Why I Love Daycare

Posted on January 22, 2011 by susanputman

I know it is a sappy post. But it must be written. It is about Love. Surely if you have been around the Littles for long you must know it already. To work for the Littles well is to live in love.

You can’t help it for they never think to guard their affection as adults do. And it is to live in hope for they are ever hopeful, looking to the next accomplishment with a faith and trust that will not be denied. Napoleon Hill,Smoleon Hill! Anthony Robbins – go have breakfast. I challenge anyone, anyone at all to truly be among 4 or 5 Littles and not come away inspired to do anything, anything at all.

The wonderful lady who comes to my nursery to help each morning, came yesterday filled with worry and woe. She had been up all night. And she held it together for the Littles, smiled for them, read to them, watched them learn to walk and name their letters. She soon came across with some genuine laughter. And then after that, new perspective, then went into problem solving mode. As she taught she thought and though tired she was smiling. She had come up with several possibilities in answer to her need.

So it will be for you. Sure your daycare will pay the bills, yes you can make more than you are making now and stay home with your kids, but that is not the point. This is the most wonderful uplifting, positive job in the world. The greenest of green occupations, moms and grandmoms (like me) raising children. Simple. True. Beautiful.

Join me in this work. I will show you how. Discover how you can stay home with your kids and replace the money you are making at your job. Go here for a free report and Mp3 staywithbaby.com/free

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How to change the mood in your childcare

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Susan Putman

Sometimes in childcare moods can change quickly, usually as we begin new activities.

Each morning as we sit for circle we each get a book. This does two things: gives the Littles something to do while they wait for things to start and gives a physical reminder of what is about to begin.

As we sat down this morning, there were tears in Chloe’s eyes, a look of distress. Addison, our littlest one had taken her book as we sat down. For those of you who know the Littles well, there was also in this the hope of a piece of drama. The Littles were gunning for a chance to wrest the control of things away from the teacher.

Calmly I returned the book without making eye contact or giving recognition to a rough beginning (or let the Littles wrest control away). Then I put forth a challenging piece of learning.

When you move smoothly to the new piece at hand and ignore those things the Littles do to change to focus of the day, you say, “I’m up to the challenge of being your teacher. Here we will stay on track.” As well as show by your actions (without judgment or words) that you know they are smart learners.

Remember:
Stay on track.
Add an additional challenge.
Make no mention (even with your eyes) of a mistake

If you love the Littles as much as I do and want to stay home and create a school like this for your little one, see: staywithbaby.com/free

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Simple Christmas

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Susan Putman
touchable nativity, handmade foam tree, yummy granola

Simple Christmas for the Littles

The Littles love to tell stories. And Christmas is a story with props. Our resin touchable nativity allows the little folks to move figures about and tell the story themselves with some quite amazing results – a definate upleveling of kindness in an already kind nursery. The Littles seem to feel that if the animals are willing to hang out there’s something special going on.

And of course the whole gift thing is good. We make ornaments and decorations like the foam tree above its easy peesy gluing is always a hit. Paper ornaments from carefully colored paper, cut out, duplicated, and glued together to make double sided, look fine on our Christmas trees.

But the favorite gift both to give and to get is our homemade granola. The measuring doesn’t need to be exact. Thank goodness because there’s a lot of tasting going on. The littlest ones and stir and mix to their hearts delight and baking removes any of the microbes introduced by the tasting. The older Littles, our “big kids”, mix the honey and oil and water together and then pour it into the mix. Then we all ladel and pat it onto sided cookie sheets to bake. Everyone loves it! Neighbors look for it each year, families are glad to receive a nice quick healthy breakfast or snack and the Littles are proud they made something real and yummy.

It’s the realness of it that has value for the Littles. Making a true contribution after needing so much nurturing and care has real value for the little guys, like carrying in the bread when mom brings in the groceries, it’s a piece of doing your share. Having something real to give is such a source of pride for them. They wholly own this creation.

Easy to make awesome to share our "famous" holiday granola

Our Simple Gifts

HAPPY CHRISTMAS GRANOLA
Home made with love
ORGANIC OATS, COCONUT, CASHEWS, ALMONDS, PECANS, SUNFLOWER SEED,
SESAME SEED, WHEAT GERM, GOLDEN RAISINS, CHERRIES, THOMPSONS RAISINS,
SOY PROTEIN POWDER, NON-FAT MILK, HONEY, CANOLA OIL, VANILLA, SEA SALT

Christmas Granola, can be modified, leaving out the milk or any other ingredient that may cause harm, truly only the oats, honey, oil, and water are necessary but the rest make it oh so yummy. I print off tags like the above to attach to colorful gift bags or zip locks. The Littles like the filling of bags part too, “No tasting until after”.
Generally the porportions are 4c. oats and 3/4 to 1c everything else, any snipped dried fruit is a winner here, we just like the redness and taste of the dried cherries. Oven is at 300 and we cook stirring every 15 minutes or so, for 35 to forty minutes.

