A child day care provider cares for children in the daytime while their parents are at work. He or she may own or just work in a licensed daycare center. Family day care providers are often unlicensed and look after one or two children in their home along with their own kids. A child day care provider must supervise children as well as provide snacks and activities.
In the mornings after the child arrives in the day care, the provider may allow the children to play freely. Before lunch, most child day care providers will include structured activities, such as an art project or reading a book together. Sometimes, a child care provider will take the children to a museum or to a sports activity, such as swimming or ice skating. Good providers are focused on healthy learning activities that are fun for children. Letting kids watch a lot of television is often not appreciated by parents who are paying professional day care providers to look after their children.
A child day care provider must be sure that the children have a healthy lunch as well as snacks. Day care providers caring for an older child are usually responsible for bringing him or her to school in the morning and back to the daycare in the afternoon. Large child day care centers that look after children of many different ages must have workers that stay with the younger children while another provider takes the older kids to and from school.
Day care providers must provide supervision for children at all times. Most child day cares have fenced outdoor play areas. A child day care provider in a licensed daycare is expected to go outside with the children when they are playing outdoors. Day care providers may take the children for walks to neighborhood parks and supervise their play there. Most child day care situations involve children of different ages, so providers must ensure that all of the kids are playing together safely.
Playing sports or games, creating craft projects, and singing songs are some activities that child day care providers do with children. These organized activities should be age appropriate, as well as fun and safe for the children. A family child care provider may not do as many organized activities with the children, although some of these home-based providers do read storybooks, bake, and do craft projects with the kids.
