Amy's Playroom
Amy's Playroom, located at River Valley Highlands in Lancaster Ohio, is an educational and fun place for your child to enjoy growing and learning with dependable, quality care.
My Philosophy of Quality Daycare
Children need a quality, reliable, daycare in order to thrive and grow. This is most crucial in the earliest years, when children are developing at a phenomenal rate. Young children also require consistency of care in order to feel secure. I believe that this type of care can only be provided by a home care situation, in which the child interacts with the same caregiver all day, each day. I started my daycare in order to provide quality, reliable daycare for my own children after some nightmare experiences with other care providers. My goals for your children as well as mine are to provide a positive, safe, nurturing environment to all of the children in my care. I realize that most parents in today's society do not have the opportunity to stay home with their children, so I intend to offer the next best option. I will strive to provide a safe, comfortable, stimulating, fun, educational environment in my home. Activities will include free playtime, structured playtime, story time, arts and crafts, music, and other educational yet fun activities. I will also provide nutritious meals and snacks, and encourage good personal hygiene skills and manners. Through a mixture of guided and undirected creative play, children in my care will have the opportunity to learn about color, shapes, textures, numbers, letters, animals, seasons, feelings, senses, personal hygiene, manners, and creative concepts such as "pretend" play, art, music, drama, and dance. These may sound like lofty goals for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, but most children learn all of these things and more through creative educational play. I do not believe in pushing any child to learn at an accelerated rate, and will not make a child feel pressured to achieve developmental milestones. By providing the right kind of fun safe environment, I believe the children will learn at their own appropriate pace. I believe that children receive the best possible care when there are six (6) or fewer children under the age of 12 per adult. I will not care for more than one infant (under the age of 12 months) at a time. Children need to feel they are getting quality attention from the adults in their lives, and they also benefit from lots of one-on-one care. Therefore, for your children’s benefit and mine, I will attempt to keep the group as small as possible. From time to time, in order to accommodate the families I serve, it may be necessary to accept one or two extra children for a day or two, such as in the case of a public school closing due to weather conditions. On these days, I reserve the right to accept older children for temporary care at an additional fee. Be assured that I will never accept more children for care than I believe would be safe and in the best interest of all families I serve. I anticipate that this will be a rare event and not a routine situation. Occasionally, I will ask my mother to help watch the children in my home when I have doctors appointments and such. I will always attempt to let you know in advance when she will be assisting me. I also welcome all constructive criticism when it comes to the care of your children. My saying is that mommy & daddy always know best! Of course, you are always welcome to drop in at any time during business hours. I do have an open door policy to parents during regular care hours and encourage parents to drop in!
"Rights and Responsibilities For The Children"
As a childcare provider, one of my main goals is to assure that everyone in my care has a comfortable, safe, nurturing (in a word, "positive") environment.
Therefore...
I Have The Right:
to be happy and treated with kindness.
to be treated fairly.
to be safe.
to hear and be heard and have my opinions and desires considered.
to participate in all activities.
My Responsibilities Are:
to honor others and their feelings. This means I will not laugh at or ignore other children or the provider.
to treat others fairly. I will treat other people like I expect to be treated.
to keep others safe. This means that I will not hit, kick, push, pinch, bite, smack, swat, slap, shove, pull hair or clothing, or otherwise touch anyone's body without permission. I will not run or throw things indoors.
to listen when others are speaking and speak respectfully to others. This means that I will not call anyone names or make fun of them.
to participate in activities and encourage others to participate with me.
DISCIPLINE POLICY:
I do not believe in spanking, slapping, smacking, yelling or hitting of any kind. This type of discipline will not be used in my home, regardless of your practices in your own home. Instead, I prefer the following discipline methods to handle any dangerous or hurtful offenses:
For children under the age of about 18 months, I find it most effective to remove the child from the situation, and redirect their attention elsewhere. Although I will most likely explain to the child that the offending behavior was inappropriate, children of this age are rarely able to fully understand what they have done. Fortunately, at this age their attention span is also usually shorter than with older children, so simply showing them a different toy or activity usually does the job.
For children about age 2 and over, I will alert the child to the offense by firmly telling them NO, explaining why the behavior is unacceptable, and offering the child the choice to behave. If the child chooses not to behave appropriately, I will first explain to the child why their behavior is not acceptable, then I will place the child in a chair under isolated observation for a period of about 1 minute per year of age.
At the end of the time-out, I will ask the child if he or she understands why they had a time-out, ask if they understand why they shouldn’t do that behavior, then ask if they are ready to play nicely again. I will also encourage children to apologize to the other child/children involved, when developmentally appropriate. This method not only stops the offending behavior, but also teaches the child consequence, responsibility and empathy in a positive manner.
To a point, kids will be kids - but only as long as the emotional and physical safety of all the children in my care is protected. In the rare instance that I feel any child in my care has a serious discipline problem I will request a conference with the parent/guardian. If an understanding cannot be reached, I reserve the right to terminate our contract with as much notice as possible in order to guarantee the comfort and safety of the other children in my care.
Currently I will have 3 openings beginning August 1, 2003, please contact me further reguarding this at my e-mail address listed below.
I look forward to helping you guide your child through his or her first years in life.
Send E-Mail to: amysplayroom@aol.com
Copyright © 2003 Amy. All Rights Reserved