As a daycare provider, it is important to have a long list of activities that your children enjoy, as well as plenty of daycare supplies, such as art supplies, toys and games. Active play is essential to brain development, so bring out the active in your daycare activities as much as possible!

Dancing

Move the daycare furniture aside and encourage your children to move freely around the room with colorful scarves or fabric used for dress-up time. Spinning around in circles, jumping, and moving all relieve stress, promote brain development, well being, and believe it or not, restore a sense of calm in young children.

Sing Along Time

Teaching nursery rhyme songs, seasonal songs and other simple songs to your children is always a big hit. Most young children love to express themselves with their voices, and sing along time provides them with an appropriate way to do so.

Look for songs that teach simple life lessons about sharing, manners, cleaning up and healthy eating. Your children will enjoy singing the songs, as well as retain the lesson.

Circle Time Rhythms

Circle time is also a perfect place for practicing rhythms and getting out the sillies. Have the children sit or stand and teach them simple rhythms that incorporate clapping and stomping combinations. Once they learn the rhythm, speed up the tempo until everyone is rolling on the floor laughing and exhausted.

Shaving Cream Art

You may not typically think of shaving cream as a childcare supply, but when working with children who are beyond putting everything in their mouths, shaving cream makes a wonderful art medium. Spray some out on a table top and encourage the children to draw pictures, letters and numbers in the shaving cream. It will delight the children with its cool, soft, and squishy nature.

Puppet Shows

Capture the attention of your daycare children by turning story time into a puppet show. Simple puppets can be made from old socks, miscellaneous fabric pieces and imagination. And, most young children will enjoy hearing familiar stories told by a puppet!

Face Painting

This activity has nothing to do with actual paint, but is a soothing activity when little ones are grumpy. Invite the children to come to you one at a time to have their faces painted. Then, gently draw all over their faces with the tip of your finger. Most children will feel soothed by this little bit of touch, although some will be tickled by it.

Shape Sorting

Very young children love games and toys that involve shape sorting. Provide children with plenty of shapes in the form of wooden or plastic blocks and containers to put them in. You can also have them sort objects by color and shape for a little variation or to make it a little more interesting. This helps children learn the names of shapes and colors.

Tall Towers

Plastic food containers collected over a period of time are great for stacking. Children can build towers taller than themselves, but will mostly enjoy knocking the towers down. The advantage is that the containers are very lightweight and won't hurt if they fall on a child. They are also easy to clean up by having the children stack them together again.

Play Dough

Play dough is a classic child's activity and an essential part of the daycare supply closet. Moving hands are essential to child development, and play dough is fun, creative, and builds hand and finger muscles.

Indoor Parade

The indoor parade incorporates music, dance and dress-up. Have the children pick their outfits from the dress-up closet, then chose several songs that everyone knows and march around the room singing, dancing, stomping and clapping. It uses up excess energy and generally puts a smile on everyone's face.

This list of delightful daycare activities can be implemented easily with a few simple daycare supplies.

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