Daycare Openings? To attract new customers, you need to let people know you're out there! The best way to advertise is by word of mouth. Make sure all your friends know that you have started a daycare and have opening available. Make some business cards or purchase some already made with your daycare name, address, and contact name and telephone number on the card. Leave the cards with anyone that has children in your area that may need daycare now or in the future. Buy some magnetic tape and stick it onto the backs of your business cards so the parents can take the cards home and put them on the refrigerator so they can find the cards at a later date if they need to contact you for daycare.

Daycare Flyer A great way to advertise your daycare is by displaying a flyer in your neighborhood, just hang up at the laundry mat, doctors office, grocery stores, library , and at the mall. You can make your own flyers if your creative or artistic or you can purchase the flyers that we have for sale on our website click here to purchase our daycare forms, there is over 150 daycare forms which includes the three cute flyers we have available for immediate download right after purchase. The daycare forms are very simple to use, just print out and write your phone number on the bottom of the flyer. There are three different flyers on our download page to print out and use. If you have Microsoft Word, Microsoft Works or WordPerfect, you can just click the words on the flyer's to edit them, we have over 150 daycare forms in our daycare forms package for only $15.00 which only comes out to about only 10 cents per daycare form!

Another Way To Advertise Is By Classified Ads "New Daycare Has Limited Openings!! That could be your ad running in tomorrow’s paper. You will get samples of ads that I have I have placed in the newspaper and had all our spots filled within a few days!! Some ads don't catch the parent’s eyes if there are other daycare ads running at the same time. You want your ad to STAND OUT! Grab their attention and get them to call you first! Make sure you sound confident and professional when you receive phone calls from potential customers. Keep your rate sheet taped by the telephone or on a clip board. You can print out and use our daycare rate sheet as a guide in setting your own rates. You will need to edit the prices to fit the needs of your daycare. Just print it out and have it handy for when the parents start calling you.

Craigslist is another way to advertise your daycare. It is a great way for people to find you if they need daycare, a lot of people check out craigslist daily for daycare, rent, yard sales, or other items and craigslist is free! You can advertise on there and it wont cost you a penny. It is also a good way to find second hand toys, cribs, child sized tables, book shelves to store toys on or anything else you may need to start your daycare.

Daycare Listings Online Some people search online for daycare list your daycare openings on several websites that offer daycare listing. We have a website that you can list your daycare openings click here to advertise your daycare online and most importantly it is for free, another great way to advertise and it doesn't cost you anything to try it out!

Can I Find Customers ? Need more help advertising! Purchase our daycare kit it has more information on helping you advertise and market you daycare.

Parent Interviews ? Over The Phone And In Person Your first encounter with a potential daycare parent will probably be over the telephone. This will be their first impression of you. Make sure you sound confident. You can print out our telephone interview log and have it next to the telephone when parents call. Just read down through the questions and write down their answers. If this goes well, you will need to set up a time to meet with the parents. Make sure you set up a convenient time for both of you!

Be prepared! Present a professional image. You need to have all pertinent information about your daycare at your fingertips. Our daycare forms will help you to feel more prepared and ready to start your daycare. Need more help? Then check out our daycare kit. Click here to view our start your own daycare kit.

What Type Of Program Do You Have?? Most parents will want to know, what will my child be doing all day? Most parents do not want their child sat in front of the television. Most parents want a fun, safe, environment but at the same time they want their child envolved in a home daycare program which teaches them and guides them through their early stages of development. Most parents want their child getting outside, having free play, plus getting ready for school. You may want to think about starting a morning program to help teach the children in your care.

Preschool Program ? Are you going to offer a learning program! Most parents are interested in finding daycare for their children that offers a learning program with a circle time, songs, stories, art and other fun activities. Make sure to show the parents all that you have to offer their children, print out or make food menus, print out or make daily schedules, print out or make preschool lesson plans. Show the parents your bulletin board with your food menu hanging on it, ask them if their child has any allergies that you need to be aware of. Have a few pictures of the children that you are watching now, have them labeled circle time, art time, outside time, flip through the pages and show them what their child will be experiencing in your care.

How much to charge? This may take some time to figure out, you don't want to charge too much and scare people away, but you don't want to charge too little either. The best way to figure out what to charge is to ask around, look in the paper and call others that have an ad in the paper and see what they are charging and how many openings they have, if they have a lot of opening, there may not be a big demand for daycare in your area.

Daycare Rates keep them handy. Once you figure out what your daycare rates (prices) are going to be, make sure you write them down and keep them next to the phone. You will also want to make sure the rates are included in your parent's handbook or print out the rates seperately and give them to eac parents as their child begins care with you. Make sure each parent knows exactly what your rates are, so there are no misunderstandings in the future about how they are suppoed to pay you. You can view our daycare rates on our website but depending on where your located can make a "hugh" difference in the amount to charge for daycare.

One thing to consider when deciding what to charge is what ages are you going to watch? Mixed Ages, toddlers, preschoolers? There is usually a big demand for infant care and odd hours. It is a lot harder to watch mixed ages versus one age group. If you have mixed ages do you have adequete sleeping space for the younger children that may require a morning nap? These are just a few things to think about.

