Describe Your Set-Up...

[LeslieG]

How is your daycare play-space set up? Is it multiple rooms or one big room? If it's multiple rooms, are the rooms next to each other, farther apart and/or on different levels of the house? What's the total square footage?

What do you do for an outdoor play space? Do you have a fenced backyard or are you right near a park?

My husband and I are looking into moving and we just looked at a town home that is really nice.. but I'm just not sure about doing daycare there. The basement is finished but doesn't have an egress window (big bummer). So I'd have to have the play space in the smaller sized living room on the main floor, as well as part of the kitchen, and a bedroom upstairs (if it's even legal to have play spaces on separate floors).

Ugh.. this is stressful!! Your feedback would be awesome!!

[Blackcat31]

I have an entire house. One central room (kitchen/dining room) and 2 bedrooms and a living room off that main room. Oh, I also have a bathroom .

I have not one single piece of adult sized furniture in the house. Everything is kid size. One room is set up for infants/toddlers only and the rest of the house is....well full of kid stuff.

I am on a corner lot (2 city lots) and have a fenced in yard with a large 14x14 sandbox, a swing set and lots of ride on toys and climbers. We also have a large extra wide curvy sidewalk.

I have a couple shade trees (a maple & an oak) in the front yard and a buckeye tree for climbing, some lilac trees in the side yard and the back yard is wide open, grassy and sunny.

We also just built a new deck on the front of the house. My DH put plexi-glass sides on it instead of your normal deck spindles because I am 3 blocks from the bus garage so I open the front door and let the littles outside so they can watch the busses through the glass. They LOVE it!

[craftymissbeth]

I have an entire house. One central room (kitchen/dining room) and 2 bedrooms and a living room off that main room. Oh, I also have a bathroom .

I have not one single piece of adult sized furniture in the house. Everything is kid size. One room is set up for infants/toddlers only and the rest of the house is....well full of kid stuff.

I am on a corner lot (2 city lots) and have a fenced in yard with a large 14x14 sandbox, a swing set and lots of ride on toys and climbers. We also have a large extra wide curvy sidewalk.

I have a couple shade trees (a maple & an oak) in the front yard and a buckeye tree for climbing, some lilac trees in the side yard and the back yard is wide open, grassy and sunny.

We also just built a new deck on the front of the house. My DH put plexi-glass sides on it instead of your normal deck spindles because I am 3 blocks from the bus garage so I open the front door and let the littles outside so they can watch the busses through the glass. They LOVE it!

This is brilliant!

We have a large wrap around porch and were considering gating it and making it overall kid safe so that we can sit outside and watch the cars (we live on the busiest street in town). This would be awesome.

[SilverSabre25]

Um, the first word that comes to mind for mine is "inefficient". ::

I literally can NOT invent a decent, serviceable lay out for my home.

[craftymissbeth]

I have a separate daycare playroom that used to be our living room. We use the connecting dining room to eat and art/projects and then obviously the kitchen is for cooking. I don't allow any of the DCKs in the kitchen for safety reasons, although maybe when they're older I will have them help me prep. But right now they're both only 1 .

From the kitchen I can see straight through the dining room into the daycare room... but I can't see all of the daycare room. They both usually stand at the gate in the daycare room and watch me, though.

I included the picture of my layout that I use for my fire/tornado/severe storm plans for licensing. Hope it helps!

[preschoolteacher]

We live in a story-and-a-half that is 2,100 square feet. My husband and my bedroom is upstairs, and so is my son's bedroom. The main level is where all the daycare activity will happen. The basement has no egress window so it's off-limits to the daycare kids, but we have it turned into a big, open family room with a sectional, TV, and small play area for just my son's toys.

When you walk in on the main level, you come into the "formal" living room which is not formal (!) but has a couch, chairs, coffee table, entry table. It's not big.

Keep going and you come into the eat-in kitchen. Just enough room for a 4-person table up against the wall. The galley style kitchen is to the left. Tiny, but efficient! To the right is a little hall that leads to a bedroom, bathroom in the middle, and another bedroom. Bedroom #1 is our office. Bedroom #2 is the guest room and nap room.

Past the eat-in kitchen is a big, four-season sun room. It's heated and has A/C and has almost floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides. Carpeted, too. This is going to be the main daycare area. It is as big as the formal living room, eat-in kitchen, and kitchen all put together. In here, the one wall without windows is lined with bookcases for storage. There are a few low storage shelves around the perimeter of the room. There is a kid's sized table, large rug for circle time, a small loveseat, and all the toys you might imagine... focusing on natural wooden toys, wicker baskets, natural items, etc. It looks out into the backyard, so from all three sides of the room, you can see the play area.

