FRC: Child Care
"Play is children's work."
More Child Care | How We Do It
A child care room must first and foremost be a child friendly room. Chairs, furniture, and toys need to be set up at the child's level and for the child's comfort. While most rooms in the family resource center should be designed for multiple and varied activities, child care deserves a room of its own. In this space you can provide child care while parents are in counseling or groups on-site, develop parent-child playtime and interaction groups, and model how to create a child friendly environment.
Whether your space is small or large, designing specific stations for different activities is an effective strategy to ensure that a wide range of environments and stimulation are available for the children. Linoleum flooring in some of the space allows you to develop an area where marvelously messy activities - eating, finger painting, and playing with water - can take place. A carpeted play area allows activities with a variety of toys. Create a quiet reading area with comfortable pillows or chairs and lots of children's books. Buy sturdy and colorful board books rather than books with pages that can be torn out. This area can also serve as a transition zone where children can sit and play quietly until they feel comfortable joining the rest of the crowd.
Rotating toys in and out of the room ensures that there are always new things to do and that children are not overwhelmed by too many choices.
The design of your child care space can aid parent interaction and communication. Be sure to orient new families to the resources available in the child care area.
Child care equipment need not be expensive, but should be sturdy, easy to clean, and developmentally appropriate. Parent educator Ann Corwin, Ph.D., recommends some basic toys that promote healthy child development:
- Crawl Tubes - These inexpensive toys encourages children to crawl, an important motion for brain stimulation and reading skills. Crawl tubes fold up and store easily.
- Small Indoor Slide - Enhances motor coordination and gives children practice in taking turns and sharing, important skills for school readiness.
- Strollers - Children love to push toys around in a stroller. Strollers also encourage balance and coordination.
- Board Books - Books with numbers, letters, shapes, and a variety of cultural images.
- Sewing Cards - You can make these yourself by punching holes in cardboard and stringing them with yarn. The sewing motion not only encourages hand-eye coordination, but isalso useful in brain development by promoting use of both the left and right hemispheres.
- Puppets - Puppets are a wonderful way to engage children’s imagination and to learn more about the children. Often children feel safer talking to a "puppet" than to an adult. Another wonderful hand coordination activity.
Helpful Links
National Child Care Information Center
www.nccic.org
A project of the Child Care Bureau, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
This site is the source of a multitude of internet links, publications, and resources for child care. It also contains directories of each state’s child care and regulatory agencies and articles on child care topics.
National Association for the Education of Young Children
www.naeyc.org
This site addresses early childhood education and contains excellent material on child development.
