Nightly Prep

Hey everyone. Just want to get a feel of how you all run you day care. How much nightly Prep do you do for the next day. Craft, meals, decorating, extra... Just wondering? Thanks :)

I find the more prep I do on the weekend/ night, the more smooth my day goes. On Sunday I make muffins and pancakes for the week, cut up a brick of cheese and 2 cucumbers and any fruit that takes more time to prep (pineapple, cantaloupe). Night before I take out the craft stuff I will need!

I pretty much do nothing after daycare hours except mop the floor!!!!

I have almost an hour window in the morning between hubby leaving for work meaning I have to be up lest I fall back to sleep and last child arriving so use that time to prep most of the stuff for the day in terms of food. Things like muffins and cookies and such are frozen so I set out what I am going to use. From a craft/activity standpoint I know what I am planning to do and usually have 3-4 options in my head and decide based on how active/docile/cooperative the group seems to be. Evenings are mostly for the background type stuff like laundry, cleaning, bookeeping. Long range planning is done on the weekend so I can find where stuff is I will need in the next little while so I can get to it easily which sometimes means cleaning out under the basement stairs and switching out bins of stuff.

I spend sunday afternoon doing a really good clean of the house and prep any fruit/veg and do any baking i want to do. I try not to do anything but tidy the daycare room when the day ends. I'll run a vaccum through the house twice a week but that's it. And on friday's when I close, I do absolutly nothing until Saturday at noon at the earliest. That's my down time.

I do most of the prep on the weekend usually Sunday. I plan the week's meals and lessons, and print out all my worksheets and coloring sheets. I used to make muffins on Monday's because I only had 2 full time kids, but That will get bumped to nap time or sunday now too. I clean floors during nap time, and vaccum during day care time, (realistically, mommy vaccums at home too when the kids are around!) I can see the playroom from the kitchen, so I can slice and dice while kids have free play. Running a day care is demanding enough, and taking up all your time with you family doesn't make me a happy mommy either, so I try to plan, plan, plan and prep prep prep, keeping as much during dc hours as possible. :)

The only thing I do in the evenings weekends is cooking meals (but I cook the meals for my family and the leftovers are for daycare) and cleaning my house on the weekends including vaccuuming and mopping the daycare area and cleaning bathrooms etc. I prep snacks during daycare hours...actually I just cut up fruit while kids sit and munch...that way I can cut up more if they want more and less if it is not a hit and I don't waste like I would if I had cut up an enormous pile of fruit and they only eat a tiny bit etc. I don't normaly prep crafts or that kind of thing outside of daycare hours. Most things I do while the kids freeplay or sometimes at naptime if necessary. The day is long enough without spending all my freetime/family time working on stuff for the daycare.

I plan my week every Sunday afternoon by googling for crafts, songs and game ideas for the weekly theme and on Monday mornings at the library I pick up our books for the week. Some weeks I email all the parents to let them know my plans for inside and outside actvities with field trips so they have an idea which days we will be travelling but I keep them informed all week.

I sweep and vacuum daily, do the dishes and laundry of course, but all my heavy housework is done on the weekend. I fill the crockpot the night before so it's ready to start in the morning or like tonight I'm putting the base for the shepherd's pie together so it's ready to pop into the oven tomorrow. I cut up the fruit and veggies daily for each meal, it doesn't take much time for me while the children freeplay for a bit.