It will work for us! I would LOVE to get a house just for the daycare some day. BC's set-up sounds awesome.

[MarinaVanessa]

My daycare is in my home where I live with my family. It's a two-story house but I now only use my floor level. My living room is our main play space which doubles as our nap room so I keep a pack n play and plastic bins of toys here. I also have a small table for 4 kids, the changing table and our bathroom is off of this room. The blocks, trains, mega blocks, games and manipulatives are all kept here. Pretty much any of the toys and games that need to be played with inside.

I also use my small outdoor area as an extension of my indoor space and this is where my dramatic play area, large table for 8 kids, writing area, art supplies, water table and sand box are all kept. Pretty much anything can can create a mess and my dramatic play stuff because there is more room outside for it than inside.

You just take what you gave and get creative with it .

[mamac]

I have almost a full basement for my dc. It is approximately 600sf of space in an "L" shape. The bump out part will eventually have a loft playhouse with an area for a swing, rope ladder and rings, and the rest of the space will be semi sectioned off for different "learning centers". There will be a sink and water resistant flooring for wet/messy activities in one area.

I will also be using my entire upstairs (minus the bedrooms) which has a designated nap room (10x10), living room (13x24), dining room (12x15) and kitchen (9x30).

Our back yard is fenced and is about a half acre. It currently has a large wooden playscape and lots of outdoor toys and playhouses. It will eventually have a large sandbox (proabably 10x10) and a splash pad. That won't be until next year when dh puts in the sprinkler system.

All toys will be downstairs and the upstairs will be used for some crafts, circle time, eating and napping. I wanted keep the majority of the daycare separate from my living space so I could walk away from it at the end of the day.

If all goes well these first few years, dh and I will buy a separate dc home and turn it into more of a family style center which would allow us to have more clients. Maybe...

[MsLaura529]

I have the living room/dining room combo area area as my daycare space. Also included is the large foyer and the office on the other side of the foyer. It is all very open. The office area is just used for art supply storage and infant napping room (I can fit 2 pack n plays very easily in there, with room to spare). I have a walk-thru style gate at both entries into the kitchen, so that the kids cannot get into that area, and I can see them easily when I am preparing meals. Oh yeah, and there's a bathroom next to the office.

Our outside space(s) right now are on our deck (I have it set up with a couple little tykes slides, a sandbox, and shopping carts and lawnmowers), and our front yard (top of the driveway is a large paved area and they can use the sidewalk and most of the front lawn). We live on a cul-de-sac with 4 houses, so our road is very quiet and low traffic. In our backyard, we have a "wetlands" area, so we are waiting on enough money to get that fenced off appropriately (per licensing, ugh!). Once we have the fence done and mulch put under our play structure (another lovely licensing requirement), then we will move our outdoor play space into the backyard, where there is A LOT of room to run (we live on 1/2 acre) and play games, a swing set to play and climb on, and I will move all of our deck toys down there and add a water table.

[williams2008]

I have a entire house as well. It has 2 bedrooms, Living room, separate dining room, kitchen and one bath. One room is set up for infants/toddlers and the other room is for preschoolers.

The living room is our inside play area when the weather doesn't allow us to go outside. We have a huge fenced in backyard.

[Unregistered]

my space

I am a member but logged out-

My space was built onto my home after doing daycare in my home.

When you come in, your in my main room. I am all open and have a bathroom. I remind myself of what a one room school house would be like back in the olden days. I like it, I can see everything. I sort space out with toy shelves and gates. I have an office space, a small kitchen and the bathroom is off my kitchen with a door. The only room within my room. My space is like a basement space that is upstairs instead of in the basement and has more windows. I am on a busy street and I have a huge fenced in play area along with my homes back yard area. I love the feeling of coming to work but also being a door away from my own home. Nap time can be tricky but I make it work. Stairs are not fun to go outside but again I make it work. We have an in-law apartment below us. I love my set up and we built it ourselves. The only thing I wish that I had was an entrance, waiting area-mud room type thing. When you open the door your in the daycare.

[EntropyControlSpecialist]

How is your daycare play-space set up? Is it multiple rooms or one big room? If it's multiple rooms, are the rooms next to each other, farther apart and/or on different levels of the house? What's the total square footage?

