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Home Away From Home: A Spectrum of Child Care
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12644 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
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6 / 1987 |
2,167 Words |
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Kathleen Prentice
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It's Monday morning at the Crane household and the alarm clock rings early. Mark and Judi Crane slip into their business suits and pack baby Joshua's diaper bag. Four-year-old Nate pulls on his superhero shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes, and is ready to head out the door. Hand in hand Nate and his Dad walk the three tree-lined streets, as they have for the past two years, to Nate's day-care home, while Judi delivers Joshua to an infant daycare home across town.
Nate is greeted at the front door by "Aunt" Barb Harris and several of the eleven children that he will spend his day with - building block towers, fingerpainting, reading stories, lunching on macaroni and cheese, and napping to classical music.
After munching his warm muffin Nate heads for the big playroom where two of his friends are hauling out a crate of red brick cardboard blocks. Shelves hold an assortment of puzzles, games, and buckets of toys. Plastic crates of blocks are stacked along one wall and a log fort fills another corner. "Spot" and "Suzie", the resident guinea pigs, squeal as a tape of nursery rhymes plays in the background.
A new child watches. The early morning light streams in the windows as the blocks become a spaceship and the astronauts get ready for takeoff. It's 8:30 A.M. and most of the crew has arrived.
Just as centers vary from franchised nurseries to Montessori preschools, family daycare homes offer a spectrum of care, from group homes like Barb Harris', which operates with assistants, to homes where the mom takes in a couple of kids to play with her own preschoolers. Some plan curriculums with field trips and science experiments; other go with the flow of the children's play. What they have in common is that children are cared for in a home environment, often in their own neighborhood.
Twenty miles out of town, in a subdivision that was plotted on a stretch of sandy hills and pine woods, Karen Grant slices apples and sprinkles cinnamon on buttered toast. Five-year-old Jade Eckler bounces through the front door and slides into her seat beside the Grant children at the breakfast table, like she has every weekday morning for the past two years. Miranda Grant and Jade discuss computers and their plastic ponies while Lisa Eckler chats with Karen.
"Karen's is the first day care they (Jade and her brother Benjamin) ever went to," says Lisa. "I took a job as a receptionist, but I don't have to work, so day care was really a tough decision.
"I had heard about Karen and knew people who knew her as a babysitter and as a friend. We came as a family one evening to meet her and see her home and to ask her what types of things she did with the kids. What we had heard was true - she's very nutrition-minded, but they bake cookies once in a while, too. She keeps a neat house. But the one factor that I would say is the most important is that Karen is so nurturing. She's always been there for Jade."
Days of Dolls and Storybooks
Jade's days at Karen's are filled with dolls and books and hiking to the sand hills and sculpting with homemade play dough at the kitchen
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