Your curriculum is your environment and materials; The activities, routines and experiences you provide for the children in your program.

For me, a curriculum is intentional, reflective, and responsive. In other words, you create an environment, provide materials, and plan activities, routines and experiences with specific goals for each child in mind. Through observation, you collect information on how each child is responding or progressing and reflect on what changes or improvements you might need to make. Next, along with your partner, the child’s parents, you can create an action plan for tweaking your curriculum to respond to the needs of each individual child to ensure developmental success.

Curriculum is not something you plan or create and then just follow for the rest of the year. It is constantly changing as you tweak, observe and respond.

Easy for me to say, but I have found that when I’m working with a provider on curriculum, and I say something like this, all I am doing is frustrating the provider with an answer that is too vague and therefore, overwhelming. I noticed this too at a Creative Curriculum training where most of the providers wanted, and were expecting, a “plan”; A guide to walk them through their days and weeks, with a schedule of specific activities and themes.

Perhaps because I was an infant toddler program, I never felt the need for that much structure, but I definitely did feel more prepared and at peace when I was intentional about setting up my environment and selecting materials and activities- I eventually got to the point where I never had to say the words “no” because I had mentors who helped me to create an environment where it was safe for toddlers to play, explore and learn.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been working with one of my favorite providers, helping her with her curriculum. This is a provider with a masters degree and a LOT of experience and training in early childhood education, including very intensive Creative Curriculum training with coaching. I specifically mention her education and training because even this provider is struggling with curriculum. My experience with her finally made the light come on in my head, and I have decided I need to change the way I work with providers on environments and curriculum.

I realized that creating a curriculum is kind of like learning to ride a bike. Providers often have the “bike” (an age and developmentally appropriate environment and materials). They have the innate sense of balance and ability to ride the bike (I’ve found providers are often already doing what they are worried they don’t know how to do- they just need to be more intentional and responsive). But, they need to start out with a set of training wheels which allows them to build confidence and a sense of security to eventually toss the training wheels aside.

We will create a set of training wheels ( a flexible plan for 2 -4 weeks using her observations of the children, the goals for each of the children and the environment and materials she has already). I cringe at the idea of a pre-written curriculum, because I worry that providers will follow it too literally, without reflecting on how the children are responding (or not responding) to the materials and activities. But I know I need to trust that the provider will soon be able to get rid of the training wheels and ride all by herself.

There are a multitude of boxed curriculums out there that you can purchase to use in your family child care, but I am really hoping that if you are not already doing so, I can convince you to create your own curriculum, and that if you need it, you will be able to use some of what you find here to help you.

We have debated for months about whether or not women will be the deciding factor in November’s elections. He says probably not. I say yes!

My husband teaches high school American Government and Economics. He thinks the economy will be the deciding factor – if it improves, he says, the President stays in the White House, if it gets worse, or doesn’t improve enough, Romney wins. I say that may have been true in past elections, but this year, a formidable demographic is waking up to their power and is ready to fight on the issues that affect them and their families. I am, of course, talking about women.

Women need equal pay, access to quality, affordable child care, affordable health care, paid sick leave and the right to make our own decisions about our bodies. These issues never seem to improve regardless of whether the economy improves or not. They will not improve unless we force the issues.

If you have not yet read this article, I implore you to do so. And then, I challenge you to “Like” MomsRising on Facebook and follow them on Twitter. Go to the National Women’s Law Center website and do the same. Read their blogs. Educate yourself on the issues, and take a stand.

I don’t care what candidate you support right now. I encourage women everywhere to get the facts and make decisions for themselves, and then go out and advocate for what they need and deserve. And, I urge Mom’s, grandmothers, aunties and sisters to fight for what children need.

Get on-line and make the most of social media. Make sure your daughters know the facts, allow them to express their opinions and encourage them to act. Talk to your mothers and grandmothers. Many of them have endured generations of inequality and men making their decisions for them. Let them know its ok to break free. They are not alone; they are part of a very powerful demographic. Teach them how to tweet and help them to set up their Facebook page. Give them the gift of that awesome feeling of taking control.

Do not be afraid of offending. Change does not happen when we are afraid to rock the boat. Change only happens when we summon the courage to act.

Just in case you need more proof that moms are on-line, I found this Infographic: The Digital Lives of American Moms. Check it out.

For information, ideas and strategies for marketing you family child care on-line, visit the Family Child Care Academy

Go to Missionsmallbusiness.com
Look for the “Log in and support” button near the bottom of the page.
After clicking “Support”, look for our business and vote for us!

