Working from home as a Day Care Mom

Why I became a Day Care Mom

By guest writer Nia Sowden author of Survival Wytch and Cooking with Nia

It just seemed to be a natural progression for me to have become a day care mum. I have so many resources to draw upon from my own children and so much to offer other children whose mommy has to work.

I have five children of my own, and as my family grew they would bring their little friend’s home so I would have ten children at any one time. Playing their games, pulling out the dress up box and dressing up, using the internet, home work, researching, cooking, watching movies and creating toys and games… the house was always so busy.

I became a Day Care Mum to offer an edu-care environment and a loving supportive home. I have school aged children before and after school and pre schoolers, during the day.

What my program consists of

My service is a multicultural one, and as I have children from other countries it means that we all learn about how they spend their day, what they eat and their celebrations and songs.

We learn as much as we can about other people so that we can be accepting of others and we understand ourselves better.

Using community resources for learning

We visit the library 3 times a week, in the mornings and once after school so the big kids can change their books, while we are there we do research and read with the little kids, we are one big happy family!

Whenever a performance visits town we visit as a group. An orchestra came to play for tiny tots and so I took my charges to learn about the sounds an orchestra can make.
We visit the Circus, in Redcliffe where we live; three circuses visit our town each year. We are really lucky as with each visit the children recognize and notice more.

Whenever we go to visit new and exiting places or performances I have activities to support the learning. A visit to the circus, for instance, is extended by a clown day or red day or circus day and we have striped play dough, make a picture of a circus with cut outs from magazines, perform a circus, make pop corn, learn to juggle, wear red noses and make clown pizzas! Endless fun!

We have Beach day, where we all go beach combing, and sandcastle making and paddling in the water. The kids love watching kites and wind surfers and looking down from the jetty at the fishes darting around in the water.

There are a great variety of public spaces for interesting rides and experiences for pre- schoolers and challenging activities for the school aged children as well.

I have pet day when we visit the pet shop and learn about the sounds animals make and what they eat. Then we do animal crafts back at my place, painting outlines of animals, eating animal pasta for lunch or making doggie bones for the guide dogs for our cooking exercise.

The Garden is so full of wonder watching our sunflowers grow - whose will be the tallest?

 Our salad garden is packed with exiting shapes and colors, and the potatoes carrots and sweet potatoes are enormous! We sit in the garden and watch the caterpillars wriggling and butterflies fluttering, listen to the bees buzzing, while watching the flower heads nodding in the breeze and enjoying the sweet pea aromas filling the garden, let’s pick flowers and tomatoes and make a salad.

Being Green

Lots of recycling happens in my home. My extended family bring along yoghurt pots for telephones with string attached, and strawberry punnets for planting things in, and magazines and paper for collage, cardboard tubes make excellent handles for streamers and for paper Mache’ puppets, for tunnels for a toy car, and lots of other types of construction.

What will I be when I grow up?

My big kids (the school aged kids) complained one day about having to do homework before play. So after much discussion about why we need to get good grades, I decided to introduce the kids to the world of work. I asked what types of jobs the children might like to do when they grow up and sought permission from the mums and dads.

I rang around some local businesses explained who I am and what I do and that I would like to show my school aged kids the world of work. I received such a great response.

Our town captains of industry support creative learning and great kids

We ventured out at 7 am to visit a workplace each day, arriving at the same time as the workers were arriving. The manager would introduce us to the staff and explain what they manufactured or assembled or printed or packaged. This is when we put on safety gear and received our safety instructions.

It was a rewarding and valuable experience for the kids; this is something that most mums and dads don’t get a chance to do with their children. So I was honored to be able to show case work places to my kids.

Together we learnt about printing the local newspaper, baking bread, printing cards and flyers, assembling staircases, fish farming, spray painting, fishing on the trawlers, being a plumber, riding on a forklift in a timber yard, being a pet shop attendant, community services like meals on wheels were wonderful and the guide dog training center, and we even saw the local radio station working and were part of the morning program!

Investigating breakfast at McDonalds…mmm, where we had a free breakfast and made a hamburger each and a played in the play ground before I dropped them off at school. Each day a new business opened its doors to my charges to give them an insight into how some product is made, or service provided.

And as I dropped off my 5 school aged children, I would pick up a tiny tot from their home, and begin the day for pre- school fun.

I make sure I am busy and I make sure the little brains and bodies in my care are busy, fueling their curiosity and creativity.

Always on the go. From 5 am till 6pm sometimes later. Sometimes overnight, and weekends too.

There are lots of faces to wash, lots of hands to keep clean, and lots of smiles in my life as a day care mum.