I'm getting a complete different age group of kids in my home daycare.

IT's TIME TO REARRANGE THE ROOM A LITTLE BIT.

In all fairness I do think I have the the major piece in place where I want them. For once that's not going to change. What does have to change is the types of toys I have out and of course the room decorations.

Two months ago I was focusing on 4 years old and the younger children just went with the flow. Now that has all changed. At this time my average age is 2 years old. I was looking over my toys that I have out, while thinking about this. I can see for the most part they just aren't suitable. It's time to get out all the toys I can find for 1's and 2 year olds. It's odd. I know now that when I had older kids I didn't spend as much time as I should have focusing on this stage of a child's development. Yes of course I had things they did, but the older preschool needs took priority. I think it's going to be fun thinking younger for a while.

bre

Bre I have same issues but mine are young and preschool age ..

I have found having shelves helps wonderful I can see what is out.

I have what I call my dump buckets ..these are for the babies - age 2

The toys on the shelves wont hurt the younger ones ..well unless someone tosses it across the room.. slams little joey in the big toe that sort of stuff that happens! I have a tv cabinet that has storage under it --- this seems to be my toy jail .. I should post pictures of the kids sitting in front of it crying - mostly my grandson! haha
ok seriously ...... I have a shelve in the other room with toys in it that are not suitable for the toddlers and under and I have one in my daycare room...... this is where i keep crayons, paper, markers, playdough, ..oh all those things that baby cant have .... well I pull them out when we are playing with them ...
I know your set up .. you might do something like this with your shelving!

We are never done organizing lol
I am feeling very overwelmed right now .. I have pulled EVERYTHING OUT!! and now where in the heck do I put it all?

In the past I've tried to structure my program with one poem and one rhyme a week. For the older kids this went well. I'm thinking though, with the younger ones and two's I'm better off doing it over two weeks. It's not like we ONLY do one book and a poem, we repeat things we've done in the past too, things that are related to the theme but not stressed as hard.

[font=Comic Sans MS]Anyway I decided that the first two weeks of January would be in the areas of
Keeping your body warm - temperature/weather out side
concepts of cold and hot [/font]

Our rhythm is Based on Three little kittens lost their mittens
I've re-written it to suit my age group of THREE one year olds. While the poem is a great one, its long. I will try to once a day say the longer version, but we will be mostly doing the following

[font=Comic Sans MS]Kitten Kitten, lost his mitten,
While playing in the snow.
_I____(name)_______ found it kitten,
your little __(color)____ mitten,
it will keep your paw warm now. [/font]

Okay I know it sounds a little corny. LOL, but it's short and keeps up with the rhythm. I also like the way I can use the children's names (they can pick a mitten out of a container) and I like the way we can discuss the color of the mitten too. The activity gives the child a chance to interact and we can do a variety of activities playing with the mittens.

Here is my bulleting board. The kitten face can come down and I can put it on a magnet board. I keep it on the bulletin board to keep it safe, make the room cute. I got the pattern for the cat from
http://www.daniellesplace.com/HTML/educ ... chool.html

My storage plan is to turn the poem sheet over and put it high on my wall, put the kitten face on it with a baggie of mittens INSIDE of the kitten. This way it will stay safe, I can take it down if I need the kitten for another activity and it decorates the room. Eventually I might have the ceiling boarder all around the room decorated.
I need to work on our story book that we will be using "The ginger bread man". Hopefully I will get it posted too.

Simply adorable and fun!!


How are the children responding to this?

Oh I think I will make it too ..and do in a flannel board set