Daycare In Your Home? Setting Up Your House? Next, you will need to decide where the children are going to eat, if you need to purchase high chairs, port-a-cribs, sippy cups, and the list goes on. When parents start bringing their children you may want to have a check list of things they may need to bring, such as baby formula (or will you provide it), baby food, baby bottles, diapers, wipes, extra clothes. If you need more detailed information on starting a daycare "our daycare kit" has a start your own daycare e-book which will discuss starting a daycare and giving you step by step information click here to view our starting your own daycare information.

Parent's Handbook

Parent's Handbook You should have a parents handbook. You will want all your policy's in writing such as your trial period, fees that you charge, hours that you are open, holidays and vacations that you may take and if you charge or not, you will need to explain your late charges, late pick up, bounced check fee, or late payments, potty training, illness, medicines, or what if a child is injured at your home, what then? these are some things for you to think about and there will be more as you write up your parent's handbook, if you find you need help with your parents handbook we do offer one for sale in our package of daycare forms.Our daycare forms package has a parent's handbook, contract and many other policy's that you will need and best of all they are customizable you can change the color of the print, the size of the print and even add your own logo!

You need to keep accurate records. Opening and running a daycare is just like any other business. You will need to keep track of you income and expenses, some expenses are a direct expense such as daycare toys, daycare food, purchasing daycare books or daycare forms are all expenses you can write off you income taxes, and other expenses are indirect expenses such as writing off a portion off the use of your house, telephone (if you have two lines you can write one off completely), repairs, and many other expenses, we go more into this area in our start your own daycare ebook. You will need to have records on all your children, we have found keeping each child's record stored in a file folder is a good way to store this information and all the forms need to be up to date! Protect yourself and the children in your care by using the the correct authorization and permission forms. Our Daycare Forms offer authorization and written agreements between yourself and your daycare families. Need help organizing your records? Our start you own daycare e-book has a lot of information on record keeping and organizing your records. Click here to view our start your own daycare kit.

Can I Edit The Daycare Forms? Yes, you can change or edit the daycare forms. This makes our forms very useful as you find you will need to edit the forms as your daycare changes over the years. You will need to have Microsoft Word or Office, Microsoft Works or WordPefect to be able to edit the files. You can not edit the poster files, such as the center signs. Our poster type files are paper size, just print them out onto card stock paper from your printer. Once the daycare forms are purchased you can instantly download the parent's handbook along with the daycare contract PLUS all the other daycare forms all for the low price of $15.00. You can edit the parent's handbook to change the hours of your operation, the prices that you charge, or any other pertinent information that you would like to add or change.

Daycare Contract

Daycare Contract You will want the parents to sign a contract. You will want to go over all your policys with your new customers (parents). It's best to sit down with them and open up your parent's handbook and turn it page by page, this will refresh your memory on important issuses to discuss with them, and you can skim over the headings of the parents handbook and when you see something such as vacation, then you may think to ask them if they will be taking a vacation, if so, for how long, and then you can let them know if you charge for the time they are away. Most daycare providers do charge for the children when they are not present, as they depend on a certain amount of income each week and if each time a child didnt come to daycare they didint charge they wouldnt know what to expect at the end of the week for a paycheck.After you discuss all your policys to the new customers that may start bringing their child to your daycare its a good idea to go over the contact, have them sign it or take it home and look it over and then sign it and bring it back along with all the other forms they need to fill out before their child can start daycare. It's a good idea to have a well written handbook and contract. This will help to disperse of conflicts later down the road.

Setting Up File Folders

Children's Files? Set up a file folder for each child. As you begin to accept children into your care you will want to keep things organized. You should set up a file folder for each child in your care and list pertinent information about each child onto the file folder (inside on the cover) and keep all their records that they fill out inside their file folder and find a safe place to store all your filed folders where they are handy to get to plus in a safe location. If you need help in setting up your file folders we offer information on setting up the file folders along with an index that you can easily print out and using a glue stick, glue it ot the inside over of each childs file folder and then just fill in all the information onto the file folder index.

Emergency Telephone Numbers? Keep all emergency telephone numbers beside the phone. You should have the police, ambulance, poison control center along with each child's emergency contact numbers by the telephone at all times. If an emergency comes up you do not want to be hunting around for phone numbers! If a child gets hurt you don't want to be "thinking, where did I put his file". You should know instantly where each child's record is and how to quickly locate each child's telephone number and his parents work number.

Food Menu

What About Weekly Food Menu's? Parents would like to see what their children are eating. You should make a simple food menu and fill it out for the week and post it in a visible area for the parents to be able to view each day. This way they can look and see what their child is eating each day or they may notice that your serving something their child is allergic too. If you are on the food program make sure to mention this to the parents and let them know that you will be serving according to the guide lines of the food program which means there child will be eatig well balanced meals while in your care. We have several food menus for sale in our daycare forms package. You can also view our daycare food menu on our website, it will show you what we serve for each day "Monday – Friday" and our webpage also goes over the food requirements for the food program.