What we would be able to accomplish with the grant funds:

• Provide training and technical assistance to increase computer literacy in the child care community so providers are able to use technology, both in their business systems, and to access the resources, professional development ,and marketing opportunities available to them on-line.
• Work with family child care associations to create an on-line presence, including websites, E-newsletters and social media strategies to help them with outreach, building membership, advocacy, and making resources and professional development opportunities available to their membership.
• Promote the importance of play through “Selling Play”™ workshops and materials that teach providers how to market their family child care programs by helping parents make the connection between play and learning – talking about what the children are learning through play and the daily routines and experiences provided in high quality family child care programs.
• Offer social media marketing and design services to providers.

We appreciate your support!!

HOWEVER– if you are a licensed family child care provider, you are a small business owner and therefore you need to have liability insurance. If you are going to be in business, not carrying insurance is not really an option.

Yes, you may have an affidavit or waiver that parents have signed acknowledging that you don’t have insurance, but that provides absolutely no protection from being sued. It only means the parent/guardian knows you do not have insurance and that they must collect any money awarded from a lawsuit from you, and you would also be responsible for your own legal fees if sued.

Your liability insurance will pay your legal defense costs if you are sued because a child is injured, or becomes sick and the claim is covered by the policy. If you are found liable (negligent), it will pay the amount specified by the judgment up to the policy limit.

If you don’t have liability insurance, get it now. Many providers tell me they can’t afford insurance. I would argue that you cannot afford not to be insured! And, your liability insurance is a business expense, so it’s tax deductable.

Not all child care insurance policies are the same. It is important to look for a policy that provides the best coverage. I especially urge you to be very careful about assuming that you have sufficient liability coverage through your homeowners insurance.

The only child care liability insurance company that I would ever recommend is DCI. You can check out their website and contact them, or download an application here.

Don’t wait, do it now…

toddler nature project // homemade terrarium

Earth Day Caterpillars

Inside a Flower

Make a Recycled Plant Pot

I thought this article might also be helpful:
12 Top Tips for Gardening with Young Children

For more ideas on planting with children, visit my Pinterest Board.

Features describe what services your program offers. Benefits tell prospective clients how your program will help them and their children.
Being able to articulate to parents the benefits of your program is what differentiates you from other providers.

Features tell, but BENEFITS SELL.

I see features listed in family child care marketing materials all the time. Only rarely, do I see providers talking about the benefits. When you fail to articulate the benefits of your program, you are wasting an opportunity to sell your services.

Click here to see a table of features and benefits. In this table, I have taken some common features found on family child care marketing materials and in the Benefits column, tried to provide some ideas for talking about the benefits of those features.

Check out the Program and Curriculum section of the Family Child Care Academy for ideas and language to help you connect play and learning for parents.

Another, really big, benefit of joining your association could be marketing. Many family child care associations are now offering on-line provider directories or listings as a benefit for their members. This is fantastic! I believe it is vital for providers to be listed in on-line directories because parents do pretty much everything from work to play to shopping on-line so, of course, they are also looking for child care on-line. Though every provider should have a website to promote their business, even if they do have one, unless they are listed in these directories, parents will never find their website in search engines.

On www.searchingforchildcare.com, a free on-line provider directory, I also have a directory of family child care associations by state. By making the association directory available on the provider directory, parents also have access to the provider listings on association websites, increasing a provider’s chances of being seen. The association directory is available to providers and parents here.

If you are not already a member, I strongly encourage you to join your local family child care association today!

Click here to find a list of family child care associations by state.

If you are a member of an association and you don’t see your association listed, please send me information on your association, including a link to the website if your association has one. You can e-mail me at nakalisf@gmail.com . This way, we can help providers connect with their local association.

Looking for outdoor play ideas for young children? Wouldn’t the search be so much easier if there was one go-to resource for all of the best outdoor play ideas from around the web?

Well, now there is!

Play Outside! is an ever expanding data base of unique outdoor play and learning resources, tips, tools, blogs and ideas gathered together from around the blogosphere.

Whether you are a preschool teacher, parent, grandparent or caregiver you will find everything from sand play and gardening ideas to building and creative experiences – and so much more in between.

To make your search even simpler all the ideas gathered together in the Play Outside! database are easily searchable according to the type of play, the type of play space, the type of play material or the age range of the child. To begin your search, click here.

The key here is taking action. We can’t just say that assume that someone else is going to be advocating for early childhood educators, we have to advocate for ourselves. Below are a couple of resources to get you started.

Center for the Study of Child Care Employment

Workforce Information: A Critical Component of Coordinated State Early Care and Education Data Systems

Center for Child Care Workforce

Early Childhood Workforce Hourly Wage Data

Divide the net profit (gross – expenses and be sure to subtract all
employee expenses too) by the number of hours you worked (in your home and outside of the home) plus the number of hours your unpaid family members worked (in your home and outside of the home)

And then, remember that as self-employed persons, we must pay both
halves of our social security as “self-employment tax”

Help clients and policy makers understand how little we make!