What Makes a Great Day Care?
By Leslie Swanson
Y Marketing and Media Intern
As a kid, I always looked forward to going to day care. It was a fun place where I could enjoy learning and build friendships. Those were the aspects of day care that I valued as a child. Looking back, I wonder what aspects about that day care my parents valued? I don’t know if it was the nurturing environment, the dedicated staff, the curriculum that not only taught us the alphabet but taught us life lessons, or the ability to accommodate all ages of children.
For all of these reasons and more, Y Day Care is a great fit for this area. Licensed by the State of Michigan, the staff goes to great lengths to ensure that each child’s specific needs are met. By following a curriculum that is sanctioned by the YMCA of the USA called Creative Curriculum, children grow strong in mind, body, and spirit.
The curriculum consists of six main areas: Literacy, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Arts, and Technology. Healthy Habits and Social, Moral, and Spiritual Development are two additional content areas that are offered that the Grand Traverse Bay YMCA Day Care Center.
This curriculum is put into practice in each of the four classrooms at the Day Care Center. Each classroom houses a different age group: the Infant Room, 0-11 months; the Young Toddler Room, 12-18 months; the Toddler Room, 19 months-2 years; and the Preschool Room, ages 3-5.
In the Infant Room, toys and activities stimulate the mind and inspire the little ones to interact with each other while discovering their own abilities.
The Young Toddler Room, or “Transition Room”, helps kids make the transition from the Infant Room to the Toddler Room. Activities in this room include puzzles, floor toys, and literacy practices.
Once children are ready to make the step up from the Young Toddler Room, they can move into the Toddler Room. In this room, I observed children using shaving cream and paint to learn about their senses. The paint tints the shaving cream, using sight; the shaving cream feels squishy and cool, using touch as a way to sense not only texture, but temperature; the shaving cream has a scent, teaching smell, and the squishy sound the shaving cream makes when the kids squeezed it through their fingers taught hearing. The kids in this room are very active and are kept busy by the many activities available to them.
The final room for kids in the Day Care Center is the Preschool Room. The activities and toys in this room inspire creativity and learning. The kids are taught responsibility, whether it is through picking up after themselves or being held responsible for their actions.
Each room contains 2-3 staff members who all take a personal responsibility for the development of the children in their room. They are caring and nurturing while still allowing the children to learn important life lessons for themselves.
As the nation’s largest day care provider, it is easy to see why Y Day Care could be such a great fit for many children. It not only provides an educational environment for children to develop cognitively, but it also provides a nurturing environment for them to develop social skills, important Christian values, and grow spiritually. Y Day Care truly is the entire package.
The Grand Traverse Bay YMCA Child Care Center's phone number is 231-421-3568 to arrange a personal tour or more information.
The Grand Traverse Bay YMCA works every day to solve many of the issues people in our region are most concerned about. For decades we have offered programs that help kids reach their potential, that help families and individuals achieve better health outcomes and that encourage everyone to get involved and make their community a better place. Our aim is to bring more services to more people in the key areas of: Youth Development, Healthy Living and Social Responsibility. Come join us!
