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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>Pls Help Me Understand The Care Area vs. The Play Area
CAPA 12:42 PM 08-27-2012
I am reading about the laws and codes regarding the physical setup in a daycare and I'm a little confused.

These are the guidelines listed:

1. Indoor child care space may not be used simultaneously as play space.
2. The allowable number of children in a space is determined by dividing the total square feet in a space by 40
3. A facility shall provide outdoor or indoor play space to be used for large muscle activity which includes running, jumping, climbing and riding.
4. Outdoor or indoor play space shall be measured at 65 square feet per child, except for the following situations:
- The minimum outdoor or indoor play space required per infant is 40 square feet.
- The minimum outdoor or indoor play space required per young or older toddler is 50 square feet.


Ok so I have a few questions about this, if anyone would care to inform me!

Relating to (1), does this mean that you must have separate play/care areas? Or... can the care area be used as a play area, but not at the same time? This is important because from (2) you can see it says that you basically need 40 sq. ft. per child. In addition, you need 65 sq. ft. of play area per child. So in this instance you would need 40 + 65 sq. ft. = 105 sq. ft/child of total play + child care areas. I assume that you CAN use the child care area as a play area, so long as it's not being used by both operations at the same time. Am I right?

Relating to (4), I am confused as to what is consider a child and what is considered a toddler? It's saying you need 65 sq. ft. per child, but then it lists the exceptions to the rule if you have infants or young/older toddlers. Is it saying that kids that are no longer toddlers will require 65 sq. ft. of space to play?
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Sugar Magnolia 05:00 PM 08-27-2012
Ok, I think "play space" refers to area where kids can do gross motor skills like running or jumping our climbing. This can be outdoors OR indoors. You need 65 sq ft per child for this "play area". Not bad, FL is 100. You have to provide 65 sq ft per child using that space at a time. If you had up to 10 kids using the outdoor "play" space, it would have to be at least 650 sq ft. "Care" space usually refers to indoor space used for routine care and play, and usually excludes kitchens and bathrooms and "staff only" areas. Yep, that first one is oddly worded, "indoor play space" means like a gym. The "gym" area could not be counted as care area.
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