Parent/Child Activities
By daycarepal
@daycarepal (1998)
United States
June 21, 2007 9:35am CST
Every month in my daycare, I send home a little project for the parent and child to do together at home. My hope is to encourage parents to spend some one-on-one time with their child and to have fun doing it.
When the project is done, the child returns it to the daycare and it gets displayed on the wall for the entire month. For the month of May, the decorated Flowers. For June, they decorated butterflies.
Is this a monthly project that you would participate in if your childs daycare offered it? Most of my parents do participate, but there have been months when several did not.
14 people like this
42 responses
@nicolec (2671)
• United States
21 Jun 07
I think that's a wonderful idea. If i had children, i would do it for sure. But I have a question, is this an assignment you send home with the kids relying on them to tell the parent. or do you tell the parents directly. Because I wonder why so many of the parents do not do this. It doesn't seem like it's too expensive so I wouldn't think it was a money issue. Maybe they just forget?
@daycarepal (1998)
• United States
21 Jun 07
I have a home daycare, so the children in my care are young. Right now they range from ages 2-5 years old. So I don't rely on them telling the parents about the project. I send home a monthly newsletter every month for my daycare families. It lets the parents know of all the activities I have planned for their children during the month ahead. I do it so parents feel informed about what their children are doing while they are with me.
In that newsletter I tell them about the parent/child project of the month. I make it as simple as possible. I send home a cut out shape for the month. June was a butterfly. They can decorate it anyway they want. I don't care if they just color it with crayons, it doesn't have to be fancy, just something they did together.
@vokey9472 (1486)
• United States
22 Jun 07
I did everything that my son's dayschool sent home this past year. I also went to every single activity held at the school. It is hard to schedule around things sometimes, but well worth it. These are memories that I will have and my son will have forever. I also saved everything from this school year. I bought a plastic sweater box and everything fit inside it and I put a label on it with the school year and name.
The early years of your child's life will go by so fast. I didn't believe that when my mother told me while I was pregnant, but we just celebrated my son's 5th birthday and I couldn't believe so much time had gone by. I know, I am digressing from the topic.
Back to your topic. Yes, I would do these things with my child. One thing my son's dayschool did was send reminders home to turn in projects on time. It helped get more of the parents to turn stuff in. Just a thought for you.
1 person likes this
@daycarepal (1998)
• United States
22 Jun 07
Thanks for responding. I love hearing stories of parents being so involved in their childrens lives.
@hollowheart (1572)
• India
22 Jun 07
I would love to be a part of it. IOts sounds fun and also helps in the upbringing of these children. I am a voluntary member for a NGO nad take care of orphans. Infact u gave me some cool ideas also as how i could be more helpful to them.
Please let me know more and how i could help u.
@daycarepal (1998)
• United States
22 Jun 07
Thanks and feel free to use any of the other art projects I have posted here at MyLot. If you look through my discussions, you should be able to find several.
@archer1811 (1098)
• Philippines
22 Jun 07
Hi daycarepal! my son now is in grade 1, but during his pre-school years, his teacher was giving him a quarterly projects, its for parents and child activity, my husband and i and also my son doing that project, sharing opinions and of course visiting the bookstore to complete the projects, most of the time their project was about the pictures of the topic they discussed for the past 3 months. Exciting and funny sometimes because when my son shares his opinion its all about childish opinion of course, but he do have the participation in all of his projects.
Can i enroll my child to your school? hahaha, you're a very good teacher hah, you're thinking of the bonding of child and parents.
1 person likes this
@daycarepal (1998)
• United States
22 Jun 07
Thank you very much. Glad to hear you enjoyed participating in activities with your son.
@latsmom (824)
•
22 Jun 07
I think this a great idea, may I ask if you send the materials to make teh project also? I think it is a shame that some do not participate, it does not take much time and as you say is onlyonce a month, my daughter is in nursery now and I love doing her homework with her, it's great to spend time together and to know I am helping with her learning.
1 person likes this
@daycarepal (1998)
• United States
22 Jun 07
I do supply the cut out shape for each family. I do not supply them with material to add to the cut out shape. That's where the fun and creativity comes in between the parent and child.
They can simply color the shape with crayons, it doesn't need to be anything expensive or fancy, just something they did together. On the butterflies, one little boy and his mom added glue and then sprinkled red colored sugar on it. It was the kind of red sugar that you would normally add to cookies when baking. I thought that was very creative and it turned out great.
@magikrose (5429)
• United States
21 Jun 07
I have a website devoted to helping parents keep there kids safe and it offers activities that parents can do with there kids at home with normal house hold items. It even offers kid friendly dinner ideas and deserts and snacks kids love. Here is the site feel free to use the activities and if you have some that you think should be added feel free to email me, my email is posted in my website.
www.familiesfromhome.com/
1 person likes this
@Willowlady (10658)
• United States
22 Jun 07
Parents in this day do not spend much time with their children. It is sad since I grew up with a mother and that was involved in my upbringing. I have fond memories of her sitting and drawing pictures with me, reading and even playing games. I have provided very much the same for my children and having homeschooled them I have done a pretty good job I think. I shudder to think at the people they will be working with and for and hiring. I hope you keep this up and that it does some good for the generation you are involved with. I commend you!
