Children

I am a Daycare

Working with children daily as a Child Care provider gives a unique understanding of children and how they all develop differently.  At times they may notice a child who does not “seem” to be developing at the same rate as their peers.  The following information will provide what to look for when playing and interacting with the children in a group  that may indicate a developmental delay. It also provides when to make a referral & who you should make the referral to. Visit out developmental stages page for more information on the developmental stages of children. Have your child pre-screened.

There are a number of different group activities that you can do with children using music and everyday items in a daycare. View our playtime page for more ideas and fun recipes.


Puppets

You can use different items to make puppets. You can give a show, sing along with music, tell a story or just have conversations with them.

Making puppets with the kids is just the beginning of all the fun you can have. Using puppets encourages verbal expression and vocabulary development. Made a puppet stage from a large cardboard box (you can get from local furniture/appliance store), use a table with a cloth draped down in front or hang a sheet across a door way (which makes for a lot of in/out learning fun too).

Kinds of Puppets:


Classification

A huge part of our lives as adolescents and adults is based on organization. Putting objects together by various similarities provides toddlers with the beginning processes of organization as well as learning objects by use.

  1. Collect a lot of small things and put them together in a box to “classify”. The children can sort them according to: Color, shape, size, use, noise they make, and feel (soft, smooth, heavy, hard), let the child explore other ways to sort them together.

    You can designate how they are classified, they can be sorted by twos or how they go together:  2 red, 2 soft, 2 paper, 2 animals.
  2. Make a collections of empty food packages and plastic fruit, flowers, vegetables.  They can then be sorted according to categories such as:

    Dairy foods, fruits, cereals (little boxes are best) nonfood (non-edible) items, things that must be cooked.
  3. Let children sort things according to likeness:

    Cards, poker chips, large and small, buttons, stuffed animals/toys. Muffin tins or plastic strawberry baskets make good sorting containers.
  4. Make a “classification” book.  Cut out and glue in pictures of: Animals, red things, things that rhyme, round/square things, happy people/sad people (which helps with identifying emotions as well).

Muscle Building for Hand Strength

In order to promote better hand control your upper body strength must demonstrate good stability. There are various activities that help build strength which will assist toddlers with different activities such as spoon and pencil use.

  1. Maintaining body weight on hands during crawling activities, playing “puppy/kitty or baby by crawling on all fours, wheelbarrow walk, getting off a chair or sofa head first (with adult supervision), somersaults etc.
  2. Have them lay on their stomach supporting themselves on their elbows while using their hands in play.
  3. Sitting on a skateboard and pushing themselves using their hands (with adult supervision)
  4. Punch holes using paper punch, mold aluminum foil or clay into balls. Crumple paper into a ball. These balls can be used in a target toss game.
  5. Water and sand play: give small bottles or measuring cups for “empty/fill”. A sponge, rag or squirt bottle for “squeezing”.

To encourage correct grasp of tools (spoon, pencil etc.) use with adult supervision:

  1. Objects approximately one inch in size such as small blocks, large beads, etc.
  2. Small finger feeding objects like raisins, goldfish, cheerios, Little Puffs.
  3. Pick up flat objects, saucers, pennies, paper, etc.
  4. Break crayons in to half, this provides a smaller area for the child to grasp, which in turn promotes proper grasp of a writing tool.