Celebrating 16 Years of Inspiring and Empowering Child Care Business Owners

It’s Time to Review Your Daily Schedule

08 17 11

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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Art Is A Critical Element In Your Preschool Program

08 15 11

Recently a parent informed me that the only thing that her daughter was bringing home was art work. I informed her that art was a vital part of our program and that her child was also working on letter recognition, math and other vital skills.

The mother still did not seem to understand the importance of art.  In fact, she decided that her daughter needed to go to another school that she felt will challenge her daughter.

I decided not to keep trying to convince the mother that we had a quality program and talk about our Accreditation. In fact, I decided to educate parents on the importance of art and assess how are is really helping the children in my program.

As I prepared for this blog post, I decided to review one of my early childhood books that I have titled, “Teaching Young Children.”  In the book, I found an entire chapter on the importance of Early Childhood Art Curriculum and here is a wonderful quote that I found about the importance of art in curriculum:

“The arts motivate and engage children in learning, stimulate memory and facilitate understanding, enhance symbolic communication, promote relationship and provides and avenue for building competence. The arts are natural for young children. Child development specialists note that play is the business of young children; play is the way children promote enhance their development. The arts are a most natural vehicle for play.”~The Task Force on Children’s Learning and the Arts

Eight years ago I completed an early childhood class called, Creative Activities. After completing that class, I realized the importance of art in preschool curriculum. I am also convinced that children need art on a daily basis, because art is therapy for young children.

I want to share with you materials and equipment that I incorporated in my art center; and that you can  add to your art center. Most importantly, the items that you add will encourage creativity in your preschool program and the children will love it!

Equipment needed in your Art Center (s)

  • Tables to seat at least 3-4 children to work in small groups
  • Child size chairs
  • A shelf to store art materials
  • Trays for holding paper
  • containers for holding markers & pens

(Open-Ended) Materials to add to your art area:

  • White paper
  • construction paper
  • crayons
  • markers
  • colored pencils
  • pencils
  • scissors
  • hole punchers
  • staplers
  • glue, glue sticks
  • newspaper
  • magazines for cutting
  • felt, yarn
  • Play-doh
  • Paint, paint brushes

Three Things to put away

  • ditto sheets and pre-marked papers
  • coloring books
  • avoid cook book art activities

Enjoy the freedom that basic materials provide. Moreover, strive to offer more open-ended materials in your art program and focus on the process not the end product. Feel free to share your thoughts about this post.

With Art in mind,

Shiketa

Category:

Curriculum, preschool

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