Hi everyone! I'm new to the board. I am currently a kindergarten teacher in a public school and I think I've had enough of it. I love kids and teaching but I don't think schools are for me. I'm under too much stress with all of the little 'extras' they throw at teachers, not to mention standardized tests. They are talking about layoffs and I think I'm going to help them out by just resigning...and I want to open my own daycare! I have a few questions.

1. Is anyone from Maryland? I signed up for next month's orientation session.

2. Does anyone ONLY accept 3-5 year olds? I want my daycare to be basically a preschool-run situation, so I would rather not do the smallest children.

3. Is there a place on here with pictures of your daycare areas? I'd love to see them!

4. Does anyone run a family daycare who doesn't have any kids of their own? Right now it's just me and my husband...although I can see this career helping me later down the road when we have kids!

I'm sure I'll come up with more questions, but that's all I can think of at the moment!

Reply

I'm almost positive there are a few on here that only accept toddlers. If I had it to do all over again and thought I could get away with it in my area, I probably would do that same...only with 2 and older.

We do not have kids yet either (although we are in the adopting process) so I don't that will be a concern for you. Especially if you have a teaching degree to follow it up with. However, I'm a very open book and have told all my parents since the beginning the reasons why we didn't have kids yet. I also have 15 years experience in the childcare/nanny'ing and have cared for close to 30 kids over the years so that comes with MANY references.

Reply

I would also love to do just the older children as well, but it's very hard to find, older ones, in my area, you get tons and tons of calls for infants, and newborns!!!

Reply

1. Nope. Not in Maryland. Sorry.

2. I only take 2-5's with the preference being 3-5 year olds. And there was a thread about this recently:
https://www.daycare.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12862

3. There's a few pics in this thread:
https://www.daycare.com/forum/showth...ighlight=setup
You could probably dig back further and find more.

4. I started out several years before I had my own children watching my nephew. It worked out really nicely when I later had my own.

Reply

Best of luck as you start this new journey!! Right now I have all 3 and 4 year olds with the exception of one little girl 18 months (she was my first dck) but after her I just stuck with basically taking the older kids and have done the same (a preschool setting as best I can).

Unfortunately I don't live in MD so can't help you there and I have children of my own so can't help there either .

I have a few pictures on my website of my areas (I love to check out other provider's areas too...I always get great ideas!!).

www.littleacornchildcare.net

Good luck!!

Reply