Essentials for new daycare

[kindertime]

I guess I have to agree with everybody. You do what works for your group.

There is a lot of free-play here, I have lots of toys but that also doesn't mean the kids don't get bored too. I always try to look at the daily routine as flexible and change it to suit the needs and styles of the group I have. When I first opened, everything was scheduled, kind of like what Suzie describes. It really worked for that group. But after a couple of years, the group changed, new kids and others got older. And their schedules changed too. So originally, all my kids would be here before 8am. So they had lots of time to play with their friends before snack and going outside. They would tidy while I was making lunch. Then that stopped working, they wouldn't tidy anymore, they just wanted to play, and it took me about a week to realize it was because they were all coming after 830am, some right at 930 for snack. They had no time to play with their friends before snack and going outside. So I changed the schedule to meet them where they were. It happened to be winter so I thought we would go out after lunch instead. That worked. They had time to play after snack in the morning and went back to tidying before lunch because they'd had the chance to play with their friends.

I still plan this way today, when I had 5 toddlers, they needed more structure and more hands-on supervision. Today, my group is so awesome, I can sit and watch them play for 1.5 hours (like today cuz it was raining) and they had the freedom to decide what they want to do. They painted and did puzzles and fed all the dollies too. We were supposed to have our first picnic of the year today but with the thunderstorm, that didn't happen so I set up the play table in the playroom and they ate in there instead.

I don't have a big house either, but the three main rooms are accessible to all the kids, livingrom, kitchen and playroom. They can run around too, that takes up a lot of their time.