If you have recently started a daycare business, you many need to increase the number of clients that use your child day care center.  There are a variety of ways to attract new clients to your child care business.

1. Friends and Family: Friends, family and colleagues should be your first resource for child care clients. Contact friends and family to let them know of your new daycare business.  With the current state of the economy, many parents are returning to work or taking on second jobs and need someone to care for their young children.  Your child care business is a great resource for excellent, reliable, safe daycare from someone they know and trust.  Then ask them to spread the word about your high quality services. (more…)

Child care software can be a lifesaver for daycare business owners. Child care software allows child care providers to manage administrative duties, thereby increasing efficiency and client satisfaction. The most important administrative duties childcare software can help manage are the following:

Create, Manage, and Retrieve Client Records

The software should allow you to quickly register families into your child care center.  Daycare software should allow you to create sorted lists of clients and should be fully searchable. The software should provide you with an option for uploading or scanning in your own custom forms. From a client’s record, you should be able to email or bill.  Daycare software can track attendance and allows you to easily create attendance reports like attendance summaries, attendance analysis, and class summaries and analysis. Quality daycare software should also allow you to upload pictures of the family and those authorized to pick children up. (more…)

Summer is officially over, but the fun doesn’t end when preschool begins. Your licensed daycare center can utilize this handy, creative and free lesson plan to teach preschool aged children about the season fall.

Autumn Art Activity: Handprint Wreath

For this activity you will need: 1 handprint pattern; 1 acorn pattern; brown, yellow, orange, red, and green craft foam, poster board, ribbon, and glue. Cut handprints and acorns from foam in assorted colors. Cut a wreath ring from the poster board. Glue the hands randomly around the ring. Glue acorns randomly amongst the foam hands. Then attach the ribbon for hanging. (more…)

One of the first steps in finding clientele for child day care center is through advertising in your own neighborhood. Flyers are an inexpensive way to create visibility for your childcare business.

Here are a few tips for creating a daycare flyer that gets noticed and also gets responses.

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Toddlers and children of preschool age love activities that include water, animals, and the opportunity to get messy. Fish sorting is a fun and activity that can be used in daycare centers and preschools to support cognitive development.

Cognitive development focuses on developing functions of the brain such as thinking, learning, awareness, judgment, and processing information.  Cognitive development centers around how children learn and process information. It is the development of brain in functions such as language, thinking, mental imagery, reasoning, problem solving, and memory development.

Developmental psychologist Jean Piaget contends that children go through several stages of cognitive development.  From birth through the age of 2, children are in the Sensory-Motor Stage. In this stage, children learn through sensation and movement. From ages of 2-7, children are in the Pre-Operational Stage. (more…)

One of the most important duties for those with jobs in childcare is to protect the health, safety and wellness of children in your care. Immunizations make daycare centers and preschools a healthy place to learn and grow.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, vaccines help keeping children safe by protecting communities by helping to protect children who are not able to be vaccinated or who do not respond to vaccines, protecting individual children who are vaccinated against dangerous diseases, and by slowing down or stopping disease outbreaks.

Check with your preschool or daycare center and follow state requirements, as they vary. In most states, preschool children must have: (more…)

Thumb sucking: Is it a true issue for young children? An interview with Dr. Michele Saysan, a Riley Hospital for Children pediatrician, answers questions about thumb sucking that are common among parents and licensed daycare providers.

Q: Is thumb sucking harmful for children?

A: Thumb sucking can be bad for children. Children who continue to suck their thumb may have dental problems.  Their teeth may be pushed outward or be poorly aligned which is called malocclusion.  The longer thumb sucking persists, the greater likelihood the child will need orthodontic treatment to fix the teeth.  Some children may have difficulty talking who have prolonged thumb sucking.  Some children may get skin infections of their thumb from thumb sucking.
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As children develop, they learn the skills to be polite, cooperative and helpful. Along the way, it is the duty of parents and daycare providers to encourage and support appropriate behaviors. Two childcare experts give excellent tips for reinforcing good behavior in toddlers.

Suzy Martyn, Parenting Consultant, Speaker, and author of Enjoy the Ride: Tools, Tips, and Inspiration for the Most Common Parenting Challenges provides the following suggestions:

1. Model the desired behavior. If a toddler sees the behavior naturally in a parent or teacher, they are much more apt to do it when directed so.
2. Encourage and affirm. It takes 7 positive statements to make up for a negative one so our children need to hear much more praise in order to accept any direction.

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Parent-teacher conferences are important in the daycare and preschool environment. Child care providers should be the experts in Early Childhood Development and have the ability to direct parents so that children have the proper developmental foundation.

What is the purpose of a parent-teacher concert in the daycare or child care setting?  A large part of jobs in child care center around supporting the child’s development socially, emotionally, physically and academically.

Early information about a child’s development can lead to early intervention. Preschool teachers can recognize speech issues, fine and gross motor development, social appropriateness and basic learning styles. If parents have an objective understanding of how their child is developing they can go forward and make better choices for their child’s future.

Parents and teachers should have at least two scheduled conferences: (more…)

Does your daycare center participate in developmental screening? Screening is the process by which a brief, well-validated, standardized tool is administered among young children to aid in the identification of children who may be at risk of a delay or disorder. Most screening tools take only 10-20 minutes to administer per child.

A child in your daycare center will undergo screening if there is some concern about their development. Typically, parents notice developmental problems. For example, they may notice their child is not walking by a certain age or that there are language development issues. Preschools and daycare centers may also recommend to a parent that their child be screened due to concerns about behavior, language or socialization.

Not all children are evaluated. A child is referred for a developmental screening only when there is a concern regarding a delay in development. Preschool evaluations typically occur when a child is between 3 and 5 years of age.

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