idea in the mailbox book that I gave her.

Here are some examples of what a preschool rock garden will look like:

summer craft

I was so impressed with having a preschool rock garden in our 2-3 year old classroom. Moreover, I was excited that the  teacher utilized the resource that I provided for her to be successful at lesson planning. furthermore, this was a great example of how teachers will succeed when they are given tools that expand their ideas.

I wrote this blog post to inspire you to do all that you can to equip the teachers in your program. After all,  it will only improve your program and improve the quality of your preschool program.

How do you empower and inspire your preschool teachers to succeed in the classroom?

When your teachers succeed…you succeed!

With Your Child Care Business in Mind,

Shiketa

Category:

Child Care Center, Curriculum, Employee Management, Leadership, preschool

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