Opening a daycare with WeeWatch

[Suzie_Homemaker]

We have a small house but several acres of land. So we have a lot of outside space. That said, in the mornings we go for a walk. Why? Because some children, regardless of what you have outside, will migrate to a place to sit down and will play that way vs burn off the energy. We have a loop on the trails that is maybe a couple of kms to complete. Sometimes we make the whole loop and sometimes we just have to monitor the time and half way through the morning turn back and head home again.

In terms of my outside play equipment, the large 2 level play house is always a favorite. Climbing wall, swings, and slide always get a lot of attention. We change it up seasonally too. In Winter my husband will plow a path zig-zagging around the yard. As the snow gets deeper, the banks get higher and it becomes more of a maze than a path and the children run through that endlessly.

In Summer, we have more water tables, water beads and those sorts of things. We have a large barn in the cleared part of the property so my husband attached plastic gutter pipes which will fill with water so they children can sail boats in them - angle it slightly down and have some sort of plug so the water can be drained and freshened regularly.

We have an outside play kitchen filled with pots and pans from the Dollarstore so the children can pretend to cook.

We have another barn wall with closed pipes that the children can shoot balls into.

Last year my son's helped to make an outdoor assault course and that was a hit. Slices of old tree trunks laid out like stepping stones. A balance beam just a few inches off the ground because they remembered balancing on the curb stones themselves as kids - don't see kids do that now days. One of the climbing walls came off the play house and was replaced by a net. There's a lot of things that can just be moved outside.