Monday, July 13, 2009

Exreme Home Make over is coming to my daycare...

Ok, so the show isn't REALLY coming to my home...but I am doing a mini make over in my daycare area. Only difference is, I am not painting, knocking down walls, and there is certainly no Ty helping me with my new daycare ideas! Oh well!
Like I have said in other posts, my wheels are turning and I have some fun and new ideas for my group home daycare! Yesterday I spent way too much time and money at Walmart and Dollar Tree gathering supplies for my new additions.
Here is some pictures of what I have added and worked on yesterday...

Here is our "Open Art" area. I know, it doesn't look like much but if you know me, you will know having glue, markers, and scissors, and craft supplies just out in the open is a BIG thing for me! So, when the kids want to have free art time, they have some starter supplies to create some fun and open-ended pieces of work.


My next adventure is making little containers of "sensory items". These containers are the first 2 of many more to come. I started out with shells that are all shapes and sizes, and an assortment of rocks. They can dig, sort, build, count ect, the ideas are endless!
As you can see... I have the containers... now I am just building up the supplies! But I love how neat and organized they look!!!
One of my biggest struggles is keeping my house looking like a house while running a daycare inside of it. When people come to my place, I really want them to notice, "oh, she has young children", not " wow, she watches 8 kids everyday and her place looks like a daycare".

This little area is our reading corner I created... thanks to Walmart and having all the college dorm stuff wicked cheap! I LOVE the classic look of the ottomans. This has become an area a child can come sit, relax, and read a book...which leads me to the next coolest thing... THEY ARE STORAGE!!! I now have an easy place to store our everyday books so the kids can get books and flip through them as they want and it looks nice with my house!


I also had a lot of fun adding the kids' pictures to my magent wall. I love having pictures up but have no room for frames and wanted something that I could take down if needed my house to look "grown up". I made clips with magents on the back, painted them black and clipped each childs picture to it... the kids had a blast picking out their own picture and naming their friends!

I had a fun time getting all of my new ideas into place... I have to be careful not to spring everything on the daycare kids all at once! But, I have a feeling they will like some of our simple, nature freindly activties and areas!!!

2 comments:

BethH said...

Oh, such super and wonderful ideas!!! Love the open art idea. I should do that too but I "m like you..nope, nada, not gonna happen unless it's at the kitchen table! Ha...but this is a great start. The sensorty tubs are an awesome idea too. I have 2 larger tubs that we pull out of the closet every now and then. One has dried beans, and the other has uncooked rice. Love the shells and the other items in yours...great ideas. And the reading area is super...and love that they count as storage too....perfect for keeping 'the daycare mess' hidden!

BethH said...

OH, my typing always just stinks...just ignore the mistakes and pretend there aren't so many! LOL.