Deciding the right age for daycare can be a difficult decision. A lot of factors play an important role in deciding when your child is ready for daycare.

Growth of a child at different ages

Let’s understand how children grow and act at certain age groups to determine if your child is ready for daycare.

0 to 18 months

Some parents may want to return to their normal work routine as soon as possible. Although this can be very early to put a child in daycare, it is still possible to find centres for this age group. At this early age, children start forming attachments and bonding with their parents or primary caretakers, making this an important age for childhood development.

The daycare for this age has smaller group sizes. This helps in creating a family-like atmosphere and makes the interaction more personal. This also makes it difficult to find a daycare centre for this age as not a lot of caregivers will have space for more children.

18 months to 3 years

This is the age where children start exploring. They have a lot of energy and need direction. Children at this age require special attention in daycare as they start to grow and have a lot of curiosity.

Enrolling your child in a daycare at this age will help bring out creativity and active participation. It will also help your child to learn to be in a group and learn good social behaviour.

The daycare centres for this age group need to maintain safe and healthy premises and have faculty with good experience who can help guide the children and encourage them.

3 years to 5 years

Children in this age group are closest to entering preschool. Hence, the requirements for them are different from younger kids. At this age, a child starts differentiating and learning basic life skills and behaviour. So, it is important for them to have the right guidance. They start developing a sense of independence. So, they need to be taught how to work in group activities, complete the given tasks and have good social interactions. 

Daycare for this age can help prepare your child to enter schooling by teaching them the basic skills and requirements needed for school.

Deciding when your child is ready to start daycare

There is no one standard age that can be considered as the perfect age for your child to start daycare. Enrolling your child in a daycare program is dependent on various individual circumstances. This makes it important to assess the situation fully and make a wise decision.

Typically, waiting till your child turns one can be considered to enrol him/her in daycare. But deciding the best age depends on the parents. 

Each child has a unique personality and nobody knows a child better than the parents. There is no such thing as the perfect age to enrol in daycare and every child adjusts differently in the daycare environment. The perfect age for one child to start daycare may not be the same as another child.

Other factors like financial decisions, the timeline for the parents to get back to work also play a part in deciding to start daycare.

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Hi all! We are super excited about the opening of our new centre here at South Windsor NSW. Stay tuned for more updates as the arise, or get in contact with us via our contact page if you have any specific enquiries. Look forward to meeting you all soon!

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Ninety percent of a child’s brain development occurs in the first five years of their life, making an “early childhood education” an absolute key to set the children up for school and the rest of their lives.

Similarly, research shows that children who participates in quality Early Childhood Education program are more likely to arrive at school equipped with the social, intellectual and emotional skills they need to engage in learning. These benefits continue over lifetime such as improved economic participation, health outcomes and family wellbeing.

Therefore, Early Childhood education is critical, however quality of the program is equally important for it to be effective and yield benefits. It must provide positive learning experience which helps children develop their brain in a healthy way creating mental strength, creativity and positive attitude.

Little Twinkle Child Care – South Windsor

At Little twinkle, our vision, teachers, resources and programme are designed and developed to provide a natural and play based positive learning experience by:

• Providing children freedom to choose and control their activities without undue interference from adults
• Teachers being attentive, open and willing to be responsive to children’s agenda and being aware of their development through observation
• Artwork is key in our educational program. Artwork allows children to use creativity and imagination and provides opportunity to turn their feelings and thoughts into something physical
• High-quality resources to foster creativity by allowing children to experiment with different objects, colours and textures
• Providing opportune time to play. Play provides children with opportunity to problem solve, make mistakes, build connections and create within a secure environment

We are looking forward to open and forge a strong partnership with parents and student to encourage and foster children’s natural curiosity and creativity by providing positive learning experiences

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Normally parent(s) see child care as just another caring place for their kids when they are busy with their jobs, education or with other responsibilities. In reality child care has lot more to it. It is children’s first exposure to a structured experience providing them an opportunity to learn, share, follow and interact. These are all very important skills and tools to succeed in life.

Below are some very good reasons for kids to attend an Early Education Centre.

