McNair Family Child Care Home

Welcome to our home greets you at the door. There will be pictures of funny smiling faces on the wall and set up all around the foyer. The children that attend can see themselves in a cubbie with their name on it. Around the room, there are other photos, posters and art drawing of the children and their families. This helps to make the child and their parents feel safe as they come in the door.

There are different areas of play that is set up for the children to allow space for developmentally appropriate experiences.

Dramatic play- wigs, shirts, shorts, pants, community helpers uniforms, dresses and costumes of other cultures. Shoes, belts, hats, that encourage language and social interaction.

Housekeeping – pans, pots, plates, spoons, forks, stove, play refrigerator,  pizza box, food boxes, cups, plastic food from different cultures, tacos, chicken, meatloaf, hotdogs, hamburgers, fish, and beans. This encourages again social interaction and language. Diversity in gender role-playing. Child acts out home life to peers.

Art – Skin tone paper to be included with all the other color paper. A few mirrors to see their own reflection.  Many pencils, paint, paper, and markers to be as creative as one can be. A diverse of color materials; beads, buttons, feathers, strings, cotton, fabric, paper and glue for collages, paintings and other art projects. D

Judith k. Lepuschitz and  Adriana Castillo discuss students, who are now almost finished with their studies, and they'll become early childhood professionals. What piece of advice you can give them, something that they can take with them? Something that you think is really great about working with children.

Adriana Castillo states: " I recommend this to anyone who really wants to work with children. Keep going, and never do this by themselves. Because always we have good people around us, and the resources that we can receive. Because I didn't have to do this just by myself. I really found great people to instill for me”.  

This statement reminds me of the reason why I am such a strong adovate for children. My co-workers and I were taking classes together at the community college in for our degrees in Early Childhood Education. We all worked together as a team, bring much resources back to the development center to share with the other staff. It gave me the want to go further and then come back and give to those who started off just like me.

Sandra

References

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

Laureate Education, Inc., (2011) “Welcome to an Anti-Bias Learning Community” (Transcripts) Strategies for Working with Diverse Children-Baltimore, MD; (Adriana Castillo, Judith k. Lepuschitz )