Candy Land

A wise friend is mentoring / teaching / inspiring me to remember why I do family childcare . We are working our way through a series of tough questions she passed my way.  The first question is :

For a young child, how is spending a day in a high quality family childcare home like spending in a day in her own high quality home?

I think the idea is if I TRULY believe in the positive attributes of family childcare one of my main goals should be constant reflection on whether I am upholding those family childcare values.

Some of my answers were :

1 . In both there is the freedom to move about and make choices.
2. Flexibility for individual children – like allowing children extra rest when needed .
3. There is a strong close relationship – even relaxed as a grandma or aunt would be.
4 Schedule can flex to a group of children’s needs; if we need more outside time we don’t share our playground. We go outside.
5. Children can interact with adults in the kitchen while meals are prepared.
6 Our space closely resembles a home.

Others I thought of after I emailed my colleague back were:

7.  We make messes .. big messes .

8. We work problems  out like family .

9 .  It isn’t one size fits all.

Today we did something that many of you may do in your home. We played a game .

Children can learn SO much from playing simple games and they experience such joy.

Games are a struggle for me.  It takes FOREVER.  I played one set and then delegated that joy to Miss A.