If you think you’re a fit for our mission to have all Littles raised in loving homes with great friends, see our how to run a professional daycare book at staywithbaby.com/book

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Christmas craft

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Susan Putman

kid's crafts

A favorite holiday craft here in the nursery is making Christmas decorations.
The Littles love to mix, roll, cut, color, and paint.
One of the most popular with both the kids and their moms and dads is baker’s clay ornaments. The dough will be stiff as it is only flour salt and water. Sprinkle a little flour out on the kid’s table and help them roll out 1/4 of it at a time. (You might have to do most of the rolling as it is really stiff.) Then let the Littles choose a cookie cutter and push hard all the way through the dough. Before you lift the cutter off, use a straw to make a hole for a loop of ribbon.

You will want to bake them at 350 for 11 to 12 minutes. Turn the oven off and them let them sit in the cooling oven to harden for about 15 minutes.

Then in one short 10 minutes craft time let each Little choose and ornament to paint (here we used washable tempera). Next day or after nap the ornaments will be dry. Then the kids, with your help can use glitter pens to add sparkle. After they dry overnight, add a string or curling ribbon loop and your ornament is complete to take home trim your school tree or give as a gift.

dough ornaments

DOUGH ORNAMENTS OR BAKER’S CLAY
 
4 c. flour
1 c. salt
1 1/2 c. water
Cookie cutters
Drinking Straw
Yarn
Water colors or tempera paint
Glitter pens

If you would love to play with the Littles too, we have a book to tell just how to do it. See www.staywithbaby.com/book

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Train Tables

Posted on December 1, 2011 by susanputman

 

With Christmas specials around and your usual love of the Littles, you might be tempted to buy or better make a train table for your nursery.

I’ve been thoroughly grateful for the makers of Brio trains and all the various copies by other toy manufacturers. Along with duplo blocks they have been a beloved mainstay of the children for over 25 years. What I have found by both using premade train tables and by have a large storage box of the tracks and trains for the children to create their own train play area is that there are advantages to both ways of playing with wooden trains.

Train tables are nice if you have children under three who may not have the patience or co ordination to lay out their own tracks. The rectangular ones accommodate one or at the most two children well. More children than that, often leads to disagreements as to which way the trains should be pushed around. Home made circular train tables with a 46” – 48” diameter accommodate 3 or 4 children in harmony. Even if the childrens ages or interests vary.

What I use now though, is a large plastic box filled with assorted trains and tracks from many sets collected over the years. And we do have four Thomases because he is a favorite. All the Littles have great fun and there are enough older children in my nursery to build tracks all over. Best of all the trains can be picked up quickly and put away leaving the space free for other wonderful activities.

So if you’re on the fence about buying a train table, if you have a twoish child, it might be fun, but if you have a group of mixed age children as I do, use the table money to buy lots of tracks and trains. I mean lots! Then continually add to it as you do your duplo pile. That way you will always have an activity that pleases and gives you a little space of time in which to get your own projects done.

If you find yourself loving the Littles, consider staying home to raise your child among chosen friends in a way that will create love, fun and a great future for all. Take a look at my professional daycare book. It is a step by step guide to making more than you are making now staying at home teaching in a new heart centered way that creates great futures for all. staywithbaby.com/book

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When “No” is the right thing to say

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Susan Putman

<a href="http://www.linkedtube.com/_0jzqhdhSuY441a2d91f486080742f7ee9ab6ed5ee5.htm">LinkedTube</a>
How to say no

Sometimes as we direct the Littles learning we wonder when it is OK to tell a child they aren’t doing well. A recent blog post at momversation.com, http://goo.gl/7JDOo got me thinking about when I say no to the Littles. The big N word is received well when you are teaching something. Here at sharing time you’ll see me seamlessly use it while talking about numbers. I’m really talking about being precise when you talk, informing that words/numbers mean something.

Information is what the Littles crave so whenever you’re a loose ends with them, a short piece of information is what to put out. You’ll notice how short it is in the video. This piece of time is geared for a four year old, too long for a three year old, and would be shorter and shorter with the age of the child until as a baby is picking up language you get to point and give one word noun names.

