A Guide for Child Care Centers on All Things Summer!

This post was originally created and published by Procare Solutions on June 20th, 2022. You can find the original piece here. It is reprinted here with permission from Procare.

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Summer is here!

It’s a really fun time for your child care center. Splash times, outdoor snack times in the shade and maybe even field trips are ways you might be taking advantage of the sun-filled days!

We’ve assembled a quick guide to make sure you’re ready for all that summer brings – the good and the bad!

Keep Parents in the Loop with a Child Care App

Make sure parents know to send water bottles, sunhats, sunscreen and anything else their kids will need to enjoy the summer day. Other items might be towels or even bikes and scooters (with helmets!) so kids can ride outside.

Family engagement in early childhood education is important to make sure everyone is on the same page. As part of your daycare’s family engagement plan, use the Procare mobile app. With this child care app, you can send reminders to parents, either in a message or you can post it to your child’s activity log. Families value a teacher parent communication app.

And don’t forget to ask parents to label everything!

You might also ask families to send spares of certain items, such as water bottles or an extra change of clothes, so your staff is able to provide kids with what they need, even when busy parents forget.

Daycare Summer Fun Activities

Be prepared for rainy days. Ask families to bring in large cardboard boxes and turn them into cars your kids can take to a pretend drive-in movie! If your daycare has the space, keep the decorated cars somewhere out of the way so you can pull them out and kids can sit in them to either enjoy an educational show, if your center allows screen time. If you plan ahead for a movie day, send parents a note to tell them what movie you’ll be watching and make sure parents approve.

Painting rocks, and hiding them, also is a lot of fun for kids of all ages. You likely have plenty of paint on hand, so let kids decorate rocks and you can hide them! Smooth, flat rocks work best. Here’s a blog with more ideas on how to have fun with this project!

Bubbles are always a hit too! If you don’t want to buy any, check out this bubble-mix recipe used by the London Science Museum for its famous bubble show and uses just three ingredients.

Stay Healthy

Summer is a great time to make sure your staff is up to date on which kids have allergies. Being outside means a child could be stung by a bee, or exposed to allergens in the air.

You can view and print allergy lists by classroom. Make sure you have the medicines you need on hand, and that the proper paperwork in place for parental permission to administer them.

It’s also a good time to make sure your daycare staff’s CPR certifications are current as well.

Check your supply closets and make sure you have plenty of Band-Aids, bug spray, sunscreen, hydrocortisone cream, hand soap, ice packs and gauze. Before you do a shopping run or online order, take a look at  this list of 100 must-have materials and supplies for your child care center to see what else you might need.

And make sure kids and staff drink plenty of water. Dehydration and heat exhaustion are serious, and plenty of water and shade will dramatically reduce the risk of these serious conditions.

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