Most of us have limited space to dedicate to our daycare. Most of the time our living room is a daycare during the day and a living room at night. How does one deal with this? Here's what I do:
Our living room is our daycare main play and sleeping space. We have gated off all other areas (gates are very important here--they set boundries for the children, give them freedom and me piece of mind). On one hand I want it to look like a normal living room when I am not working, but on the other hand, we need space for toys, centers, play pens, and other equipment.
I would like to challenge and encourage you to take a good look at your daycare/living space and think about if there's any way you can arrange it to suit your needs better? Move some furniture and stretch your imagination. Try different layouts. Think about the children during the day and ways to "hide" daycare equipment in the evenings. For now, just think. . .
With the limited space you can dedicate to daycare (one wall, a corner, dining room or ?) make the most of it by rotating toys and equiptment. My best example of this is Plan B Curriculum. You can store most of your daycare toys and equiptment in the garage or storage shed or closets and bring them out a couple at a time. This makes things fresh and easy clean up throughout the day.
Now for some visual ideas....Check out my photos on Pamm's House Set Up.