What do you do for an outdoor play space? Do you have a fenced backyard or are you right near a park?

My husband and I are looking into moving and we just looked at a town home that is really nice.. but I'm just not sure about doing daycare there. The basement is finished but doesn't have an egress window (big bummer). So I'd have to have the play space in the smaller sized living room on the main floor, as well as part of the kitchen, and a bedroom upstairs (if it's even legal to have play spaces on separate floors).

Ugh.. this is stressful!! Your feedback would be awesome!!

It is multiple rooms. My entryway goes in to daycare room 1, which leads to daycare room 2 (next to the kitchen), which leads to daycare room 3. There are no doors in between these rooms. The only doors in between rooms in my downstairs are the daycare bathroom (near the front) and the master bedroom (near the front).
I have the entryway gated off with a gate that opens as well as the kitchen.

I have a fenced backyard that is very small. When I say small I mean small (less than 13 feet across and perhaps 30 or so feet in length in the big part of it). But, that is how my community was built. Small backyards with wonderful public areas. It is used for water play and when it is just too hot or cold to walk to the park. My home is on a small greenbelt by a pond (4 doors down) which has 2 parks and a field in between them. We go there two times each day.

We PURPOSELY bought this house for daycare. It is 2800 sq. feet. The upstairs contains my porch (balcony), guest bedroom, unborn baby's bedroom, son's bedroom, and living room. The kitchen is off limits to the children except at naptime. I have four cots in here while I eat and do paperwork after I clean up/straighten up the daycare at the beginning of nap. The other cots are in daycare room 1 and 2. Locations are strategically placed so that each child cannot interact with each other. ::

[Crazy8]

oh how I wish I had a bigger daycare space, but then again for only 5 kids I don't really NEED a bigger room, it would just be nice.

Mine is what would be the formal living room of my house - its the first room to side when you walk in my house so dcp's enter thru the front door. I'm not sure on dimensions but its not huge - its kind of long but a bit narrow. I have it set up in sections - blocks/trains/cars, reading corner, kitchen/dramatic play area, cubbies of misc. toys, that big school bus maze/bead toy in another corner and then a low cubbie full of baby toys in front of a baby mat. Then off to the side is the craft/eating table. I do wish I had more space for a little table and chairs set in the kitchen. I find my crew doesn't like to play on the floor much and there is no where else to sit but at the eating table and I hate them dragging all the toys from each section to that table.

I've tried rearranging but nothing really seems to work better.

[kppzbw]

Oh what a dream!!!!! It sounds like you have this all figured out(: Can you share with me your daily schedule that is tried and true? I need to transition toddlers into 1 nap instead of 2 and make a couple of other changes. Advice is great(:

[melilley]

I live in a ranch style home and use the whole house for daycare with the exception of my 10 yo. dd's room. My living room is the main daycare/play room room. The children get dropped off there since my front door is there. I have areas such as the transportation area with a road rug and cars/trucks/trains etc... along with blocks. I also have a reading area, housekeeping area and large and small manipulative area with a table. I also have an art easel in there. There are also cubbies and a coat hanger against the wall when you walk in. This room has a gate that separates it from the rest of the house and we play and learn in there the majority of the indoor time.

I use my dining room to do the messy art and for the kids to eat. I have one of those plastic child sized picnic tables in there for the kids to eat at because my table is a pub table and is too high. I would like to get a small wooden table though. The dining room and kitchen are connected and I can also see my living room from there and that's where the baby equipment is-I only have a swing and a jumper thing, both of which aren't used very often. I have the kids play in the family room when I'm cooking unless one of the older kids wants to play in the playroom, then I will let them (I can only partially see into it from the kitchen/dining room).
I use my son's room as the nap room. He's 11 mo. old so he doesn't mind sharing I do however have to put one child in a p&p in my room because that's the best way for him to sleep.

My outdoor area is my whole backyard where I bordered off a huge section where I have a big wooden play set, slides, cars, and other various playground equipment and have wood chips in it, but the kids can roam around the whole yard, it is fenced off. The only drawback is that if we are outside, parents have to walk through the living room, dining room, and family room to get to the patio doors that lead outside.

Some day I would LOVE to have a separate house! I just opened this past January and am really wishing that I had a separate house for childcare! I have to hide my kid's special toys, the wear and tear on my house is already evident, I have to make sure the whole house is always clean, there is no "personal" space except for my bedroom when the child is not sleeping in it, but that may just be a dream!
It is nice though not to have to drive to work everyday!