I am looking at adding a curriculum into my home based daycare and I am looking for any recommendations I can get! I am looking for one that obviously reaches out to a variety of ages. I have children from infant up to age 8 and would like to find a curriculum that challenges each age. I have researched several, but just cannot decide so I guess I am looking for what other providers are using and what they would recommend! Thus far I have just used a pretty informal style and printed off of my computer and have done alot of planning outside of daycare hours which has turned out to be a time worthy job in itself and since I have two small children of my own I would like to have less prep hours and have something already prepared that I can just set up and get started when the kids get here and not so much searching on what should we do today!! Please let me know your thoughts and ideas and I would like to thank everyone ahead of time so Thank you!! : )

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I use Funshine Express Right now. Next year I am looking into developing my own.

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I started using Funshine Express a few months ago (thanks to OriginalKat's advice!), and I love it. I was spending alot of time prepping before as well, but now it's sooo much easier! I keep each day's worksheets, crafts & visuals in their own file folder, so I just grab the folder and the lesson book while the kids are eating breakfast. I grab whatever extra materials I need (glue, crayons, etc), and we're good to go! There are lots of activities to choose from for each day, and they can be scaled for each age group. My 8 month old does the craft about half the time, and always sits with us for circle/activity time, and the rest of the kids from 12 months and up, do everything, with varying degrees of help from me.

I pay extra because I'm in Canada, but it's worth every penny!

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DBug and Original Kat, how to you go about payment for the Funshine curriculum? Do you have the parents pay upfront at the beginning of the year, or monthly or weekly for the cost of program? What do you do about the number of children when you get new children every so often added to the preschool class? Or are you already full and don't have to worry about additions during the school year?
Also, how easily could I apply the curriculum in my circumstance (I have 2 1/2 -3 yr olds 2 days a week and 4-5 yr olds 3 days a week). This works best for me as there'd be more children with a wider gap in age than I want to teach at one time (both classes combined would give me 12 children, without an assistant, since the owner would have to watch the toddlers). Would it even work to only do 2-3 days worth of curriculum each week? We also go by the local school district (no school there, no preschool either since we have school agers during the day on school breaks), so there'd sometimes be a whole week of no preschool (like Spring Break), and none at all in summers.

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I answered this before but here it is again

I used to use Highreach Learning a LONG time ago, like 18 years ago. However after a few years I saw that the curriculum wasn't changing much and it kept on repeating itself.

I then made my own. I used a lot of material off the internet. We also have a chain of bookstores called Half Price Books. I would get alot of stuff from there. Also the local Goodwill store is good too. Both very cheap. In fact that's where I go now for the little boy I watch.

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Like Former Teacher, I make my own up. Contact your local elementary school and get the kindergarten packet that tells what new kindergarteners are expected to know. Then go from there. There is way too much information out there for free to pay for a curriculum. I subscribe to one website, Kidssoup.com, and I love it.

I have also purchased a workbook or two for a teachers store and make copies.

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I agree. I always make copies of things in books that way I can still use them.

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With Funshine, you can order month by month, so you can completely skip the summer if needed, but I'm not sure about doing only a few days per week. There may be more cost-effective options out there. Since everything is in sequence and dated, you could either ignore the dates, or you could just skip days (which would probably be a waste).

You could compile curriculum off the internet yourself, but you'd have to factor in the cost of ink, the time spent surfing for it, and the prep time (cutting things out, etc). For me, it's not worth it, and I just don't have the time to do it all. I did also check out the Mother Goose curriculum when I was looking around. Perhaps they would have something that would fit your situation better?

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Thank you DBug. I'm looking for another curriculum because the one I started out with in August just didn't end up being what I thought at first. Too academic based, not much hand's on, plus it was geared for pre-k, so I always HAD to come up with my own for the younger class. So I ended up doing my own thing each week for both classes, but I'm spending my entire weekend EVERY week to plan for the upcoming week. I'm talking hours spent EACH weekend, to get everything done (worksheets, projects, art, math, science, etc. and the learning sheet I send home at the beginning of the week, the cut-outs for the poster telling parents what their child is working on that week...on it goes). I'm getting burned out on teaching just because of the planning involved haha. So I'd like an easy, ready-made hand's on curriculum that can be used for 2 1/2-5 yr olds.

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