Open house

As some of you know, just yesterday we had the open house, with the grand re-opening taking place tomorrow! The Open House was a hit, with tons of parents bringing their children and engaging in so much play! I'm SO proud to present to you the new look of the centre (staged for the Open House):

Remember what it used to look like?? 

all hands on deck

It was all hands on deck today as all of my full-time staff (3 caregivers) were in for the first time to start the next step: putting everything in its place! It's finally starting to look like somewhere children would like to spend their days! Still lots of work to do, but it's certainly shaping up :)
What we really need to warm the place up is some area rugs!

The "quiet" side for the preschool/kindergarten area: 

Art table and art supplies: 

The reading/puzzle corner: (hopefully to come with some nice children's couches/chairs or bean bags)

Small loose parts (many of which would make for excellent items used for art):

The "louder" side:

Sensory tables in the back - one for wet, one for dry and one for 4 of anything!

Dramatic play area: 

Dolls, tools, (coat hooks will go on the walls for dress-up clothes), dishes, food, etc.: 

Larger loose part: 

The infant area: 

Don't worry..the bookshelf won't be staying there up and out of reach!

 I know it still needs some work in order to have all the caves, watering holes and camp fires that we should have, but it has been quite difficult when there is such a limited amount of resources here (and the fact that we are using only shelves as walls to separate the infants from the older children). Hopefully we'll get everything on our wish list through funding. What we could really use is a loft for the older children to give them a private area underneath, and a nice separate area up top to escape from everything.

I'm completely open to your ideas for anything... set up, fundraising, what have you.

Sneak peek

The curfew siren sounds every night at 10 pm now that school has started again. Children are off the streets during the day, and home much earlier at night. The temperature has dropped from the high 20s to hovering just above zero. The hot breeze has turned into a cold, cold wind blowing snow around gusting at 50 km per hour. The sun sets before midnight and doesn't begin rising until almost 6 am.

With all of the changes happening so rapidly in the community, it feels like that is being reflected within the walls of the Daycare. We finally started painting Wednesday, and only have two small rooms left to paint once the main area is set up. It feels so refreshing to finally be able to see all of my hard work making a difference. Since you are my special audience, you get a sneak peek of the new walls. I thought about holding out and making you wait until everything is cleaned and set up, but the volunteers we had in today did such a great job cleaning the floors that I just have to show it off.

Before:

After:

Before:

After: 

Before:

After:

And a bonus shot from a brand-new angle: 

We still have to set up all the shelves that are gathered in the giant mass on one side of the room, then getting all the materials in place before we can paint the office and the sleep room, but we are well on our way!

What do you think??

Make it better

Despite all of the hard work over the past 3 weeks to get the renovations going, it doesn't look like we're going to meet our target to open by the end of the month. We've only had a few volunteers here and there, and with all of the repairs needed on the building, progress is way too slow.

I haven't been doing much aside from work, and life has been fairly uneventful since Mom & Dad left just over a week ago.

The teachers did get to town last week, so hopefully I'll get to know a few of them and maybe make some friends.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how I can bring the best of who I am to my new position. One professor told me before I left that since she's known me, she noticed that I was always able to take something and make it better. I hang on to that now as I feel the struggle with the slow progress and I have to force myself to think about how it will be better, even if the process is taking longer than we expected. It's important that I keep in mind that change is an extremely slow process, and that not all change is going to happen when or in the way I would like it to.

There are some changes that are happening quickly. It's starting to get darker earlier (around 9:30), and the sky even gets completely dark for a few hours during the night. The sun still starts rising around 5 am, but the day and night light is becoming much more like what we're used to in the south.

I'm anxious to get the programming done for at least the first month so that I feel at least somewhat ready for when we finally get to re-open. I'm also anxious for staff training. It is so far out of my range of experience to do week-long training on every aspect of working in an early learning setting. I definitely have a lot that I need to learn before I can train the new staff. The training is such a crucial part of implementing a new program and making change, so I'm definitely open to any tips or advice from those of you who have experience in this area!

all the nasty

We've been busy, busy getting the daycare ready to paint! All day yesterday and today was spent removing staples, scrubbing and cleaning the walls, pulling out all the major appliances to be cleaned and replaced, and sorting through hiding storage areas. The mud and mudding equipment was dropped off this afternoon, so we will be getting straight to it in the morning! We also got internet set up, which is pretty exciting!

Here are some examples of all the nasty that I had to scrub clean:

Under the filing cabinet - before

 Under the filing cabinet - after

Under the fridge 

Beside the stove - before

 Under the stove - before

 Beside the stove - after