Evgeniya Usmanova

In today’s post, we’ll discuss child care during coronavirus (COVID-19).

Undoubtedly, many parents (and child care providers) are worried about the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak right now. At CareLuLu, we work with thousands of families to help them find great daycare and preschool programs, and we’re getting tons of questions.

So, we thought we’d prepare a guide to daycare during coronavirus.

This guide includes tips on how to find child care during closures (no, not all daycares are closed!) Also, we’ll provide answers to questions many parents are asking themselves.

Before we go any further:

For parents who are essential workers and need to find care and can’t read the full post, click here to find emergency child care near you.

This guide is mostly designed for parents, but if you’re a child care business owner, preschool director or teacher, we also wrote a guide for you. Read it here: Coronavirus In Daycare: What Should Child Care Providers Do?

Now:

As a parent of an infant, toddler or preschooler, there’s a lot on your mind right now. Maybe you’re struggling to find child care while many facilities are closed because of coronavirus. Or, maybe you’re wondering if it’s safe to send your baby to daycare during COVID-19.

Here are the questions we’ll answer in this post:

I recently organized a child care seminar for parents and parents-to-be. The goal was to have an open discussion so that parents could bring all of their child care related questions, worries, hopes, and fears to the table. During the seminar, I realized the differences between child care centers and family child care (also referred to as home-based daycare) were unclear for a lot of families. I was also asked which environment was the best, child care center vs home daycare. My answer was simple: no option is intrinsically better than the other.

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This Christmas, I decided to come up with a list of objects that we as adults consider ordinary, but which will arouse children’s curiosity. Most importantly for us as parents, they will keep kids busy! 😉  Here’s my new list of household-items-turned-toys that will make great stocking stuffers for kids. Also, they will definitely not break your wallet!

Of all the privileges that come with being a woman, the greatest of them is to be a mother.  There are no existing words to describe the bond between a mother and her child.  Mother’s Day comes only once every 365 days (on the second Sunday of May in the United States), and every mother deserves to feel special and appreciated.

To many people, Mother’s Day equals dollar signs, but buying expensive things isn’t the only way to show Mom you love her.  Mothers want something that will stay alive long after the day has passed.  So Dad, if you are struggling to come up with what the kids (and you!) can do for Mom this year, here are some gift ideas that will last a lifetime, both in her heart and memory:

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In honor of the Week of the Young Child, we are thrilled to announce our partnership with the DC Public Library in support of the Sing, Talk, and Read early literacy campaign!

It’s never too early to give your child a smart start. The Sing, Talk & Read DC initiative, led by the DC Public Library, shows parents how to make singing, talking and reading to their very young children a part of their day, every day.

By using surprisingly simple daily practices, you can put your child on the path to success! Learn how singing, talking and reading with your little one now, will help them later in school.

You can watch us discuss the campaign on Let’s Talk Live (NewsChannel8) and offer examples of how you can turn your everyday routine into a fun learning opportunity.

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T ypically, preschools describe themselves as either “play-based” (also known as child-centered and developmentally appropriate) or “academic” (also known as teacher-directed and traditional). Most early education philosophies fall into one of these two categories. What’s the difference and which one’s better?

Child-Centered / Play-based / Developmentally Appropriate

The most common teaching philosophy is child-centered and based on play, whereby children do activities of their choosing. In a fairly unstructured program, children learn at their own pace. They can select from several activities and can play alone or in small groups. The whole group often comes together for songs, stories, or other “circle time” activities. Doing activities based on children’s interests develops their love for school, builds creativity, and increases motivation to try new things. Play-based programs have a lot of unstructured hands-on play, group story-time, and themed activities. This approach typically helps children develop their social skills including communication, sharing, empathy, and listening. I’ve discussed examples of specific child-centered philosophies in my earlier post here.

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Did you know that more than half of obese children become overweight by the time they’re 2? Did you also know that roughly one in five children is overweight by their 6^th birthday? Given such high statistics, whether you’re a parent or a teacher, it’s critical to support physical fitness for preschool children and instill healthy lifestyle habits early on so that children may continue these habits as they grow.

Today is the National Preschool Fitness Day and in light of this, I’d like to take the opportunity to highlight a few child care centers that offer great fitness programs.

Kiddie Academy of Gainesville is a child care center where Health and Nutrition are part of the curriculum and where children spend two hours outside daily. The center has an indoor gym and a soccer enrichment program.

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Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio Emilia, High-Scope, Bank Street… what in the world do these names all mean!? Most likely you’ve never come across such terms, unless of course… you started looking for a preschool! If all these early education approaches got your head spinning, this “Preschool Teaching Philosophies” blog series is for you!

In this first post, we’ll give an overview of five common preschool philosophies. Later in the series, we’ll have a specific post on each one and provide more details to help you understand the differences and decide on a program that works best for you and your child.

Teaching philosophies explain how a school approaches learning, which in turn might shed light on whether your preschooler will do well with that particular learning method or in that particular environment. So what preschool learning approaches are there?

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How many times did you achieve all the goals on your New Year’s resolutions list? Yeah, I know, tough question. 2014 has finally arrived and it’s that time when many of us get started on our nice fresh list of New Year’s resolutions! Every year, I too make a list for myself and my family of all the things I’d like to accomplish the upcoming year. Rarely, however, do we actually look back on the year that passed to see how many of the previous year’s resolutions were actually achieved. Most people actively try their best to reach their newly set goals in the first couple of months, but enthusiasm soon fades and the New Year’s resolutions become forgotten or abandoned.

To avoid burning out or simply forgetting about my goals, here’s what I will do this year to keep myself and my family on track:

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W

e recently wrote a post about questions you should ask your daycare to decrease your child’s chance of catching a bug this season. We got a lot of positive feedback from parents so we decided to come up with a list of things you can do at home to protect yourself and your family. After all, kids don’t just get sick at daycare, they can also catch a bug at home! Also, the 5 steps listed below not only apply to your children, but to parents as well, so make sure you implement these too 🙂

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