Thinking up easy and creative daycare activities is one of the most difficult things about the childcare business, which is especially true with the wider range of ages you have. You obviously want the activities to be age appropriate for each child. At the same time, you must promote learning or any other positive result. You want to make it fun as well, or you will never keep the interest of the child.
You will most likely be participating in many of the activities with the children, but you also want to have activities ready that will keep the children busy and allow you to tend to some of your other duties as well. With all of these things in mind, it often seems like you get in a rut of doing the same daycare activities all the time. Here are some easy ways to mix things up while making it fun and beneficial for the children as well.
Most daycare centers should provide at least some free play time. This allows the children to develop their creativity and learn some social skill at the same time. In addition to this, you'll also need to set up some more structured daycare activities. Allowing the children to write and draw is important, but doing it too often will become boring for the children and they won't stay interested.
Try Using A Theme
Theme based daycare activities are always fun and popular with the children. Base your activities on any sort of theme you like. The possibilities here are endless. Animals, colors, careers, holiday or seasonal themes are some ideas to get you started. Or just about anything else you can think of. Some activities could be arts or crafts, or maybe a coloring or drawing contest, for example.
Try Acting Out A Story
Another neat idea is to come up with some type of story line and have the children act it out. You come up with the idea, and let the children create the story from there. This really lets them show off their creative side, and children of any age could participate. You could also take it a step further and allow the children to create their own costumes and props. This is a great way add some variety to your daycare activities.
Leave It To Them
Another thing you can do if you're out of ideas is simply ask the children what they would like to do. Maybe you could pick one day a week that could be kid's choice day. This would eliminate the worry of doing something the children aren't interested in. Have each child suggest an idea and take turns until everyone's ideas are used. This is not only fun, but it gives the children a sense of accomplishment and confidence.
Everyone Helping Out
Sometimes children like to help out adults with regular tasks, so try incorporating some of your daycare activities into the daily chores as well. Doing big people jobs gives them a sense of importance. Something as simple as arranging a book shelf or setting the table is good enough for them. If the child is actively involved and having fun, then it doesn't really matter exactly what the task is.
Creative Ideas For Anniversary
What are you doing to creatively market yourself?
We know it is important to be in front of your prospects all the time. They must automatically think of you when they have Home Staging needs. It is not enough to network and market only on an 'as needed' basis. By then, you're desperate and desperation is not client attractive.
My recommendation is to get a year-at-a-glance calendar and map out your marketing schedule on a monthly, then yearly basis. For instance, if you know that your local realtor association meetings are on a Thursday, block out your calendar so that you know you will be attending those meetings every Thursday.
Most realtor association meetings allow vendors to display fliers, stand up to introduce themselves, as well as sponsor tables or become affiliates. If your budget does not allow for sponsoring yet, bring fliers or brochures.
Since you know this is something you'll be doing weekly, put a little more effort into it and run monthly specials and create a marketing promotion on a regular basis, tied to the time of year. For instance, January is a great time for New Year's specials and Chinese New Year promotions.
Almost every month there is a holiday or seasonal theme you can tie your marketing to. As creative types, you can take a minute to write down a few ideas that come to mind and start work on implementing them right away.
Here we have a list of five fun, successful promotional marketing ideas that you could customize for your own business that are absolutely guaranteed to get the attention of your prospective clients.
The first one is one of my favorites and was tied to the Chinese New Year which came on January 26 this year. I've used it in my Staging business as well as in other applications.
1) Fortune Cookies with customized fortunes such as "It is our good fortune to have you as our client" or "Good Fortune comes to those who Stage".
To go a step further you can make them more irresistible by getting chocolate dipped fortune cookies. I would highly recommend getting individually wrapped cookies. Fill a plastic or paper Chinese takeout box with the cookies and customize the outside of the box with your company information. I guarantee you will get rave reviews with this!!!
2) Mini Trash Can with "You'd be NUTS to Trash This Opportunity" printed on it.
Put a few peanuts in the trash can (the kind with the shells work well) along with a marketing flier crumpled up inside. Even if you didn't get the printing on the trash can, you can use the headline on the marketing flier itself. Other headlines could be "Don't trash your equity by not Staging" or "Don't risk throwing your commissions away in the trash!"
3) Shredded Money in a plastic bag - "Without my Staging help, your commissions could end up like this!"
Do you think this one will get their attention?
4) Stress Toys - stress toys are great because they come in all shapes and themes and you can really play with the marketing line depending on what you use.
Examples: "Staging Reduces Stress" or "Listings Stressing You Out? Call Your Stager for Relief" (use the phone shape stress toy) or "Your Listings Making you Crabby?" (use the crab shape stress toy).
5) Key - "Unlock the Profits in your Listing with Staging" or "Home Staging Unlocks Profits in Your Listings" (you can use different types of keys or even a key shaped stress toy)
For several years, I sponsored the Holiday Party for my local Realtor Association. If my memory serves me right, they had a wine themed dinner one year so I created a card that read - "Staging works like a Charm" and hung a wine charm on each one and they were placed on every plate.
Another year, they had dinner on a yacht so I bought little plastic toy boats and had labels made that read "Cruise into Escrow with a Quick & Profitable Sale - Use Home Staging". I believe I also filled the little boats with individually wrapped Lifesavers candies. Again, these were placed on each plate.
Your Marketing Goal is to consistently get your business message out there, so that your prospects get to know you, like you, trust you, and inevitably want to work with you.
Doing just one thing won't be the end all of your marketing efforts, but it's one piece of the pie that can help launch your pursuit to becoming a client magnet. Plus, it's a lot of fun - and it works!!!
Both Fran Jensen & Alice Chan are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Fran Jensen has sinced written about articles on various topics from . Author Fran Jensen is a learned writer with many articles such as Creative Ideas For Daycare Activities and other related topics. I. Fran Jensen's top article generates over 590 views. Bookmark Fran Jensen to your Favourites.
Alice Chan has sinced written about articles on various topics from Business Loans, Finances and Home Security. Alice T. Chan is the Staging Designers' Success Coach and founder of SuccessfulStagingBiz.com. Our tools/programs help Staging Designers catapult their success by t. Alice Chan's top article generates over 9900 views. Bookmark Alice Chan to your Favourites.