If you are wanting to control behavior with “no” you are working without the child’s consent and yet in his own best interests. So you’ve got to be careful not to desensitize the child to the word. I probably use the word softly 1/50th of the times I move baby back into our baby room. Then when she is ready for it, I’ll softly croon “no” and give her the option to move back out of the bigger kids space on her own. Then move her quietly back if she doesn’t listen.
This is an important teaching. “No” (and whether you mean it or not) is best learned at 6 – 9 months when baby is crawling. Of course in a real danger you don’t the Littles to catch your fear so a quiet “no” that will be obeyed instantly and peacefully is vital. If you have an older toddler on your hands silently moving the child into a better physical place with an occasional “no” works to teach this. Mostly with older Littles they get the vibe from the others that is is useless to cross that important line.

If you want raving fans of parents ready to recommend your nursery: keep it short, keep it true and real, use no when we’re learning concrete things and always smile. The kids will be happy and who doesn’t love to show off how much their child has learned.

If you want to stay home, earn a good living, and this work deeply calls, you see staywithbaby.com/book and I’ll guide you. Let’s work at better learning for the Littles together.

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Helping the Littles

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Susan Putman


Vincent

Providing daycare allows you to do a lasting good turn, make a life-changing difference. Such was the case with Vincent. I don’t remember where the first call came from. I think it was from Bunny, a local kids psychologist and a friend, asking if I had room for a kid who needed help.
His mom was a sixth grade teacher, there had been an ugly divorce, and the mom said Vincent had been kicked out of three other pre-schools. “What for?” I asked.
“He kicked other kids,” she hung her head. “I guess it’s been hard on him.”
I looked over and saw the eyes of an angel. A beautiful child, tall blonde, blue eyed, a Michelangelo child. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “We’ll try it for two weeks. I can’t let my other children get hurt.”

Vincent did try to kick the other kids. Each time I was looking away, and with a big smile he would lash out with his legs. I followed my usual policy of rushing to the victim and scooping them out of harm’s way.
“Vincy, why are you trying to hurt your buddies?” I asked one day.
“Because I am a bad guy. My other teacher said I was the devil,” still the lovely smile. The light dawned; it had been pretty clear Vincent had been using his friends for toys but now we knew why.
“No more super heroes,” I declared. Put your super heroes in your box. They can’t come to school any more. (In my nursery it is always the toy’s fault never the child’s.)

When his mom came to pick him up, I told her that he had a harder time being nice to his friends when his super hero dolls came to school. I said they couldn’t come anymore. I banned all super hero play for a while. The kicking went away and the head hanging kid who looked sour in every picture began to shine and make friends. Vincent went on to do well in school and became a solid playmate.

Sometimes you need to make crazy rules. It’s OK. With the Littles it is whatever works. That is of course why I love this calling so much. Working with the Littles is soul work; my path meets your path, ordained that we walk together for awhile.

If you are called to make a difference, not only in your life but in the lives of children in daycare, please read my book at: www. staywithbaby.com/book

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The Littles Love Drama

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Susan Putman

Early Learning is the hallmark of being a young human. In truth it is when we stop being a sponge for facts, new ways of thought and new things to do, that we begin to decline. The exuberant exploration of all things and people around them is what we love about the Littles so much. It reconnects us with our true nature and joy.

Of course we are always modeling by default. But bored kids are naughty kids, so teaching something new, interesting and true is the way to go.

It is more than distracting the little one. Teaching real pieces of knowledge is to truly feed the deep need all kids have, no matter how small, to KNOW how the world works.
If you really want to teach a thing, it is good to remember how much the Littles love drama. Make a story out of any piece of information you are giving. “T-Rex loved meat that’s why he had such sharp, big-as-you-are-tall teeth. So he could eat the leaf eaters like apatasaurus.”

Of course if you want more of a negative behavior, you can place drama there. I watched a beautiful mom in my nursery teach her baby girl to hit her more and more often. By first allowing the hit she could see coming. (Goodness lady, catch the hand, move the baby, lean away, something..) Then by cooing and crooning, “No, no, little missy . . .” carrying on and shaking her head for five minutes, the mom insured that the next bored moment her lovely 17-month-old would hit her again.

Ignore what you want to leave your school and place drama on those things you wish to see again.

For peace and harmony in your nursery, teach. In short – no more than 10 minutes – pieces throughout the day. The happiness meter will soar and you’ll reach the end of the day proud.
Of course in order to have maximum drama or boundless creativity, there must be a moments of quiet too.