1 person likes this
@daycarepal (1998)
• United States
22 Jun 07
Thank you very much. And it sounds like you are doing a very good job also.
@34momma (13882)
• United States
21 Jun 07
i think that is a great idea and i would jump on that in a minute. i think it is important parents spend time with their children when it comes to home work or projects such as yours. i can not believe their are parents who would not do this with there child. i love it and would be more then happy to do this with my little one. as a matter of fact, i think i am going to start this with mine just because. thanks for such a fantastic idea
1 person likes this
@daycarepal (1998)
• United States
21 Jun 07
Yes as a parent, I find it hard to believe that one wouldn't do a special project with their child. It doesn't have to take an hour to do and it doesn't have to turn out perfect, the point is to spend time together.
I have one family that had their 2 children do one of our projects with a babysitter while the parents went out for the evening. I was disappointed because I felt the parent completely misunderstood the purpose of the project.
@jennybianca (12912)
• Australia
22 Jun 07
This is an excellent idea. When my child was very young, I organised lot of activities for us to do.
I collected lots of boxes & cardboard, & she would just love making things. Particularly if i participated too.
We would also do raft activities, art, sport, & lots opf imagination games.
Result? She is in the gifted class at high school& gets straight A's.
1 person likes this
@samtaylorskykierajen (7977)
• Canada
21 Jun 07
I think this is a really nice idea but am not sure that I would have the time all the time to help out . I do other things with my children and do try to have one on one time with them but when it comes to one on one time for homework and stuff like that , I often feel like it is a task and find it harder to get around to doing .
1 person likes this
@daycarepal (1998)
• United States
21 Jun 07
I know parents are super busy these days, that's why I only send home the project once a month. It goes home with their monthly newsletter. I attach a cut out (this month was a butterfly) and they can decorate it with their child anyway they want. They have all month to do it and return it to be hung up.
@daycarepal (1998)
• United States
21 Jun 07
You might be seeing the world through rose colored glasses. It's unfortunate, isn't it? I have been in the daycare business for over 20 years and I could tell you stories about some families. Thankfully, not all families are like that.
@makingpots (11915)
• United States
21 Jun 07
I absolutely would participate. That is such a good opportunity for the parents and children alike and I applaud you for caring enough to provide these opportunities. They are cute ideas. I am sure that kids have a wonderful time doing them.
You are a very caring and consider daycare provider. The parents are blessed to have you.
1 person likes this
@Flight84 (3048)
• United States
21 Jun 07
My daycare does something very similar to that project. In all honesty, I have some pretty slack parents though. The daycare I work at honestly seems to be full of kids that go to daycare just so their parents can not work and run around and pick them up right at closing time. So many of those kids have sad lives. The ones that do participate appreciate that we do those kinds of things and that it encourages parents to do things with their kids. I'm not saying daycare can't be for parents to drop their kids off and do things, but we have some very unique situations in our center. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.
1 person likes this
@gabs8513 (48686)
• United Kingdom
22 Jun 07
Yes I would as I think that is a very good Idea. In todays world parents are to stressed all the time and forget to spend time with their little ones who are probably looked after most of the day by someone because the Parent have to work, or you get Parents that just want peace and quiet, so I think what you are doing is great as it is making Parents spend that time with the Kids
Well done Sweet
@KrisNY (7590)
• United States
23 Jun 07
My daughter is now 10—so she doesn’t bring this sort of thing home from daycare- When she was younger I would have done any craft with her- She is so crafty and loves to do them- I still do them at home with her now- Now she brings home school projects- and we do them together- Family projects they call them- but they are graded-
I think it is great that you do this for the kids- Great quality bonding time--
@sunshine4 (8703)
• United States
21 Jun 07
That is a very cute idea. I would have participated if my child brought things like this home as we love doing artsy stuff together.
When my daughter was in Pre-kindergarten they had a mandatory home visit every month that was scheduled. A home visit was made by one of the staff and they brought activities to do with the child and the parent. This was actually a pain because with other children in my house it was never a good time to schedule the activity. I would always sit with my daughter and my husband would take the boys somewhere. I can see how this would benefit some kids whose parents aren't involved, but I really didn't like the program at all.
1 person likes this
@daycarepal (1998)
• United States
21 Jun 07
I'm not so sure I would enjoy a home visit every month either.
@teapotmommommerced (10359)
• United States
22 Jun 07
How cute I would have never thought to give home work to the kids in day care. What a great idea to get the parents involved. I am glad that the most of the parents bring the projects back.
@cmsk2005 (1770)
• United States
22 Jun 07
i like this thing very much and infact i have arranged such activities many times before as a volunteer and involved in community help and activities. I used to gather the children and set up a project something like take them to the zoo and ask the to draw any one animal they see there on a new T-shirt sitting in frot of the cage of that anibmal....Do U know i found Monkey was the winner by 2 votes they liked most and drawn