Daycares: Structured Activities

1MusicMaker

For those of you who work in daycare or have LO's that go, what kind of structured activities do they do throughout the day for kids aged 1-2 years?  I am looking for more structure/activities when the school year starts (and DH goes back to work!), since I have no idea what to do with DS all day when the weather gets colder and we are stuck inside.  Thanks!

rlthomas7

Adam goes to a daycare in a retirement home, and they do a lot of intergenerational activities. Like the little ones will go up and visit the residents and sing songs. The higher functioning residents will do crafts with the kids, have ice cream parties, etc. Of course, this isn't possible for most people.

But in addition to an intergenerational activity, they do a book of the day, do a craft project every day and have different types of play - outside play, dancing time, musical instrument play, free play, etc.

My favorite was when Adam's sheet said that he and the other kids (all boys at the time) played "beauty shop." I loved picturing five little boys running around with pretend blow dryers and curling irons.

rlthomas7

I will add that I SAH two days a week and we do a playgroup at least once a week. We get together with friends, many from the local baby board, and meet at a local cafe that has a play area for kids. Or we go to museums, parks, etc.

fIowerchild

It differs from day to day, but each day there is some combo of story time, singing and dancing (I love to watch this on the daycare video feed), a craft, then outdoor playtime 2x per day.

Then, depending on what the learning 'theme' for the month is, they also do some learning about that (examples - music and instruments, farm animals, birds, the beach, gardening) by making something or going outside to explore and look for specific things.  During music month they made noise makers (errr, I mean musical instruments) and then had a noisy parade up and down the hallways.

racegirl723

The new daycare we are starting next month does free play, sensory play (like with water, cooked noodles, etc.), they do crafts, play outside daily unless the weather is too bad, read stories, sing songs, etc.  They have other structured activities, but it varies based on the learning topic.  They choose topics based on the childrens' interests and create activities using those interests to develop their speech, motor development, etc.

momtoRaegan041008

You can do storytime, singing/dancing, water/sensory table, art activity, if you have room to do a dramatic play area you can change it up weekly.