1. Emotional and Social Development

Birth to school age is the period of greatest growth and development. This is the time when children through their relations with others develop their social and emotional skills for which Early Learning can assist in number of ways such as:

• Having positive conversations and storytelling about emotions and social situations
• Being attentive, open and responsive with children and being aware of their development through observations

1. Offers structure and fun

Early Learning coach and encourage appropriate behaviors and outcomes through an organised and structured program of promoting socializing and learning

1. Encourages children’s curiosity and creativity

Children find freedom to choose and control their activities without undue interference. Children should also get access to high quality resources with opportune time to play and experiment with different objects, colors, problem solve and make mistakes to foster curiosity and creativity within a secure environment

1. Promotes Mathematics, Cognitive, Reading and Language skills

Early Childhood Education helps stretch language skills of children through conversational games, asking thought provoking questions, singing, storytelling and etc.

Math skills are introduced and developed by sorting and counting games and through activities designed to grow child’s understanding of numbers.

1. Preparing children for future schooling

Early Learning Centres with experienced educators provide tools and learning that children need to prepare and succeed at the school to ensure smooth transition to school

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Early Learning Centres are children’s first exposure to a structured learning experience providing opportunity to learn, share and interact. Early learning covers the best time for brain development (birth to five years) as well as emotional and social development. Therefore, it is important that we enrol our kids in centres providing the best possible learning environment to set our children up for school and rest of their lives.

US (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development – NICHD) carried a research and reported to identify effects of child care. Research showed that:

• Children cared exclusively by their mother did not develop differently than those cared by others e.g. child care

• However, children cared by Early Learning Centres with a warm, supportive environment had better social, language and cognitive development. Research also showed that there are only small percentage of child cares providing such environment

• High-quality care was related to the amount of “positive care giving” provided which is linked to Child Care’s vision, philosophy and teachers to:
  • Show positive attitude
  • Respond frequently to the children’s agenda
  • Ask questions
  • Encourage
  • Provide time to play, experiment, problem solve and make mistakes
  • Sing songs and read books
  • Discourage negative interactions

Summary:

• Definite benefits for children attending Early Learning centres which could result in better social, emotional, language and cognitive development
• Benefits are only possible with right child care so it is important that parents choose the right child care for their kids
• Child care with positive attitude, right philosophy, engagement and fun based educational programme provides the best environment for children to accelerate their growth.
• Such child cares are rare so important that parents take time to choose the right child care

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Little Twinkle Long Day Care Centre is now open for almost two months. The centre is located at 56 Church Street, South Windsor and is conveniently located across from South Windsor Public School.

The centre is committed to meeting the needs of the local community and the families who live here. In the short time that the centre has been open we have taken a number of actions which we believe will help us better serve the needs of our community.

• Enrolment Special: Little Twinkle has introduced a special where we waive the upfront bond payment at the time of the enrolment, which on average saves $500 (holding deposit) for each family
• Sibling Discount: Little Twinkle has introduced $10 sibling discount where two or more siblings attend the centre, the youngest sibling would receive a $10 discount to their daily rate. This could potentially reduce overall child care cost by more than $1500 annually for a sibling requiring care three times a week
• Sessional care: Little Twinkle offers 3 sessions of care (11 hours, 10 hours and 9 hours). This allows families to spread their eligible hours of care over the fortnight further. For example, families with 24 subsidised hours per fortnight (usually caters two days) can spread them over 3 days in the fortnight by using 8 hours of care per day
• No minimum day criteria: Little Twinkle does not apply any minimum number of days criteria for children’s enrolment. Many centres apply minimum of 2 days per week rule which alienates families eligible for only 24 hours of subsidy (equivalent to 1 day per week). Therefore, Little Twinkle attracts high number of parents only looking for 1 day per week, serving a major local community need
• Working with local businesses: Little Twinkle is working with local businesses to offer tailored child care packages to their employees. This could help them attract or retain strong talents but also encourage greater labour participation rate from the locals. Please let us know if your local business would be interested in finding out more about our tailored child care packages.

We have a long way to go but we are fully committed to contribute towards supporting our local community. Please do not hesitate to contact or provide feedback via email hello@littletwinklechildcare.com.au

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