Caring for the Littles is a sacred trust, always lead with Love.

Laughter is good, too.

Susan Putman has taught babies and young children in her home school for over 25 years. As an anthropologist she understands them, as a mother she nurtures them, as your friend she can lead you to a fulfilling career with the Littles.

Loving this work? See www.staywithbaby.com

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Littles love Ballet

Posted on May 25, 2011 by susanputman

I was given Midsummer Nights Dream by the Northwest Ballet company for my birthday. I couldn’t wait to see it, so though I don’t often use video in the nursery, I put it on. The Littles loved it! And began dancing almost immediately. Though exploring and awkward at first, by the end of the week the movement of their bodies was quite amazing.

I’m often reminded of how much we are being modeled and watched, but the degree of that this works, the total emulation of the dance by such little bodies (some newly walking) struck me as a wonderful example of how little we have to say.

There is a temptation to talk the child through things when what really works is to just do the thing in front of the child and be patient.
Silence is often the best teacher here. Quiet positive expectation leaves a child room to explore the task in his own way at his own pace.
Here they are 5 days later:

If you think you would love to do this wonderful rewarding work with kids and make a living too, investigate my professional daycare book at staywithbaby.com/book

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Harmony in childcare

Posted on May 24, 2011 by susanputman

On a recent visit a friend said, “I love to come to your daycare. There’s always such a pleasant hum about it. ” I was pleased and I knew it was how we begin the day, each day that sets the tone for how harmonious the nursery will be.

“Believe me, he continued, “I go to nursery schools a couple of times a week, it’s noisy and frantic like fingernails across a chalkboard. This is a happy place.”

Not only happy and creative but nearly every child goes to kindergarten reading and knowing basic math operations, lots of other things too. Most of all I know I have a much easier day than most moms of one or two and I have six kids five and under.

What keeps it that way is the way we start the day. Though I kindly greet each child and take mom’s instructions for the day, I’m quiet and busy with the daily prep. I’ll smile and praise any child who’s involved in quiet play, but mostly I’m busy.

This allows each child to follow their heart and open the day in a quiet way. Some days the kids choose to read. Some days they build. Children understand that there will be room for all the things they will want to do during the day because we have a consistent routine.

We’ll eat. Have circle, learn and share and then we’ll stretch move and dance. Everything in my time at a child’s pace. These firm boundaries that are unchanging allows a gentle relaxation into our day. I have to tell those of you who are thinking about a day nursery in your home, it is easy to teach and learn in a harmonious loving place. It all begins when the Littles start the day well.

There is always room at the top. Cream rises and YOU can create a difference in the Littles lives. I can show you how to make a living and stay home at staywithbaby.com

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Resilient children

Posted on May 12, 2011 by susanputman

 

Sometimes it is hard to be firm about the boundaries we draw for the little ones. In our mind we waver and wonder if it is really so important after all. We dislike beginning the day with a “no” or “our rules are”. It seems somehow to disturb the sunshine and the flow of our morning.

This weekend I was lead by a great Tao master to a tree over looking Oak Creek in Sedona. Its roots raised in a gnarled and twisted net five feet above us as we stood in the cooling water. Embedded in the roots were river stones. The first I noticed were the size of a fist. Then I saw others, more and more of them held fast in thick root fingers. Some larger, some smaller: red, crystalline, white, dark and finally looking at the back of the tree as she leaned out over the creek to reach the sun, large slabs of red rock the size of a thick table. The roots had reached around and under them too, gaining purchase far back into the river bank, holding that strong and beautiful tree to the earth when the creek ran high and rapid.

So too we want our children to be able to withstand the obstacles that will come their way. To have the commonsense to look before crossing a street, to be able to withstand the onslaught of a bully or derision, to be resourceful in the face of overwhelming odds, to be creative when lonely or bored, to know who they are in world of propaganda and great salesmanship..

That kind of strength, that net of roots around the stones of life can only be built by providing the boundaries your baby needs and sticking to them allowing his roots to grow strong and creative, deep into a sound character that will provide right living when you are no longer there.

The ability to accept what we cannot change, is a greater gift to your child than any small inconvenience of repeating a house rule again. The resilience to still find a way to be happy when thwarted is a life long habit and gift only you can give. Children know when you set firm sensible boundaries that they are loved in a way that nurtures their strength. So do set rules and hold them. It is the highest form of love, that the Littles might grow strong character and a network of roots in the riverbank of life.

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