Helping childcare business owners build successful, sustainable businesses through practical strategies, real-life experience, leadership, faith, and encouragement.

Archive for the ‘Leadership’ Category

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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How to Deal with Difficult Employees

 

I’ve  had my share of dealing with difficult employees and I honestly believe that I went through those situations to share this blog post with you today.

Dealing with Difficult employees is very common in the work place. In fact, when I network with other childcare business owners, most of the complaints are about staff issues. The top complaints that I hear from employers include:

  • Tardiness
  • Gossiping
  • absenteeism
  • Bad Attitudes

If you are dealing with any of the above situations with an employee, just know that there is a solution.  Again, I have experienced all of the above and I want to share my story with you.

In 2005, I was dealing with an employees with a very bad attitude. In fact, her attitude was so bad that the other employees were complaining about her to me. The employee would even complain to parents about the center and was gossiping with other staff members.

That one employee was  destroying the moral in my center. Because of my lack of experience in that area, I did not confront her right away and this caused the problem to get out of control.

I took a one week vacation that year and I bought a book, written by John Maxwell titled: “Winning with People.” That book gave me so much understanding on why this employee was behaving in that manner. The employee was hurting within and in most cases when someone is hurting, they tend to hurt others around them.

I decided to get to know this employee including; getting to know about what was going on at home. Once she discovered that I cared, she opened up to me and she became one of my best employees. In fact, in my absence she made a great team leader and a role model for the other staff members. Moreover, when I would hire new employees…I would pair them up with her for 2-days for training.

In summary, my night mare with that employee turned into a positive situation when I decided to seek understanding, get to know the employee and let her know that I cared.

If you find yourself dealing with a difficult employee, here are some steps that you can take to help you to deal with the situation:

  • Document the behavior
  • Hold a meeting with the employee
  • Ask questions to get understanding
  • Let the employee know that your goal is to help them as much as you can
  • Express your expectations and make them clear
  • Review your policy on the issue at hand (if applicable)
  • Review what you have discussed in the meeting
  • Create a corrective action plan, hold the employee accountable and set a follow-up meeting date

To Your Success,

Shiketa Morgan

For more employee management tips, join my Center Owner eclub.

 

Category:

Administration, Employee Management, Leadership

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