Daycare Hours Sign

What are your daycare hours? Post your hours! Make sure everyone knows what time you open and close. You can make a little poster saying "we are open 7:00 – 5:00" make sure to hang it where the parent's will see it. If you want something cute showing your hours We have a cute poster (shown above) which can be printed out and you just fill in the hours you are open with a marker.

You will save time and money with our daycare forms. We have a lot of cute daycare posters to print out and hang around your daycare which show your daycare hours, plus we have the block area signs, book area signs along with the parent's contact and handbook plus many, many more! It couldn't be easier to use our forms just open up the files and print them out. With daycare needs increasing now is the time to start your own daycare business. You should be prepared with the right types of forms. You can open up the file, edit the file (if needed) and then just print it out. You will not have to waste hours trying to think of how to make your flyers, brochures, posters, etc.

Click Here To Buy – $15.00

Daily Schedule

Our Daily Schedule is very cute and colorful and can be easily edited, printed out and displayed. Once you begin accepting children into your daycare you will need to start planning your day. It doesnt need to be exact but it is nice to have a rough idea of about what time you be doing things each day, such as

– Daily Schedule -

7:00 am Children Start To Arrive 7:15 am Table Toy/ Play Dough/ Coloring 8 am Breakfast 9 am Circle Time 9:30 am Art Time 10:00 am Outside Play 10:30 am Learning Time 11:00 am Lunch Time 12:00 pm Story Time 12:30 pm Clean Up Time 1:00 pm Nap Time 3:00 pm Snack Time 3:30 pm Outside Play 4:00 pm Table Toys/Play Dough/Coloring 4:30 pm Clean Begin To Go Home

Daily Schedule (sample) This is just a quick idea you will need to jot down the times that your daycare children usually eat their meals, hear stories, go outside, what time they sleep, play outside, have circle time, art time, etc and then start making your own schedule, you make a poster showing your schedule to the parents or you can purchase our daycare forms and print out our daily schedule and just fill in your hours, you can fill it in on the computer and then just simply print it out. Our daily schedule is all filled in you can use it as is until you figure out the correct times and then edit is as you figure out what works best for you.your daily schedule. You can think about what time you will . If you would like to view an example of our daily schedule please click here The hours listed on the scedule are the hours that work for our daycare and you may need to edit the hours and activities to meet the needs of your daycare. Art Center Sign What Are Learning Centers? You will now need to think about learning centers. Learning centers are usually a small area of your house or a small box or shelf where you have placed certain items for a specific area of learning. Such as; placing books on a shelf, this would be your book area or book center. A center can be a large area such as your outside play area or a small area such as a dish pan set up with some art items and set up on a small table, this would be your art area or art center. Some people set up shelves and designate certain areas on the shelves for certain learning areas. You may want a math area to help teach the children how to to count, or have them learn to sort or have them learn other math activities or a pre-reading area where you would place some alphabet cards or a sound box or other pre-reading activities. When parents come in for interviews its a really nice idea to have learning centers that you can show them if you can make some signs showing the learning centers is even better. You may want ot think about haveing some learning centers or area's set up for the children where you will keep some books, and another area where you will keep some blocks. If you notice most of the time that the children crawl up on the couch to look at books then place a few books in a small stand by the couch and this will become your book center. Most home daycares have a block center, art center, music center, book center, dramatic play center, and a few others. You should make some cute posters to show your "learning centers or areas" or you can purchase our daycare forms and quickly print them all out and display each center sign to show your parents where each center is located in your home. One of the center signs is displayed above, this is the art center sign. Calendar Preschool Program? Now that you have children attending are you going to provide a morning program such as a toddler or preschool program that offers circle time, art time, and a learning time? You may want to start your morning program off each day with circle time. To begin our circle time, discuss with the children the weather outside. Have the children look out the window and then we ask them "What is the weather outside?" If you have a lot of younger children they may not be able to answer correctly, then we give them hints; such as, (Is the sky white or blue?) if its white does anyone know what that means? (It’s cloudy) "Is it raining outside?" Is snowing outside?" Is it cloudy outside?" Is it windy outside?"Proivde a weather chart or pictures of the weather and have the children display the weather each day. What About A Calendar? You may want to think about having the children use a calendar each day. Begin by asking if anyone knows what day it is, if no one know then just point to the calendar and say, "Today Is Thursday." Its nice if you can have a large calendar that the children can put the numbers onto each day. You may want to make or buy a large felt calendar with numbers that have Velcro on their backs to stick to the calendar. This way the children can take turns putting up the numbers each day to show that days date. The Toddlers are too young to understand what a calendar is but they still have fun sticking up the numbers. The calendar in my daycare is in my dining room and the children need to climb up into a chair to be able to reach the calendar to put on the numbers. I always stand nearby when they are climbing onto the chair incase they start to fall, so far, everyone has been very careful climbing up and down, once the calendar is competed I put the chair away. After the number for the day is put up, we start at number one, on the calendar and I have the children count with me, to the new date that we just placed onto the calendar. As they say the numbers I point to the numbers on the calendar to help to teach them their numbers.