Most of these were recommended to me by our neighbor, who is a former preschool teacher. I am hoping to get a home daycare business off the ground in the next few months, and am beginning to experiment with lesson plans and schedules and such. I hope to follow more of a structured routine when I start doing daycare, and we are beginning to ease ourselves into that routine now so it won’t be too big of a change for any of us.
I have started off with very simple themes. So far we have done a different letter sound every day. I will print out a few coloring pages that correspond to that letter sound, and pick two crafts that correspond as well. I usually only get to one of the crafts, but I’ve found it’s best to have one in reserve just in case. You never know whether something will capture their attention for twenty minutes or two minutes!
So far I haven’t done very much planning in advance. Usually the night before I will spend about ten minutes printing out what I need; then do all the cutting and prep work for the various crafts while Isabel is working on the coloring pages. That will have to change when I have more kids. I also hope to have my themes and activities planned out a month in advance. It will all depend on the ages of the particular kids I get.
I’m also trying to build up my repertoire of indoor fitness activities. This site had some neat ideas. A few days ago we had an all-day deluge and I got to test out a bunch of them. I was surprised at the ones that held her attention. Paper plate skating was fun, but it only lasted about two minutes. Ribbon dancing, however, got her moving for an entire Raffi album. It got me to work up a sweat as well-bonus!
All in all, I am really excited about this opportunity. Isabel is having the best time with our new routine. I wish I had started doing more of these types of activities with her earlier. It always seemed a little overwhelming. But having a few good websites with free printables has made it a breeze. If you’re thinking about starting a home daycare, or if you just want to spice up life with a preschooler, I can’t recommend them enough.
I found these duck templates on the First-School site. They are meant to be used on a felt board, but I attached magnets to the backs and stuck them to a cookie sheet. She loved it. We used them to act out the Five Little Ducks song, practiced counting forward and backward, talked about Big versus Little...you get the idea.
Here are sites I've been using the most often:
- http://www.first-school.ws/ I particularly like the alphabet worksheets on this one
- http://www.dltk-kids.com/ Great Bible themed crafts. They also have good ideas regarding taking a paper craft and making it appropriate for different age groups.
- http://teach-nology.com/ I actually haven't explored this one too much, but they have some unusual coloring pages I am looking forward to trying.
- http://www.kinderart.com/ A little more commercial-y (does that make sense?). But has some neat project ideas.
That's about the it. If anybody out there has any good ideas, I'd love to hear them. Enjoy!
4 comments:
You left a comment on my site and I'm so glad that you did because it led me to your site, which I love! What a great post this is. We also try to have a lot of activities to do in our house, but it can be overwhelming at times. Your ducks on the cookie sheet caught my eye, though. It looks like I can manage that one! Thanks for all of the great links which I am going to bookmark.
By the way, your Christmas pictures made me giggle. When I am taking a picture of Pea and I say "smile," I get the same scrunched up expression that your daughter has in her pictures... Too cute.
Thanks for the links! I've been wanting to do more with Colin and, Jacen is getting ready for some of these kinds of things too. These sites will be perfect.
Jen M
Thank you for the websites we already tried some of the projects- we all need some new ideas once in awhile. Home daycare-Hmm- what a great way to be home with your children and make some money. I think its awesome because you as a mom know what you want for your kids and can give that to others. Good luck - keep us updated!
This is a perfect occupation for you! Remember collaging (sp?) magazines? You'd have thought we were in sixth grade instead of 22 years old!
I can't tell you how much I adore Megan, who takes care of Liam for me. She does so much with him, even though he's still very young for arts and crafts. He comes home with a project every day. My favorite was the snowmen made out of potato flakes on black paper. Cute, but what a mess!
She also gets all the kids outside to play every day, even in the snow as long as the temp is above 20 degrees. Or she'll walk them in the stroller, in the snow, while six months pregnant. Remarkable!
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